"I’ve given you my message—though it has come too late. I don’t know what Despard has done for you, but don’t trust him, Marjorie. Warn father.... When I said just now that I had had no intention of escaping it was true. But now I have escaped I don’t mean to go back. If you won’t help me, if the man who loves you does his duty and gives me up, then I shall fight for it." He backed across the room as he spoke, and gazed around as if seeking for some weapon. Marjorie stepped towards her lover and held out her arms. "Jim!" He shook his head, and crossing the room unlocked the door. "Jim! What are you going to do?" "I must do my duty." She followed him. "Your duty to the State? But what of me. Yes, I am pleading for myself now. For the love we bear one another." The door-handle rattled in his hand. He stood with his back towards her. "Marjorie, don’t tempt me." "I’m not tempting you," she replied quietly. "I’m asking you calmly and coldly to save my brother. I know what I’m asking. I know that if you hide him and if he’s discovered you will be ruined. I realise the awful responsibility I’m putting on you. I’m doing a terrible thing, but I’m doing it with my eyes open, conscious of the love I bear you.... Still, I ask it. Save him." Beads of perspiration stood on Rupert’s forehead. He was trembling from head to foot as if with an ague. The muscles of his face worked convulsively. "Just let me go then. I’ll take my chance outside. They’ll never know I was here, I’ll swear to that. A few hours’ more freedom—that’s all I want. I might get back home and see my father for a moment.... They won’t take me alive. I can’t go back to that granite hell at Princetown. Death’s easier. I’m not afraid—for I can die fighting ... but to be taken back like a dog on a chain, to be put into a hole where there is neither night nor day, only silence and four narrow walls, and a cup of water and a piece of bread——" Jim held up his hand. "Silence, Dale. Don’t say any more. This rests between Marjorie and me. There is one thing, however, you should know—I am going to marry your sister." Rupert made a movement forward, then stopped. "I told you just now that I was a coward," he cried fiercely, his voice rising. "I am no longer a man. Prison has done its work quickly.... All I want now is freedom. I don’t care how I get it. I was neither a thief nor a liar nor a coward when I was convicted nine months ago, but I am now, and I’ll lie, cheat, kill—for freedom. I’m going to get out of this house alive even if they shoot me like a dog outside your garden gate. So now you know." "Be silent," Jim said again. He turned round and looked at Marjorie. "You have heard. What do you say?" "Save him. Perhaps I am asking you the greatest thing in the world. If my love is worth the sacrifice—make it."