“Besides, I wouldn’t have you venture back into Baghdad for anything,” said Cecil.
“Then I will wait at Basra for three weeks, or as long as the regulations require,” said Charlie, eagerly, “and Cousin Elma will bring you down there. O, Cecil, my darling, do say yes.”
“Oh, Charlie!” sighed Cecil, but in a moment her face changed and grew firm; “I can’t do it--it would be wrong. Why, Charlie, you forget that I am pledged to stay here for more than two years and a half still. I can’t leave my post. My duty is here, and yours, I suppose, is at Bandr Abbas. When Azim Bey’s education is finished, then I shall be at liberty to leave Baghdad, and then----”
“Can’t you come now, dear?” he pleaded. “I don’t want to persuade you if it is really your duty to stay, but I think that Azim Bey’s conduct has not been so considerate that you need strain matters on his account. Think of our going home together, Cecil, and seeing all your people again.”
“Don’t,” murmured Cecil, brokenly; “you make me so miserable, Charlie. You can’t think how I want to see Whitcliffe again, and all of them. But I mustn’t go. It isn’t right. I can’t break my promise. You know you wouldn’t respect me yourself if I did such a thing. So I must stay, and you must go. Besides, there is another reason. If you resigned now, and stayed at Basra, and went home afterwards, instead of going to Bandr Abbas, they would say you were afraid of the cholera, and I couldn’t bear that any one should think that of you. No, I have some consideration for you, Charlie dear, though I have got you into such trouble. I was thinking as we came along that it might have been better for you if you had never met me at all.”
“Not a bit of it!” cried Charlie. “Never think that again, Cecil. Why, before I met you I was a regular loafer, just doing a spell of work in one place and then getting myself sent on somewhere else, and never settling down. But now I have something to work for, something to look forward to. I should have missed the chief good of my life if I had never met you. No, dear, knowing you has done everything for me, and I am as thankful as I can be for it now, and I always shall be. As for this trouble, no doubt it comes because otherwise I should be too happy.”