'Tom, what a baby you are! Never mind, I like you so! But be a wise baby if you can, and listen to me quietly. I am _not_ going with you. It would be absurd to begin with, and highly dangerous, all through. On the other hand, having found you, I don't mean to let you slip out of my fingers. So you must come with me. I must tell you that you have been so fortunate as to make Dost Ali Khan, his Imperial Highness of the future, your friend. He is the great man just now, for he is the only person in this part of the world who knows what he wants, so the rest of them look up to him. The soldiers, banded and disbanded, the native states, the fanatics of the towns, they are all waiting for his signal. When he gives it--Heavens! I begin to feel sane, as I think of it--what a conflagration there will be! However, that is beside the present question'--she stopped to laugh. 'I think I am speaking rather weightily,' she said; 'don't you? Now, to go on in the same strain, this exalted personage, whose ally I am, offers you his friendship. He doesn't wish you to fight for or with him, for he believes you would say "No," and he has a sort of conscience about destroying you. What he asks is that you will take me into Gumilcund--think of the magnanimity of it!--and keep me there until the explosion is over. Then, if the world doesn't meanwhile fall in ruins about us, we can decide about the future.' She paused and went a little closer to him. A cloud had veiled the face of the moon so that, near as she was, he could only see her indistinctly; but he felt her--felt her in every nerve of his being, and for a moment he hesitated. Why should he not, after all, take her back to Gumilcund first, and leave her there in safety before setting forth on any other mission of rescue? He did not believe all she had told him. Either she was mad--as she said of herself--and in that case she ought to be protected from the results of her own mad actions; or else she was playing with him. Yes, she had herself spoken the word. But was she accountable for her own strange nature? Should she be punished because she could not see the awful realities that lay about her? Since, by some strange freak of fortune, she had been able so far to gain protection, was he to deny her the asylum that would make her safety sure? While he reasoned with himself she stood by him. She did not speak, she did not stir; but as the silence prolonged itself a sigh, soft as the breath of a sleeping child, escaped her lips. 'Vivien!' he said tremulously, 'is that you?' 'Yes, it is I; I am near you. You will come with me, Tom?' she murmured; and, in low caressing tones, 'Dearest Tom!' 'Why do you say that?' he said, hoarsely. 'Listen to him, poor child!' she cried. 'Why? Can't you tell? Can't you imagine?' 'You are false!' he groaned; 'you have said it of yourself!' 'False to others, Tom; never to you!' 'False to one is false to all.'