"Then remember your mother, too," said Helena. "She is weak and ill. It breaks my heart to think of her as I saw her last. She believes that you have fled away to some foreign country, but she is living in the hope that time will justify you, and then you will be reconciled to your father, and come back to her again. Is this how you would come back? ... Oh, it will kill her! I'm sure it will!"
She saw that Gordon's strong and manly face was now utterly discomposed, and she could not help but follow up her advantage.
"Then think a little of me too, Gordon. This is all my fault, and if anything is done to you in Cairo it will be just the same to me as if I had done it. Do you wish me to die of remorse?"
She saw that he was struggling to restrain himself, and turning her beautiful wet eyes upon him and laying her hand on his arm, she said—
"Don't go back to Cairo, Gordon! For my sake, for your own sake, for our love's sake——"
But Gordon could bear no more, and he cried in a low, hoarse whisper—
"Helena, for heaven's sake, don't speak so. I knew it wouldn't be easy to do what I intended to do, and it isn't easy. But don't make it harder for me than it is, I beg, I pray."
She tried to speak again, but he would not listen.
"When you sent the message into Cairo which doomed Ishmael to death you thought he had killed your father. If he had really done so he would have deserved all you did to him. But he hadn't, whereas I had. Do you think I can let an innocent man die for my crime?"
"But, Gordon—" she began, and again he stopped her.