“You can’t. You’re not in it. I am going to attach myself to the medical mission at Lahore and learn nursing, and then I shall go to my own people.”
“Missionaries? You’ve nothing in common with them?”
“Nothing. But they teach what I want. Mr. Clifden, I shall not come this way again. If I remember—I’ll write to you, and tell you what the real world is like.”
She smiled, the absorbed little smile I knew and feared. I saw pleading was useless then. I would wait, and never lose sight of her and of hope.
“Vanna, before you go, give me your gift of sight. Interpret for me. Stay with me a little and make me see.”
“What do you mean exactly?” she asked in her gentlest voice, half turning to me.
“Make one journey with me, as my sister, if you will do no more. Though I warn you that all the time I shall be trying to win my wife. But come with me once, and after that—if you will go, you must. Say yes.”
Madness! But she hesitated—a hesitation full of hope, and looked at me with intent eyes.
“I will tell you frankly,” she said at last, “that I know my knowledge of the East and kinship with it goes far beyond mere words. In my case the doors were not shut. I believe—I know that long ago this was my life. If I spoke for ever I could not make you understand how much I know and why. So I shall quite certainly go back to it. Nothing—you least of all, can hold me. But you are my friend—that is a true bond. And if you would wish me to give you two months before I go, I might do that if it would in any way help you. As your friend only—you clearly understand. You would not reproach me afterwards when I left you, as I should most certainly do?”
“I swear I would not. I swear I would protect you even from myself. I want you for ever, but if you will only give me two months—come! But have you thought that people will talk. It may injure you. I’m not worth that, God knows. And you will take nothing I could give you in return.”