"I do not think I have ever hesitated before at any call of this kind; nor at what such a call will probably sometime mean; but this man I have known since we were boys." "If I had never seen him!" "That brings up another point that has been worrying me all day. I could not help knowing what you have had to go through in this country. It is a tough country for any woman. Your people and mine were always close together and I have felt bound to do what I could to----" "Don't be afraid to say it--make my path easier." "Something like that, though there's been little real doing. What this situation in which Sinclair is now placed may still mean to you I do not know, but I would not add a straw to the weight of your troubles. I came to-night to ask a plain question. If he doesn't leave the country I have got to meet him. You know what, in all human probability, that will mean. From such a meeting only one of us can come back. Which shall it be?" "I'm afraid I don't understand you--do you ask me this question? How can I know which it shall be? What is it you mean?" "I mean I will not take his life in a fight--if it comes to that--if you would rather he should come back." A sob almost refused an answer to him. "How can you ask me so terrible a question?" "It is a question that means a good deal to me, of course, and I don't know just what it means to you: that is the point I am up against. I may have no choice in the matter, but I must decide what to try to do if I have one. Am I to remember first that he is your husband?" There was a silence. "What shall I say--what can I say? God help me, how am I to answer a question like that?" "How am I to answer it?" Her voice was low and pitiful when her answer came: "You must do your duty." "What is my duty then? To serve the paper that has been given to me, I know--but not necessarily to defend my life at the price of his. The play of a chance lies in deciding that; I can keep the chance or give it away; that is for you to say. Or take the question of duty again. You are alone and your friends are few. Haven't I any duty toward you, perhaps? I don't know a woman's heart. I used to think I did, but I don't. My duty to this company that I work for is only the duty of a servant. If I go, another takes my place; it means nothing except taking one name off the payroll and putting another on. Whatever he may have done, this man is your husband; if his death would cause you a pang, it shall not be laid at my door. We ought to understand each other on that point fairly before I start to-night." "Can you ask me whether you ought not to take every means to defend your own life? or whether any consideration ought to come before that? I think not. I should be a wicked woman if I were to wish evil to him, wretched as he has made me. I am a wretched woman, whichever way I turn. But I should be less than human if I could say that to me your death would not be a cruel, cruel blow."