"You love another then--another in secret?" "No--one may not, cannot, love two." But Audley thought of Stapylton and that devilish Irregular Horseman, and struck the heel of his glazed boot viciously into the gravel of the path. CHAPTER XXV. CONCLUSION. After a panse he resumed-- "There is something in your tone, Sybil, that I do not understand. Doubtless your heart has much to accuse me of; but I have been the victim of circumstances, of my father's odd whimsical views--his selfishness, in fact; but here I can cast all such at defiance," he added, gathering courage as he perceived that she still wore on her hand--and what a pretty plump little hand it was!--his diamond betrothal ring--the diamond that whilom had figured as an eye of Vishnu, till Sergeant Treherne poked it out with his bayonet at Agra. "Listen, dearest Sybil; we are far away from England with all its insular and provincial prejudices--away from those local influences which my family exercised over me--my father's hostility, my mother's sneers, and so forth. I am secure of staff appointments--better these than casual loot or batta, I can tell you. I am independent of home allowances; and, to talk solidly and plainly, can think now in earnest of matrimony. Listen to me, Sybil;" and glancing hastily about, he tried to slip an arm round her, but she nimbly eluded him, and said-- "Then you have not heard the news we brought up country with us!" "News!" "Yes--my poor Audley." "About what?" "Your change of circumstances." "Mine!--dearest Sybil, what can you mean?" "Your succession to the title." "Circumstances--title!--explain, in Heaven's name, Sybil." She then told him that his father had died suddenly--died, as the _Morning Post_ announced, in the same library at Rhoscadzhel, and somewhat in the same manner, as his late uncle, when he was in the act of composing a long and elaborate paper legally reviewing the merits of the Afghan war; another grave had been opened and closed in the family tomb; another escutcheon hung on the porte-cochère of the princely old manor-house; and that he, Audley Trevelyan, was now Lord Lamorna, as the Governor-General would doubtless announce to him on the morrow. And in his lonely tomb beside the Kuzzilbash fort lay one who could never dispute the family honours with him, and whose sorrows and repinings were past for evermore. Audley was overwhelmed for a few minutes by this unexpected intelligence. There had been no great love, no strong tie, no fine yet unseen ligament, between father and son; yet the dead man _was_ his father, and he knew had ever been proud of him. He was shocked, but not deeply grieved; and "some natural tears he shed:" no more.