"Promise me, and I will
open for you a gate of life. For you, Miska, I will do it, and we
shall be free. _He_ will never find out. He shall not be living to
find out!"
"No, no, Chunda Lal," she moaned. "You have been my only friend, and
I have tried to forget ..."
"I will forswear Kali forever," he said fervently, "and shed no blood
for all my life! I will live for you alone and be your slave."
"It is no good. I cannot, Chunda Lal, I cannot."
"Miska!" he pleaded tenderly.
"No, no," she repeated, her voice quivering--"I cannot ... Oh! do not
ask it; I cannot!"
She picked up the hideous wig, moving towards the door. Chunda Lal
watched her, clenching his hands; and his eyes, which had been so
tender, grew fierce.
"Ah!" he cried--"and it may be I know a reason!"
She stopped, glancing back at him.
"It may be," he continued, and his repressed violence was terrible,
"it may be that I, whose heart is never sleeping, have seen and heard!
One night"--he crept towards her--"one night when I cry the warning
that the Doctor Sahib returns to his house, you do not come! He goes
in at the house and you remain. But at last you come, and I see in
your eyes----"
"Oh!" breathed Miska, watching him fearfully.
"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.
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