“You must let me finish what I have to say. I will speak very quietly; I don’t want to frighten you. See, I will sit down again, quite at the other side of the room. This morning it struck me like a blow, What should I have done if you had believed me guilty? If it had been Lady Haigh I could have stood it, though it would have cut me to the heart; but it was not Lady Haigh whose sympathy had made Alibad a different place to me. Then I remembered that the Haighs can’t remain here always, and if they went away, you would go with them, and I should be left here without you. But you have spoilt me for my old solitary life. You have drawn my soul out to talk to you--I know it was not your fault, you never meant to do it,” as Penelope tried to speak, “but you can’t give it me back. I know I have nothing to offer you. I am unpopular with my superiors and with the civil government; my life is devoted to the frontier. I don’t know how I have the face to ask you to think whether you could possibly marry me, but I only ask you to think about it. Tell me when you have decided. I can wait. The only thing I cannot bear is to lose you.” Utter misery and pent-up feeling combined to give Penelope’s words a thrill of bitterness. “If you have only felt this since the morning, it cannot hurt you much to lose me,” she said. He rose and came towards her again. “I think I have felt it all along without knowing it,” he said. “It is as if I had been looking for something all my life, and had found it to-day.” “Oh, if you had only spoken sooner, I might have stood out against them!” The words were wrung from Penelope, but she crushed down her pain fiercely. “No, no, I did not mean that,” she said hastily. “It is too late, Major Keeling. There is some one else.” “Some one to whom you are engaged?” She bowed her head. “Forgive me for boring you so long, but I had no means of knowing. It is Porter, I suppose? He is a fine fellow. I hope you will be very happy; I believe you will.” “It is not Captain Porter,” said Penelope. She must tell him the truth, or he might congratulate Porter--poor Porter, who had proposed to her and been refused three months ago. Her voice fell guiltily. “It is Captain Ferrers.” “Ferrers! Not Ferrers?” He repeated the name, as if the idea was incredible. “It cannot be Ferrers. Why, you can’t know----” “Yes, I know; but he is different, he has given it all up. He says I can help him, and I have promised to try.” “But it is not fit. He is no more worthy of you---- Of course I am not worthy either, but still---- I must speak to your brother. Who am I to say that I am better than Ferrers? But I can’t see you sacrificed. Your life would be one long misery.” “Please, please say nothing. Oh, forgive me, but don’t you see you are the one person who ought not to interfere?” He looked at her with something of reproach. “If it set up an eternal barrier between you and myself, I would still try to save you.”