Nehal Singh's brows knitted themselves in the anguish of a man who finds himself thwarted by his own nature. He tried not to believe her, and indeed, in all her words, though they had rung like music, his ear, tuned to suspicion, had heard the mocking undercurrent of laughter. She had laughed at him secretly through all those months when he had offered up to her the incense of an absolute faith, an unshared devotion. Even now she might be laughing at him, playing on that in him which nothing could destroy or conceal--his love for her. And yet--! Behind him he heard the uneasy stir of impatient feet, the hushed clash of arms. He stood between her and a certain, terrible death. One word from him, and it would be over--his path clear. But he could not speak that word. Treacherous and cruel as she had been, the halo of her first glory still hung about her. He saw her as he had first seen her--the golden image of pure womanhood--and, strange, unreasoning contradiction of the human heart, beneath the ashes of his old faith a new fire had kindled and with every moment burned more brightly. Unquenchable trust fought out a death struggle with distrust, and in that conflict her words recurred to him with poignant significance: "Death is the easiest, the kindest solution to it all." For him also there seemed no other escape. He pointed to the revolver. "For whom is that?" he asked. "I do not know--but I will make them kill me." "Why do you not shoot me, then?" he demanded, between despair and bitterness. "That would save you all. If I fell, they would turn and fly. They think I am Vishnu. Haven't you thought of that? I am in your power. Why don't you make yourself the benefactress of your country? Why don't you shoot her enemy?" She made no answer, but her eyes met his steadily and calmly. He turned away, groaning. In vain he fought against it, in vain stung himself to action by the memory of all that she had done to him. His love remained triumphant. In that supreme moment his faith burst through the darkness, and again he believed in her, believed in her against reason, against the world, against the ineffaceable past, and against himself. And it was too late. He no longer stood alone. His word was given. "Have pity on me!" he said, once more facing her. "Let me save you!" "I should despise myself, and you would despise me--even more than you do now. I can not do less than share the fate of those whose lives my folly has jeopardized." "At least go back to them--do not stay here. Beatrice, for God's sake!--I can not turn back. You have made me suffer enough--." He stood before her now as an incoherent pleader, and her heart burned with an exultation in which the thought of life and death played no part. She knew that he still loved her. It seemed for the moment all that mattered. "I can not," she said.