"Ah, don't say that!" His voice was eager. "Mrs. Cheniston, don't, please, believe I gave in without a struggle. I didn't. God knows I fought the horrible thing--for your sake, because you had been good enough, kind enough--to ask me to give up trying that way out. I did try. Oh, I know you can hardly believe me--you who saw me in the very hour of my failure--but it's true. Although I gave in at the last, beaten by the twin enemies of bodily pain and mental suffering----"
"You were--in pain--that day?"
"Yes. I had endured torture--oh, I don't want to excuse myself, but please understand I was really ill, really suffering, and morphia, as you know, does bring a blessed relief. And I was wretched, too--it seemed to me that life was over for me that day----"
He stopped short, biting his lips at his self-betrayal; but Iris' grey eyes did not turn away from his face.
"And so, thinking I could endure no more agony of body and mind, I had recourse to the one relief I knew; but before God, if I had known that you would be a witness to my failure----"
"Dr. Anstice"--the gentleness in her voice fell like balm upon his sore spirit--"please don't say any more. We are only human, you and I; and one failure does not minimize a long-continued success."
"You mean----"
"I mean that I know--I can't tell you how, but I do know it--you have never again tried that way out of your troubles. I think," said Iris, "you have found the real way out--at last."
Her words perplexed, even while they relieved him; and he sought the meaning of them.
"The real way, Mrs. Cheniston? I wonder what you mean by that?"
"I mean," she said very softly, "you must have found the way out of your own troubles by the very act of pointing out the way to others. You have brought Chloe Carstairs back to life--oh, I know it was through you that the mystery was cleared up at last--and that alone must make you feel that whatever mistake you may once have made you have atoned for it a hundredfold. And"--for an instant Iris' voice shook--"what are you doing now but atoning for that mistake--if further atonement were necessary?"
"You mean----"
"I mean that you are here, waiting for the Bedouins to attack us at any moment, waiting to fight for us women, ready, if need be, to die on our behalf." The words fell very softly on the quiet air. "And though I pray that God will send us help so that no life may be sacrificed I know"--Iris' eyes shone, and her voice rang suddenly like a clarion call--"I know that I--that we are safer with you than with any other man in the world...."