He reached the avenue at Mowbray and dismounted, throwing the bridle over his arm as he walked slowly between the rows of giant aloes. In another moment he came in sight of the Dutch cottage. He paused under one of the Australian oaks, and looked towards the house. “Oh, God, God, pity me!” he cried in agony so intense that it could not relieve itself by any movement or the least motion. He threw the bridle over a low branch and walked up to the house. His step was heard. She stood before him in the hall--white and flushed in turn as he went towards her. He was not flushed; he was still deadly white. He had startled her, he knew, for the hand she gave him was trembling like a dove's bosom. “Papa is gone part of the way back to Simon's Town with the commodore who was with us this morning,” she said. “But you will come in and wait, will you not?” “I cannot,” he said. “I cannot trust myself to go in--even to look at you, Daireen.” “Oh, God!” she said, “you are ill--your face--your voice----” “I am not ill, Daireen. I have an hour of strength--such strength as is given to men when they look at Death in the face and are not moved at all. I kissed you last night----” “And you will now,” she said, clasping his arm tenderly. “Dearest, do not speak so terribly--do not look so terrible--so like--ah, that night when you looked up to me from the water.” “Daireen, why did I do that? Why did you pluck me from that death to give me this agony of life--to give yourself all the bitterness that can come to any soul? Daireen, I kissed you only once, and I can never kiss you again. I cannot be false to you any longer after having touched your pure spirit. I have been false to you--false, not by my will--but because to me God denied what He gave to others--others to whom His gift was an agony--that divine power to begin life anew. My past still clings to me, Daireen--it is not past--it is about and around me still--it is the gulf that separates us, Daireen.” “Separates us?” she said blankly, looking at him. “Separates us,” he repeated, “as heaven and hell are separated. We have been the toys--the playthings, of Fate. If you had not looked out of your cabin that night, we should both be happy now. And then how was it we came to love each other and to know it to be love? I struggled against it, but I was as a feather upon the wind. Ah, God has given us this agony of love, for I am here to look on you for the last time--to beseech of you to hate me, and to go away knowing that you love me.” “No, no, not to go away--anything but that. Tell me all--I can forgive all.” “I cannot bring my lips to frame my curse,” he said after a little pause. “But you shall hear it, and, Daireen, pity me as you pitied me when I looked to God for hope and found none. Child--give me your eyes for the last time.”