[_With a bitter laugh._] It was! It was! It was like trusting Judas! [_A pause._] Was I to be a Koreb, mad and heartbroken in prison? Or like Elizabeth, who has lost her very soul, and cannot see that there is any human being in the world but you? CARLYON. [_With a scornful laugh._] But _you_ can? Is that it? Good God! to think a wretched instinct like that should master you! To betray _me_ for a chance lover! VERA. It was just the opposite. If I had not half-consciously loved him you could never have deluded me. I wanted to stifle my heart, and I all but stifled my conscience with it. CARLYON. When did you change? How long have you meant this? VERA. I have not changed. I meant it ever since that night, when Elizabeth--[_breaks off_]--when I saw that to trust in you was to go mad! CARLYON. And you have been lying to me all this time! VERA. Were you to come at him with your poisoned daggers, and I not shield him with as much as a lie? [_Checking herself._] Oh, Father, I did not mean to be like this to you! Father, he is not your enemy any more than I. He will spare you in every way---- CARLYON. Do you mean he will not press to have me hanged? [_She shakes her head._] You spare me that? [_With fury._] I am not to be killed, after all your hunting? Only maimed and branded and left for stray dogs to tear? I am to "live it down," am I?--crawl on through a weary, interminable life---- VERA. It can be as short as you will. I will wait and bear the shame for you. CARLYON. Suicide, is it? [_With a short laugh._] No, I won't do that for you. The thought of it gives me all my natural spirit again. VERA. Yon cannot be afraid of that too? CARLYON. Afraid? No. But I have not finished living. Do you think I am an old man? There is as much blood and muscle in my arms as there ever was. I feel life leaping in every limb. I won't kill myself. No! nor let another man kill me! And I won't bear that penance either. There are other places besides England and British India. VERA. Oh, why do you rage like this? Can you not face your hour when it comes, take your defeat, like a strong man, steadily? CARLYON. Defeat? Defeat? From him and his crazy natives? Who will believe their story against mine? [_She is silent. A slight pause._] But suppose I confess all. Suppose I stand up straight before all Englishmen and bid them judge me: "Here I am: I have broken rules and treaties; I have fought with all weapons; I have had no law nor conscience nor pity--for your enemies! I am yours to chain or unchain; I am your fighting man, your bloodhound, your leashed panther! Have you no use for me?" Do you think, among all the swarming cowards that govern us, I shall not bring a host to my side when I say that? VERA. [_Grave and calm._] This is like the madness that goes before a great fall! CARLYON.