‘Do not cry,’ she said, as if she had been talking to a child; ‘that hurts me more. Don’t you remember when we talked of it--if it ever came to this, James--and I made you promise. You promised. Surely, surely, you must remember? In summer, before we went away.’ He tried to look at her blankly, as if he did not know what she meant; but, God help him, he remembered every word. ‘Yes; you know what I mean. I can see it in your eyes. You can’t deceive me now, James! you promised!’ ‘Never! never!’ he said, his voice broken with passionate sobs. ‘I think you promised; but at least you said it was right--no wickedness in it. Oh, do it, James! You can save me still. Why should I have any more pain, now? I could bear it if it was for any good; but why should I _now_, James?’ ‘I cannot, I cannot,’ he cried; ‘do not ask me. Myself, if you will, but not you--not you!’ ‘Yourself!’ she said, with a dreamy contempt. In her deadly danger and despair she was somehow raised above all creatures who had no warrant of death in them. ‘Why yourself? You are safe; there is no vulture coming to gnaw _your_ flesh. O James, have you not the heart of a man to save me! Think if it had been in India, in the Mutiny--and you said it would be right.’ ‘How could I know?’ cried the unhappy man, with the artlessness of despair; ‘how could I tell it was coming to us? I did not think what I was saying. I thought of others--strangers. Annie! oh, let me go!--let me go!’ ‘Think a moment,’ she said, still holding him; ‘think what it will be. Torment! It is hard to bear now, but nothing to what it will be--and worse than torment. You will sicken at me; the place will be unendurable. O God! James, save me! oh, save me! It would be so easy--nothing but a dose, a drink--and all safe. James! James!’ The man burst out into terrible tears--he was beyond the stage at which self-restraint exists--but as for her, she was calm. It was she who held the chief place in this conflict. He was but secondary. The day, the moment was for him but one of many; his life would flow on the same as before, but hers had to stop if not now, yet immediately. She had her sentence delivered to her. And suddenly a fever of longing woke up in her--a desire to taste this strange death, at once to anticipate fate, like that vertigo which makes shipwrecked people plunge into the sea to meet their end a few minutes before it comes inevitably, forestalling it, not waiting for it. She rushed all at once into sudden energy and excitement. ‘Come,’ she cried, with a breathlessness which was half taste, half from the sudden acceleration of her heart. ‘Come; this is the moment. There could be no time as good as now. I am not unhappy about it, nor sorry. It is like champagne. James, if you love me, do it at once; do it now!’