"That isn't strong enough to throw down the barriers," he said. He took her face between his hands and gazed deeply into her eyes. "I love you more than life. Haven't you something a little better than liking to give me in return? Honor, I want to marry you." For a moment she was silent. Her breath fluttered nervously between her parted lips; her eyes lifted to his, fell, lifted to his again. "Is _your_ love strong enough to throw down barriers?" she asked. "There aren't any barriers on my side to knock over," he answered, smiling. "Are there not?" Her face was grave now, and purposeful, her gaze steadfast. She put up her hands and clasped his wrists. "I will marry you--on one condition." "Yes!" he said, and waited, feeling curious and oddly chilled. The excitement of his passion died down before her strange composure. "If you renounce your country, and become one of us," she said; "if you fight--supposing it comes to fighting--on our side, I will marry you. That is my condition." He still held her face between his hands, and now he drew it nearer, pressed his face to her face, kissed her tenderly upon the brow, pushed her face gently away. "You ask more than you expect me to give," he said. "You wouldn't make such a condition if you loved me..." Without looking at him Honor went swiftly and silently out through the window and along the stoep. He remained quite still, looking after her, a feeling of finality, of flatness, weighing upon him, and a queer sense of loss, which was not after all loss because he had never possessed, never been near possession; until that morning the hope of proprietorship had not entered into his thoughts of her; passion had not before gripped him. It was odd, he reflected, how swiftly and unexpectedly the factor of passion had entered and provoked this crisis. The whole thing was an amazement; and it left him a little dazed, with a sensation of plunging into sudden darkness after being in the light. CHAPTER NINETEEN. There was no ride that morning. Feeling disinclined to remain indoors Matheson left the house and went for a walk, hoping to rid himself in some measure of his depression. He passed beyond the aloe boundary, and continued his way beside the ostrich camps, keeping at a respectful distance from the wire fencing behind which the great birds stalked aimlessly, craning their long necks forward and regarding him malevolently out of their large soft eyes.