human
There! there! There it is!--the belt!-- your belt! Take it! take it, I say!
gpt
Take it! I have carried it for you--worn it next my heart, till it has all but eaten into my heart. To Varna, and you were not there!--Scutari, Balaklava, and you were not there!--I found it, only a week after!--I told you I should! and you were gone!--Cruel, not to wait! And Mr. Armsworth has the money--every farthing--and the gold:--he has had it these two years!--I would give you the belt myself; and now I have done it, and the snake is unclasped from my heart at last, at last, at last!
human
Promise me! she said, in a low clear voice;
gpt
Anything!
human
Promise me that you will never ask, or seek to know, who had that belt.
gpt
I promise: but, Grace!--
human
Then my work is over, said she in a calm collected voice.
gpt
Amen. So lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace. Good-bye, Mr. Thurnall. I must go and pack up my few things now. You will forgive and forget?
human
Grace! cried Tom;
gpt
and he girdled her in a grasp of iron.
human
You and I never part more in this life, perhaps not in all lives to come!
gpt
Me? I?--let me go! I am not worthy of you!
human
I have heard that once already;--the only folly which ever came out of those sweet lips. No! Grace, I love you, as man can love but once; and you shall not refuse me! You will not have the heart, Grace! You will not dare, Grace! For you have begun the work; and you must finish it.
gpt
Work? What work?
human
I don't know, said Tom.
gpt
How should I? I want you to tell me that.
human
I will tell _you_ he said,
gpt
Frightened; beat; run to earth myself, though I talked so bravely of running others to earth just now. Grace, I've been in prison!
human
In prison? In a Russian prison? Oh, Mr. Thurnall!
gpt
Ay, Grace, I'd tried everything but that; and I could not stand it. Death was a joke to that. Not to be able to get out!--To rage up and down for hours like a wild beast; long to fly at one's gaoler and tear his heart out;--beat one's head against the wall in the hope of knocking one's brains out;--anything to get rid of that horrid notion, night and day over one--I can't get out!
human
But you are safe now, said she soothingly.
gpt
Oh, those horrid Russians!
human
But it was not Russians!--If it had been, I could have borne it.--That was all in my bargain,--the fair chance of war: but to be shut up by a mistake!--at the very outset, too--by a boorish villain of a khan, on a drunken suspicion;--a fellow whom I was trying to serve, and who couldn't, or wouldn't, or daren't understand me--Oh, Grace, I was caught in my own trap! I went out full blown with self-conceit. Never was any one so cunning as I was to be!--Such a game as I was going to play, and make my fortune by it!--And this brute to stop me short--to make a fool of me--to keep me there eighteen months threatening to cut my head off once a quarter, and wouldn't understand me, let me talk with the tongue of the old serpent!
gpt
He didn't stop you: God stopped you!
human
You're right, Grace; I saw that at last! I found out that I had been trying for years which was the stronger, God or I; I found out I had been trying whether I could not do well enough without Him: and there I found that I could not, Grace;--could not! I felt like a child who had marched off from home, fancying it can find its way, and is lost at once. I felt like a lost child in Australia once, for one moment: but not as I felt in that prison; for I had not heard you, Grace, then. I did not know that I had a Father in heaven, who had been looking after me, when I fancied that I was looking after myself;--I don't half believe it now--If I did, I should not have lost my nerve as I have done!--Grace, I dare hardly stir about now, lest some harm should come to me. I fancy at every turn, what if that chimney fell? what if that horse kicked out?--and, Grace, you, and you only, can cure me of my new cowardice. I said in that prison, and all the way home,--if I can but find her!--let me but see her--ask her--let her teach me; and I shall be sure! Let her teach me, and I shall be brave again! Teach me, Grace! and forgive me!