“Why are you so downcast?” she asked in a whisper.
“I cannot help being so, Haidee. Our prospects seem so hopeless. And, after all, our preservation may only be a prolongation of our agony.”
“You should not speak like that. We live, and with life there is always hope.”
“True; but the hope cherished in extremity is more often than not a delusion.”
“It may be so, but it is better not to think so, for our prospects are gloomy enough, truly so for me, for I am but a wanderer, without either home or friends.”
“Not without friends, Haidee, while I and Lieutenant Harper live.”
At the name of Harper, she averted her face, that the speaker might not see the emotion his words caused her.
“But the fate of your friend is uncertain,” she said, after some little silence. “He may be dead, and if so, life has no charm for me.”
“He may be dead, as you say, and he may not. There were chances in his favour; but even supposing that he escaped, he would lose no time in making his way to Meerut, and there he would join his wife.”