“Honor, I know you will pity me,” he began at last, “pity me, when I tell you that I must say ‘No.’ I must face this life alone. God bless you, and give you a double share of happiness--your own, and what might have been mine. I have lately learnt something”--and his pale face grew ashy grey--“that will prevent my ever calling any woman ‘wife.’ The sacrifice I am bound to make is bitter; yes, bitter as death. I am not going to sacrifice you; you must forget me, darling. You have all your young life before you; put me out of your mind--gradually, sorrowfully, tenderly--as if I was dead.” “I shall never do that, Mark. Tell me; may I write to you?” “No!” was the most unexpected and chilling reply. “But yes, as your sister?” she pleaded, boldly. He shook his head. “I could never come to think of you as my sister.” “At least you will give me your address? Once, we were to have spent our lives together; now, I may not even know where I am to think of you as spending yours.” “You had much better not think of me at all,” he answered, with a tremor in his voice. “I must, and I shall. Be quick and tell me.” “My father calls himself Mr. Jones; he lives beyond Hawal Ghât, about forty miles away, and I must be with him before dark. By-the-by, I have kept your fan; it may seem an odd notion, but you will understand. And now I must go.” Hearing the sound of clattering hoofs and gay laughing voices rapidly approaching, he held her hand in his but for one second and dropped it. Then the syce hurrying forward with the pony, he mounted and galloped off. No--he never looked back. Honor stood for a moment as in a sort of trance; then she turned and leaned against the palings, which bordered a pine-forest sloping to the road. The gay riding party cantering past, rather wondered to see Miss Gordon without her hat, evidently looking for something in the wood. They had no time to stop and ask her what it was that she had lost? They would have been rather astonished if they could have learnt the truth--that she had just that moment lost her lover,--and for ever. They might have guessed at a tragedy of the kind, had they seen her white set face, and the expression of the clenched hands that grasped the palings. But they did not see, nor did they suspect any connection between Miss Gordon looking into a wood, and a momentary vision of a young fellow on a bay pony, who had flashed up a side path, before they could identify either man or beast. Honor, with a perfectly colourless face, walked up to her aunt, who was still softly sobbing in the drawing-room, and leaning her hand upon her shoulder, said in a strange emotionless voice-- “It is all over, auntie. We have said good-bye for ever.” She stooped and kissed her, and went and shut herself up in her own room, from which she did not emerge for several hours; and then the girl who did appear was a different Honor Gordon. CHAPTER XXXVII.