“Think,” he said; “I love you as women are not often loved. You are always in my mind, by day and by night too. Everything I do, every step I go up the ladder, I have said and say to myself, ‘I am doing it for Bessie Croft, whom I mean to marry.’ Things have changed in this country. The rebellion has been successful. It was I who gave the casting vote for it that I might win you. I am now a great man, and shall one day be a greater. You will be great with me. Think what you say.”
“I have thought, and I will not marry you. You dare to come and ask me to marry you over the ashes of my home, out of which you have dragged me and my poor old uncle. I hate you, I tell you, and I will not marry you! I had rather marry a Kafir than marry you, Frank Muller, however great you may be.”
He smiled. “Is it because of the Englishman Niel that you will not marry me? He is dead. It is useless to cling to a dead man.”
“Dead or alive, I love him with all my heart, and if he is dead it is at the hands of your people, and his blood rises up between us.”
“His blood has sunk down into the sand. He is dead, and I am glad that he is dead. Once more, is that your last word?”
“It is.”
“Very good. Then I tell you that you shall marry me or——”
“Or what?”
“Or your uncle, the old man you love so much, shall die!”
“What do you mean?” she said in a choked voice.