Carlyon Sahib Part 19

ADENE.

Certainly, if I find any.

VERA.

Take a man who has left it all behind him . . . who was serving his country in some high and difficult post?

ADENE.

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!

VERA.

Peace and war the same?

ADENE.

Of course there is great lat.i.tude allowed in war, but----

VERA.

[_Interrupting._] I know you will do harm! I wish you would wait and think. . . . Wait for six months.

ADENE.

Six months!!

VERA.

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._

ADENE.

[_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?

VERA.

It is not too late to think again.

ADENE.

I cannot understand why you are so troubled.

VERA.

I have told you why.

ADENE.

You can't want to screen any one!

VERA.

Whom could I screen? I know no one but father.

[_She moves a little away from him._

ADENE.

[_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----

VERA.

Will you go or will you stay?

ADENE.

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----

VERA.

Will you go or will you stay?

ADENE.

You are unreasonable. [_Takes her hand._] Surely one must take the risks----

VERA.

[_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!

ADENE.

What do you mean?

VERA.

I have watched you day by day. I saw it in your eyes with that gla.s.s.

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.

ADENE.

It can't be true! [_Calling out._] Reinhardt, Rheinhardt! Here! Come at once!

RHEINHARDT _appears on the steps_ L.

RHEINHARDT.