He didn't look at her, but stared out of the window.
"By Jove, the sun's coming. It's been up round the corner ever so long. It will just about hit the window in another ten minutes. It seems kind of stupid to stand here doing nothing."
He stepped forward and felt the bars. "Take hours to get through that, and then there's a drop of hundreds of feet. No, you're about right, Harkness. There's nothing to be done here but to say good-bye as decently as possible."
He sighed. "I didn't want to kick the bucket just yet, but there it is, it can happen to anybody. A fellow can be as strong as a horse, forget to change his socks and next day be finished. This is better than pneumonia anyway! All the same I can't help feeling we missed our chance just now when we had him alone in here——"
"No," said Harkness, "I was watching him. That's what he wanted, for us to go for him. I am sure that he had the Japs handy somewhere, and I think he wanted to hurt us in front of Hesther. But his brain works queerly. He's formulated a kind of book of rules for himself. If we take such and such a step then he will take such and such another. A sort of insane sense of justice. He's worked it all out to the minute. Half the fun for him has been the planning of it, and then the deliberate slowness of it, watching us, calculating what we'll do. Really a cat with mice. There's nothing for deliberate consecutive thinking like a madman's brain."
Hesther broke in:
"We're wasting time. I know—I feel as you do—that it's going to be all right, but however he fails with you he can carry me off somewhere, and so it is very likely that I don't see either of you again for some time. And if that's so—if that's so, I just want to say that you've been the finest men in the world to me.
"And I want you to know that whatever turns up for me now—yes, whatever it is—it can't be as bad as it was before yesterday. I can't ever again be as unhappy as I was now that I've known both of you as I've known you this night.
"I didn't realise, David, how I felt about you until Mr. Harkness showed me. I've been so selfish all these years, and I suppose I shall go on being selfish, because one doesn't change all in a minute, but at least I've got the two best friends a woman ever had."
"Hesther," Dunbar said, turning towards her, "if we get free of this and you can get rid of that man—I ask you as I've asked you every week for the last ten years—will you marry me?"