"Do I not see it in your eyes now! Never before have I thought so until you go to that house, never before have you escaped from my care as here in London. Twice again I have doubted, and because there was other work to do I have been helpless to find out. To-night"—he stood before her, glaring madly into her face—"I think so again—that you have gone to him…."
"Oh, Chunda Lal!" cried Miska piteously and extended her hands towards him. "No, no—do not say it!"
"So!" he whispered—"I understand! You risk so much for him—for me you risk nothing! If he—the Doctor Sahib—say to you: 'Come with me, Miska——'"
"No, no! Can I never have one friend in all the world! I hear you call, Chunda Lal, but I am burning the envelope and—Doctor Stuart— finds me. I am trapped. You know it is so.
"I know you say so. And because he—Fo-Hi—is not sure and because of the piece of the scorpion which you find there, we go to that house— he and I—and we fail in what we go for." Chunda Lal's hand dropped limply to his sides. "Ah! I cannot understand, Miska. If we are not sure then, are we sure now? It may be"—he bent towards her—"we are trapped!"
"Oh, what do you mean?"
"We do not know how much they read of what he had written. Why do we wait?"
"He has some plan, Chunda Lal," replied Miska wearily. "Does he ever fail?"
Her words rekindled the Hindu's ardour; his eyes lighted up anew.
"I tell you his plan," he whispered tensely. "Oh! you shall hear me! He watch you grow from a little lovely child, as he watch his death-spiders and his grey scorpions grow! He tend you and care for you and make you perfect, and he plan for you as he plan for this other creatures. Then, he see what I see, that you are not only his servant but also a woman and that you have a woman's heart. He learn—who think he knows all—that he, too, is not yet a spirit but only a man, and have a man's heart, a man's blood, a man's longings! It is because of the Doctor Sahib that he learn it——"