I dropped down from the window place and began to think as to what
I should do, for again my mind was wavering. Should I desert Otomie and
escape to the Spaniards if that were possible, taking my chance of death
at the hands of de Garcia? Or should I stay among the Aztecs if they
would give me shelter, and wed Otomie? There was a third choice, indeed,
to stay with them and leave Otomie alone, though it would be difficult
to do this and keep my honour. One thing I understood, if I married
Otomie it must be at her own price, for then I must become an Indian and
give over all hope of returning to England and to my betrothed. Of this,
indeed, there was little chance, still, while my life remained to me,
it might come about if I was free. But once my hands were tied by this
marriage it could never be during Otomie's lifetime, and so far as Lily
Bozard was concerned I should be dead. How could I be thus faithless to
her memory and my troth, and on the other hand, how could I discard the
woman who had risked all for me, and who, to speak truth, had grown so
dear to me, though there was one yet dearer? A hero or an angel might
find a path out of this tangle, but alas! I was neither the one nor the
other, only a man afflicted as other men are with human weakness, and
Otomie was at hand, and very sweet and fair. Still, almost I determined
that I would avail myself of her nobleness, that I would go back upon
my words, and beg her to despise me and see me no more, in order that
I might not be forced to break the troth that I had pledged beneath
the beech at Ditchingham. For I greatly dreaded this oath of life-long
fidelity which I should be forced to swear if I chose any other path.

Thus I thought on in pitiable confusion of mind, not knowing that all
these matters were beyond my ordering, since a path was already made
ready to my feet, which I must follow or die. And let this be a proof
of the honesty of my words, since, had I been desirous of glozing the
truth, I need have written nothing of these struggles of conscience, and
of my own weakness. For soon it was to come to this, though not by her
will, that I must either wed Otomie or die at once, and few would blame
me for doing the first and not the last. Indeed, though I did wed her, I
might still have declared myself to my affianced and to all the world as
a slave of events from which there was no escape. But it is not all the
truth, since my mind was divided, and had it not be