“And you managed that by desertion and disobedience to orders,” said Stratford, impatiently, for he had succeeded by this time in extracting from Ismail Bakhsh the particulars of Fitz’s mysterious disappearance. “Try not to be more of a fool than you can help, young Anstruther. We can’t risk the honour of the country and the fate of the Mission on the hope that you may chance to act sensibly for once.” “I say that it is my right to go, Mr Stratford,” returned Fitz, doggedly; but Dick broke through the group, and came to Georgia. “Shall I go, Georgie?” “Oh, Dick, must I decide for you?” “You have a right to do it, I think. At any rate, right or no right, I am not going if you ask me not to. I put myself in your hands, Georgie, and the treaty and everything else may slide if you tell me to stay here. What good would it all be to me if--if anything happened to you while I was gone?” He spoke hoarsely, his words tumbling over one another, and Georgia felt that the hands which clasped hers were hot and shaking. She looked at him in amazement which was almost terror. Was it possible that in some ways she was stronger than he was--that he was confessedly looking to her for the strength which should enable him to tear himself away from her? “It is an awfully risky thing, Miss Keeling,” said Stratford, interposing with an honest determination to let Georgia know the worst before she made her decision. “He takes his life in his hand if he goes. I am sure no one could wonder at your keeping him back. In fact, under the circumstances, I should think it quite probable that no one would expect him to leave you here and ride off to Rahmat-Ullah to save the treaty.” “If I were not here,” said Georgia, “would you think it right for him to go?” “Well, things would be different then, you see--and really this is such an important business----” “Why?” “We are tolerably safe, I suppose, in any case; but to get back without the treaty would be rather a bad blow for our prestige, of course. All the old troubles would begin again, and England would become a laughing-stock----” “I see,” said Georgia. “Dick, you must go.” “All right,” said Dick, gruffly, restored to composure by the decision with which she spoke; “but why?” “For England’s sake--for honour’s sake,” she replied. Dick looked at her in some alarm. Had the greatness of the crisis, which for the moment had unmanned himself, turned her brain, or could she really find comfort in fine language at such a time? He did not know the sustaining power which is contained for a woman in a phrase of the kind. It gives her something to lean upon, as she repeats it to herself with a determination to be worthy of it. “You are sure you don’t mind, Georgie?” he asked in his blundering way. “Oh no; I am not likely to mind, am I?” she said, with a sudden fierceness in her voice. “Do you want to break my heart, Dick?”