"You are presuming too much," the girl parried faintly; but Woodhouse
would not be rebuffed.
"You must hear me," he rushed on impetuously. "This is a strange time
for me to say this, but you say you are going--going away soon. I may
not have another opportunity--hear me! I am terribly in earnest when I
tell you I love you--love you beyond all believing. No, no! Not for
what you have done for me, but for what you are to me--beloved."
She quickly pulled her hand free from his grasp and tried to move to
the door. He blocked her way.
"I can not have you go without a word from you," he pleaded. "Just a
word to tell me I may----"
"How can you expect--that--I--knowing what I do----" She was stumbling
blindly, but persisted: "You, who have deceived others, are deceiving
them now--how can I know you are not deceiving me, too?"
"I can not explain." He dropped his head hopelessly, and his voice
seemed lifeless. "It is a time of war. You must accept my word that I
am honest--with you."
She slowly shook her head and started again for the double doors.
"Perhaps--when you prove that to me----." He took an eager step toward
her. "But, no, you can not. I will be sailing so soon, and--and you
must forget."
"You ask the impossible!" Woodhouse quickly seized her hand and raised
it to his lips. As he did so, the double doors opened noiselessly and
Jaimihr Khan stood between them, sphinx-like.
Jane, startled, withdrew her hand, and without a farewell glance, ran
across the library and through the door to Lady Crandall's room.
Jaimihr Khan, with a cold glance at Woodhouse, moved silently to the
door of General Crandall's room and knocked.
"It is I--Jaimihr Khan," he answered to the muffled hail from within.
"Yes, General Sahib, I will wait."
He turned and looked toward Woodhouse. The latter had taken a
cigarette from the case Almer had sent him through Jane, and was
turning it over in his hand curiously. The Indian, treading like a
hunting cat, began lighting candles. His tour of the room brought him
to the captain's side, and there he stood, motionless, until Woodhouse,
with a start, observed him.
"Cap-tain Wood-house has been most in-discreet," he said, in his
curious mechanical way of speech.
Woodhouse turned on him angrily.
"What do you mean?" he snapped.
"Is it that they have ceased to teach discretion--at the
Wilhelmstrasse?" The Indian's face was a mask.
"I know nothing about the Wilhelmstrasse," the white man answered, in a
voice suddenly strained.
"Then it is veree, veree foolish for the captain to leave in his room
these plans." Jaimihr Khan took from his girdle a thin roll of blue
prints--the plans of the signal tower and Room D which Almer had given
Woodhouse the night before. He held them gingerly between slender
thumb and forefinger.
Woodhouse recoiled.
"The general sahib has sent me to search the cap-tain's room," the even
voice of Jaimihr Khan ran on. "Behold the results of my journey!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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