"You can not know what you are saying. You are beside yourself. Once, in my ignorance, I believed it possible, but now I know that it could never be. Your race despises mine--" "I do not care what you are nor to whom you belong!" she broke in, exulting. "You are the man who taught me to believe that there is something in this world that is good, that is worthy of veneration; who awoke in me what little good I have. I love you. If I could win you back--" "What then?" "I would follow you to the world's end!" "As my wife?" "As your wife!" He held out his arms toward her, impulse rising like the sun high and splendid above the mists of distrust. It was an instant's forgetfulness, which passed as rapidly as it had come. His arms sank heavily to his side. "Have you thought what that means? If you go with me, you must leave your people for ever." "I would follow you gladly." He shook his head. "You do not understand. You must leave them now--now when I go against them." "No!" she broke in roughly. "You can't, Nehal, you can't. You have the right to be bitter and angry; you have not the right to commit a crime. And it would be a crime. You are plunging thousands into bloodshed and ruin--" He lifted his hand, and the expression in his eyes checked her. "So it is, after all, a bargain that you offer me!" he said. "You are trying to save them. You offer a high price, but I am not a merchant. I can not buy you, Beatrice." "It is not a bargain!" For the first time she faltered, taken aback by the pitiless logic of his words. "Can't you see that? Can't you see that, however much I loved you, I could not act otherwise than implore you to turn back from a step that means destruction for those bound to me by blood and country? Could I do less?" "No," he said slowly. She held out her hands to him. "Oh, Nehal, turn back while there is yet time! For my sake, for yours, for us all, turn back from a bloody, cruel revenge. The power is yours. Be generous. If we have wronged you, we have suffered and are ready to atone. _I_ am ready to atone. I _can_ atone, because I love you. I have spoken the truth to you. I have laid my soul bare to you as I have done to no other being. Won't you trust me?" His eyes met hers with a somber, hopeless significance which cut her to the heart. "I can't," he said. "I can't. That is what you have taught me--to distrust you--and every one." She stood silent now, paralyzed by the finality of his words and gesture. It was as though the shadow of her heartless folly had risen before her and become an iron wall of unrelenting, measured retribution against which she beat herself in vain. He lifted his head higher, seeming to gather together his shaken powers of self-control.