Is there nothing you could think of that would turn you back?
No; especially now that your father approves.
But will you go on to other places after Bhojâl?
Naturally. Why are you cross-examining me? I will confess everything.
And if you find an Englishman who has done wrong ever so long ago to a native, you will expose him?
Take a man who has left it all behind him . . . who was serving his country in some high and difficult post?
I shall report anything I think ought to be known to the proper authorities. I am not a police agent nor a spy; but I am a historian, and I do not intend to hide things in order to oblige people!
Of course there is great latitude allowed in war, but----
[_Interrupting._] I know you will do harm! I wish you would wait and think. . . . Wait for six months.
You are doing evil work there! You are upsetting the work of government. . . . It is all being reformed. You will be killed yourself . . . . I shall never ask anything but this of you: only wait! Wait till you can think it over! [_Comes a little to him._
[_Mastering some impatience._] My dear Miss Carlyon. I have thought it over long ago. You don't suppose I have worked for years towards this scheme and never asked myself whether it was right?
I cannot understand why you are so troubled.
Whom could I screen? I know no one but father.
[_Goes to her._] Is it possible that it is my life you care for? I should never have dared to hope it. If it is really that, may I, when I come back----
I will take every possible care. My life never seemed so precious to me as it does now. If only when I return I may come to you----
You are unreasonable. [_Takes her hand._] Surely one must take the risks----
[_Interrupting._] Leave go, leave go! You are mad! [_He recoils from her._] Your life may well seem precious; you have barely a year of it left!
I have watched you day by day. I saw it in your eyes with that glass. There are a dozen symptoms to make it as clear as daylight. You don't feel much yet, but you're going blind, you're going paralysed, you are dying slowly under my eyes. . . . [ADENE, _incredulous but horror-struck, grasps the back of the chair_.] Dr. Rheinhardt knows it. He has seen my notes and watched you. First blind, then paralysed, then dead! Now go if you can; cross the mountains and ruin good men by raking up their old wrongdoings.