She shrugged her shoulders.
"Oh, I know. Ayeshi has told me. You're going into that hell single-handed and crippled. Boucicault has refused to get you help. Why do you let him trample on you? He is not in your service. Are you afraid of him, too?"
He met her taunt with a grave simplicity.
"No, I am not afraid. Up till now, Colonel Boucicault has blocked my line of communication with the authorities. That's over. There's going to be a tussle to the death between us, and he knows it. That's why I didn't come myself tonight."
"Then why need you go? Any one would exonerate you. Ayeshi said it might mean——" She recoiled from her own thought. "It's almost your duty not to go," she exclaimed.
"Do you want me to remain?" he asked.
She beat her clenched fist irritably on the arm of her chair.
"No—because it wouldn't be you then—because you are a fool, Major Tristram—a sublime fool whom one wouldn't have changed even to save him from destruction. Go, by all means, and sacrifice yourself to your duty. For that you were born."
He sank back in his chair, his face lifted to where the jungle of the neglected compound thinned before the night's luminous sapphire.
"I don't believe in duty and sacrifices," he said, "but in happiness."