Hester's brave spirit rose with the desperate crisis.
"You must carry out your plan, Alfred. It's too late to draw back now—unless it is any sense that it is wrong to go that makes you shrink? You must not let your faint heart get the upper hand," she said firmly, almost dragging him from the sofa. "Alfred, I want to say something to you," she whispered, as they went downstairs to the verandah. "Will you try to think of what you've done? It's so terrible! Will you cry to God to make you feel the shame and the sin of it all? It is never too late to seek His forgiveness. Nothing else really matters but that in the end," she said softly, and her eyes pleaded more than her words.
"You're a saint," murmured her husband, looking into her face with an awed air. "God bless you, my sweet wife! I was never worthy of you. Old Worsley was right there."
Even in her woe Hester felt surprise at these words. "He's dreaming," she thought, but the time for words was past. Not one moment longer could she allow him to linger. She urged him to go, but he threw himself into a chair.
"It's you who are sending me away," he groaned. "I never thought it would end so. I won't be hoofed out by you like this! No, don't lay a finger on me," he cried, pushing her away as she stooped over him caressingly, as a mother might over a rebellious child. "You'll spoil my make-up if you touch me and then my only chance of escape will be gone!" After a moment he recovered himself and started up. "Look here, Hester, how could I forget? You must share in my gold—I've got plenty here," he said, pulling out one of the bags he had stowed away in the remnants of English clothing which he had retained beneath the thickly pleated folds of the red saree. "See, I'll give you half——"
"Of the money you stole!" cried his wife, with a ring of scorn in her voice. "Not a penny of it! Come what may, it must all be returned to the Mahomedan, whoever he is," she added with decision. The incident seemed to brace her thoughts, though she was conscious that the fact of her husband offering her a share of his theft emphasised the gulf between them. Something of this seemed to strike him also. He stood staring at her with misery in his eyes.
"Oh, Hester, what a hideous mess I've brought you into!" he burst forth. "But you'll not forsake me, will you? This horrid hunt for me will not last long. I'll get off scot free, never fear. We may be able to meet soon and go to England together. I'll send you word. If not together, I'll hurry there, and you'll meet me, won't you, dear?" he asked, clinging to her.
Hester started back on seeing the growing light of the sky.
"Alfred, you're forgetting the risk you run by lingering like this. You must go as long as it is possible. See, it will be day soon. Oh, do go, I implore you," she cried in terror, thinking she heard sounds in the back verandah, and almost pushing him down the steps. "I cannot let you perish! Go, go, oh, do go!"
"I fear I can't risk my make-up by an embrace," he said lightly, looking back as he began to go down the steps. But when he reached the gravel, he darted up again and threw his arms round her trembling figure, kissing her passionately; then he fled, just as the silver dawn was chasing the last shadows of night from the sky.