“I thought—oh, surely, you will go to Gamara, won’t you? You are so well known, and the natives have such a regard for you—you could make them give him up.”
He shook his head. The childlike simplicity of the appeal was almost irresistible, but he knew better than she did how hopeless such an attempt would be made by the very fame of which she spoke.
“Oh, don’t say you won’t do it!” she entreated. “He is all I have.”
“Listen,” he said. “You know I thought the journey so dangerous that I refused to the last to let your brother go. Yet there was a chance for him. For me there would be none, the moment I set foot beyond our own border. You will do me the justice to believe that I would not grudge my life if losing it could do any good, but it could do none. And even if it would, I could not go. I am in command here, and I cannot desert my post.”
She looked at him as though she had not heard him. “It is Colin,” she said; “all I have. And you said—you cared.”
“And you say I don’t if I won’t go?” he asked sharply. “Then you are talking of what you don’t understand. I could not leave Khemistan if—even if it was your life, and not your brother’s, that was at stake—even if it tore my heart out.”
Penelope passed her hand over her brow. “No,” she said feebly, “it would not signify then. But for Colin!”
“Sit down and listen to me quietly. I have pacified this frontier, and I am the only man who can keep it quiet. Nalapur is only looking for a pretext to break with us; if my back was turned they would invade us without one. My post is here; it is my duty to remain; I will not—dare not leave it. Penelope, do you ask me to leave it? If you do, I am mistaken in you. Look up, and tell me.”
Penelope raised her head as if compelled by his tone, and her eyes met his. “No,” she said helplessly, “it would be wrong. You must not go. But oh, Colin, Colin!”
She bowed her head again and broke into a passion of sobs, for her last hope was gone. She heard Major Keeling get up and walk up and down the room, and knew that her sobs were agonising to him, but she could not restrain them. At last she found him close to her again, his hand on her shoulder.