"But if it _is_ the custom, we ought to conform to it, however strange or unsuitable it may appear to us," Der Garabed advised. "We should do all things in order; and moreover, should we fail in this, it might happen that in the English country the marriage would not be recognised. Therefore this is what I propose: let us send for the young maiden, and let the Englishman, in our presence, do after the manner of his country." This was too appalling! Jack tingled all over at the thought of such an ordeal for Shushan, and for himself. "Oh, I can't! For Heaven's sake, let me go to her," he said. "If that also is according to the custom, it shall be duly observed," said Hohannes, with the air of one who humours a sick person. "Let us all go." Happily for Jack, some of those present had the sense to reflect that the women's apartment would not hold them all, and that therefore their assistance might be dispensed with. Still the grandfather and father of the maiden, two of her uncles, the priest, and three other persons thought it behoved them to go and witness the due performance of this ceremony of the English. Jack was conducted by this solemn group to the room where Shushan sat with her mother. As with trembling footsteps he approached her, the rest fell back and stood in a grave half-circle, their ears and eyes intent upon his every word and motion. "Heaven help me!" thought Jack. "Had ever man to propose in such a way? What shall I say?" But no words would come to him; sense and speech seemed both to have departed from him. The silence throbbed in his ears like a pulse of pain--the awful silence, which he knew he ought to break, which he _must_ break, for his life, and more than his life--and yet he could not. Not a word could he utter. Shushan, meanwhile, not knowing what all this might portend, hastily veiled her face, and clung to her mother. Mariam had a copper dish which she had been cleaning in her hand, and in her surprise and alarm she let it go. It slipped slowly down her dress, and fell at last with a slight sound upon the floor. In the strained silence every one started, and Shushan dropped her veil with a little frightened cry. Jack saw her sweet face, pale with anguish, her soft, dark eyes, heavy with unshed tears. Every thought was lost in an unutterable longing to snatch her from the fate that threatened her. "Will you let me save you, Shushan?" he pleaded, coming close to her,--and his voice was the voice of a strong man's infinite tenderness. Shushan stood up, looked around upon her father, her grandfather, and all the rest, then looked calmly and steadily in the face of the Englishman. "_Yes_," she said softly. For she knew there was one way of escape for the Christian maiden in a strait like hers. There had been often in Armenia Christian fathers strong enough to say, like Virginius,-- "And now, my own dear little girl, there is no way but this."