"Thank you--no--on no account. I don't mind the rain--and we are so near home," answered Cecil, whose flimsy muslin garments were dripping wet. CHAPTER V. AT THE FOUNTAINS. Hector Gordon kept his word. He left Fortinbras by the evening train, in despite of his aunt's lamentations, and in despite of something which pierced his heart more cruelly than the lamentations of all the fussy dowagers in Christendom,--the still white look of sorrowful resignation in Cecil Chudleigh's face. She loved him. He knew the truth and depth of her affection as well as he knew the truth and depth of his own. Love would be a poor divinity indeed, if, as some counterbalance to his physical blindness, he were not gifted with the power of second-sight. Hector needed no word from Cecil to tell him how much he resigned in doing his duty. The hour that had revealed to him the secret of his own heart had laid bare the mystery of hers. That subtile sympathy, which had seemed so sweet a friendship, had been only love in disguise, the wolf in sheep's clothing, the serpent in the semblance of a dove. Ah, what utter despair possessed those two sad hearts on that chill September afternoon! what a cold, dreary future lay before those two helpless wanderers, doomed to bid each other farewell! The day might come, as it comes so often in the story of a lifetime, when to look back upon all this trouble and anguish would be to look back upon something as flimsy as a dream. But then what is more terrible than the agony of a dream?--ay, even though in the sleeper's breast there lurk a vague consciousness that he is only the fool of a vision. Brooding over his hopeless sorrow, as the express whirled London-wards through the darkness, Hector Gordon thought of the stories of unhappy attachments and wasted devotion which he had heard told by his seniors over the mess-table, when the wine went round silently in the summer dusk, and men, whose faces were in shadow, talked more freely than was their wont in the broad glare of day. "Shall I ever come to tell the story of my sorrow to my brother officers in the gloaming? Will the memory of to-night ever be a subject for friendly talk after a ponderous dinner, while the sentry's tramp echoes in the stillness, and the odour of cigar-smoke floats in from the balcony where the youngsters are lounging? Will they ever call me a dreary old bore, and try to change the subject when they find the conversation drifting round to my dismal love-story? Ah, how sad to be old and a nuisance, and to have profaned the sanctity of my idol's temple!"