“It was just as you thought, ma’am. My party had orders to kill Major Ambrose, but on no account to lay a finger on yourself. If it hadn’t been they were afraid of doin’ harm to you, they’d have killed him a dozen times over. You saved his life when you threw yourself upon him.”
“Of course. Why else would I have done it? Well, and what harm will poor Major Ambrose ever have done to the Khan that he should hate him so? Why is it at all?”
“Don’t you remember what I told you about that blue stone of yours, ma’am? They call you the Woman of the Seal, and the Khan thinks he won’t have his full luck till you two are together again—till you have the seal and he has you. So—if you’ll excuse me mentioning it—his notion was to give you back the stone and take you into his zenana.”
“Sure the poor man little guesses the sort of time he’d have!”
“I’m glad you can take it like this, ma’am!”
The reproving tone sobered Eveleen. “But you can’t mean—it’s too ridiculous entirely—that a man can propose to himself deliberately to murder a woman’s husband, and then marry her himself?”
“It’s their way here,” apologetically. “It’s a—a sort of compensation to the lady, if you understand me?”
“I do not, and you can tell your friend the Khan so.”
“It ain’t my fault, ma’am, believe me. I’m doing my best for you—honest. I told the Khan you belonged to a particular tribe of English whose women were uncommonly sought after for wives, on account of their being so faithful.”
“Indeed, and that’s one way of discouraging him!”