"I have hurt you," she stammered. "Forgive me—I did not mean to. It has all been a cruel mistake. I looked upon you as a friend. How could I tell that you meant more than that? If I have deceived you, I can only ask you with all my heart to forgive me."
He turned his head and looked at her. His eyes were dull and clouded, as though a film had been drawn across them.
"Not you have deceived me," he answered quietly. "I have deceived myself. I thought I was following a great God-sent light. It was nothing more than a firefly glittering through my darkness. You are not to blame."
He was already casting contempt at the influence which she had exercised over him; he was cutting himself free from her—as she had desired, as was inevitable. Yet, with a foolish, senseless anger, she sought to draw him back to her and hold him, if only by the reverence for what had been.
"Do not despise our friendship!" she pleaded. "If it has not been what you thought it was, has it any the less opened the gates of Heaven and earth, as you said? What I have given you is good—the very best I had to give. The ideal was a high one. I helped you toward it with my friendship. Is it bad because it was only friendship—because it couldn't be more than that? You do not know," she went on, with a forced attempt to appear cheerful and matter-of-fact, "you do not know how much your trust and confidence has been to me. I have been so proud to help you. If I had ever thought it would come to this—I would have stopped long ago."
So she lied, clinging to his respect as though it had been her salvation. And he believed her. His face relaxed, and for the first time she saw clearly what he was enduring.
"I do not despise our—friendship, even though it must end here," he said. "What you have given me I shall always keep—always. I shall not turn back because I must go on alone. Your image shall still guide me in my life. It is not less pure and noble because I can not ever call it my own." She heard his voice break, but he went on quietly and gently: "I pray you may be happy with the man you love."
She had conquered. She had kept her place in his life at the same time that she was thrusting him out of her own. He would continue undeterred along the road on to which she had tempted him—perhaps to his destruction—believing in her, trusting in her as no other being had ever done or would do. This much she had snatched from the wreckage.
They did not speak again until they reached her bungalow. Then he dismounted and, quietly motioning the syce to one side, helped her to the ground.
"It is for the last time," he said. "Good-by, Lakshmi!"