“I know it was, and I will atone for it. When this Scythian comes, I will announce boldly who I am, and promise to submit in future. Of course they think that you and Maurice were concerned in my escape; but I will assure them that you had nothing to do with it—that I merely seized on you to help me, and that you had no idea who I was until it was impossible for you to do anything. They would make you promise to keep all that had happened a secret, no doubt, but I think they would let you go, and take me back to Scythia. Shouldn’t you be a little sorry for me, Zoe? We have been so much together—and it would mean that I had given up my mission. You asked me if I would do even that for you and Maurice, you know, and now I am going to do it. We shall never see each other again. If they were to forgive me, I suppose you might possibly hear that I was married to somebody, but if not, you would never hear of me any more.”
“Oh, don’t be tragic!” said Zoe, the more impatiently that she was feeling rather ashamed of herself. “How can you go on in this way?”
“But it is tragedy. Why won’t you understand, Zoe, that there are some things in life that can’t be put right by making an epigram, and then thinking of something else? Some day you will know, perhaps. Have you ever heard of the Black Nuns?”
“No, I didn’t know there were any nuns in Scythia.”
“There are many, and the Black Nuns are particularly useful in taking charge of people who won’t do what they are told, or who have committed indiscretions—people of high rank, I mean. I committed an indiscretion in running away. The disobedient girls return to the world obedient. The indiscreet ones die, sooner or later, and there is a grand funeral. A grand funeral can’t hurt any one, can it? And it shows that the relatives have nothing to conceal.”
“Oh, do stop!” cried Zoe. “You are letting things get upon your mind. I’m sorry I said that about your having got us into this scrape; I was a beast to do it. Let us talk about something else.”
“I think I could do it—I am almost sure I could—if it saved you—and Maurice,” pursued Eirene, lingering over Maurice’s name with the tenderness that spoke volumes to Maurice’s sister. “But it’s no use pretending that I don’t know what it would mean, or that I should like it.”
“Oh, do try and have a little sense!” entreated Zoe. “Can you imagine for a moment that Maurice—or any real man—would let a girl sacrifice herself to save him? I don’t know what kind of creatures you can have known, Eirene; you have such hopeless ideas. You may be quite sure that Maurice would never go away into safety and leave you to be unkindly treated.”
“He might not have the choice. I should be carried off secretly. But you and Maurice will think of me sometimes, and talk about me——”
“And come and shed tears on your grave, I suppose? Eirene, will you have the goodness not to be sentimental? If you were carried off to Scythia, Maurice and I would go after you and rescue you. I would pretend to be you and remain in your place, while Maurice got you away, and then I should appeal to the British Ambassador and get rescued myself.”