"No, no! The wall is there. It must be between us for always, I am promised." The grief wailed and wept in her tones, and her eyes were wide and pleading. "I must lead my life, and you--you must stay outside the wall. If you love me--Doctor,--you must never know it, and I must never know it." Her beating heart stopped her speech and they both stood thus a moment, each seeing only the other's soul. "Promised?" The word sank into his heart like lead. "Promised?" Slowly he released her hands, and she covered her face with them and sank at his feet. He bent down to her and asked almost in a whisper: "Promised? Did you say that word?" She drooped lower and was silent. All the chivalry of his nature rose within him. Should he come into her life only to torment and trouble her? Ought he to leave the place? Could he bear to live so near her? What had she done--this flower? Was she to be devoured by swine? The questions clamored at the door of his heart. But one thing could he see clearly. He must wait without the wall, seeking only to serve and protect her. With the unerring instinct which led her always straight to the mark, she had seen the only right course. He repeated her words over and over to himself. "If you love me, you must never know it, and I must never know it." Her heart should be sacred from his personal intrusion, and their old relations must be reëstablished, at whatever cost to himself. With flash-light clearness he saw his difficulty, and that only by the elimination of self could he serve her, and also that her manner of receiving his revelation had but intensified his feeling for her. The few short moments seemed hours of struggle with himself ere he raised her to her feet and spoke quietly, in his old way. He lifted her hand to his lips. "It is past, Miss Cassandra. We will drop these few moments out of your life into a deep well, and it shall be as if they had never been." He thought as he spoke that the well was his own heart, but that he would not say, for henceforth his love and service must be selfless. "We may be good friends still? Just as we were?" "Yes, suh," she spoke meekly. "And we can go right on helping each other, as we have done all these weeks? I do not need to leave you?" "Oh, no, no!" She spoke with a gasp of dismay at the thought. "It--won't hurt so much if I can see you going right on--getting strong--like you have been, and being happy--and--" She paused in her slowly trailing speech and looked about her. They were down in a little glen, and there were no mountain tops in sight for her to look up to as was her custom. "And what, Cassandra? Finish what you were saying." Still for a while she was silent, and they walked on together. "And now won't you say what you were going to say?" He could not talk himself, and he longed to hear her voice.