"Prasad," she replied deliberately. "It is a lie. We have both been wronged. But as God this day has answered my prayers, I doubt not he will judge between us and Ahmad." "What! Shall I not then go hence and slay him"? Prasad demanded. "Nay," she replied restrainingly. "Hast thou forgotten how we stood in Jhansi? So do we stand here in Gwalior. All is not yet gained. Be assured the Foreigners will return. We need Ahmad's sword, more than his dead body in revenge. Ah! my dear Lord," she exclaimed with rapture, "Let us forget his wickedness in this hour of joy--in this hour of our reconciliation," she added in a lower tone. He knelt at her side, then took her yielding form in his arms. He drew her closer and closer to his breast. "Prasad! Prasad! I do love thee," she whispered softly. "To the end, dear one, to the end," he passionately returned. From the banquet hall the sounds of high revelry came across the garden borne upon air laden with the perfume of flowers; but, in time, the lights were extinguished, and only the watchwords of the sentries on the citadel fell upon their ears. The veil of darkness hid their long embrace, until the bugles of the morn rang out the call to arms. An hour of triumph and an hour of happiness was past; an hour greater than both was yet to come. Chapter XXIV _AHMAD'S LAST STRATAGEM_ From the moment of Prasad's reappearance at Gopalpur Ahmad's jealousy was rekindled to greater force even than in Jhansi. He hated the Hindu noble with all the vindictiveness of his nature. Had stirring events not followed each other with such rapidity, he would have sought a pretext for an open quarrel, and once for all settled their rival claims to the Rani's affection. If he was chagrined at Prasad's selection to act as her envoy to the Maharaja Sindhia, the feeling was intensified on the other being chosen as her standard bearer at Bahadurpur, and by Prasad's telling stroke for her favor in saluting her as Princess of the Marathas at the grand _Darbar_. At the subsequent banquet he sat in sullen, gloomy humor. He neither spoke nor feasted. At the call to drink of spirits and join in the carousal of the assembled nobles, he pleaded his religious principles as an excuse to withhold his lips from intoxicating liquors. That the Rani was not present at the banquet was to be expected, but he marked Prasad's absence, and drew conclusions from a guilty conscience. They were together, he surmised. His duplicity was probably discovered. "What then"? he again and again asked himself.