She deliberately held the vision, concentrating all her soul upon it, as on a face that one sees for the last time, and wills never to forget. It was an actual parting, and she felt it as such--a parting with the man who could never be her friend again. Then, chafing against her momentary weakness, she pulled herself together, let her hands fall into her lap with a slow sigh that was almost a sob, and wondered, dully, whether sleep would come to her before morning. Certainly not until she had considered her position dispassionately,--neither ignoring its terrible possibilities, nor exaggerating her own sense of shame and disgrace,--and had settled, once for all, what honour and duty demanded of her in the circumstances. One fact at least was clear. Her love for Theo Desmond was, in itself, no sin. It was a force outside the region of will,--imperious, irresistible. But it set her on the brink of a precipice, where only God and the high compulsion of her soul could withhold her from a plunge into the abyss. "Mine own soul forbiddeth me: there, for each of us, is the eternal right and wrong." For Honor there could be no thought, no question of the false step, or of the abyss; and sinking on her knees she poured out her heart in a passionate prayer for forgiveness, for light and wisdom to choose the right path, and power to walk in it without faltering to the end. When at last she rose, her lips and eyes had regained something of their wonted serenity. She knew now that her impulse to leave the house at once had been selfish and cowardly; that Evelyn must not be deserted in a moment of bitter need; that these ten days must be endured for her sake--and for his. On his return, she could find a reasonable excuse for spending a month elsewhere till John should come to claim her. Never in all her life had she been called upon to make so supreme an effort of self-mastery; and never had she felt so certain of the ultimate result. She turned up the lamp now, and looked her new life bravely in the face, strong in her reliance on a Strength beyond her own,--a Strength on which she could make unlimited demands; which had never failed her yet, nor ever would to the end of time. CHAPTER XIX. IT'S NOT MAJOR WYNDHAM. "I will endure; I will not strive to peep Behind the barrier of the days to come." --OWEN MEREDITH. For a few hours Honor slept soundly. But so soon as her bodily exhaustion was repaired, grief and stress of mind dragged her back to consciousness. She woke long before dawn; woke reluctantly, for the first time in her life, with a dead weight upon heart and brain; a longing to turn her face to the wall and shut out the unconcerned serenity of the new day.