“You needn’t be horrid. I’m sure I have quite enough to bear as it is. What with thinking every morning when I wake that I shall have to be pleasant to him whenever he chooses to come and talk to me all day, when I should like to be at the other end of the world----” “What do you mean to do when you are married?” Mabel shivered. “I don’t know,” she said. “I rather hope we shall be killed instead.” “You needn’t expect to get out of difficulties in that way. If you want to be killed, you are quite sure not to be. And to go on living a lie----” “_Don’t!_” entreated Mabel. “Whichever way you look at it, it’s dreadful. I don’t know what to do. What’s that? I’m sure I heard a step.” It must have been Mr Burgrave’s evil genius which prompted him to present himself at that particular time. The enemy had made no movement, and the Commissioner thought he might safely leave the wall for a moment, in order to obtain a sight of Mabel, and inquire after Georgia. He entered the room with a creditable assumption of cheerfulness, which the girls did not even observe. “How are we getting on?” asked Mabel hastily. “Oh, well, we must hope for the best,” was the unsatisfying answer. In his own mind Mr Burgrave had no doubt that the enemy were only waiting for dawn to make their attack, and would advance on the fort at the same moment that their guns opened fire from the hill. “No news yet of the forlorn hope?” asked Flora. “No news,” he answered, then hesitated with his hand on the door, and looked at Mabel. She rose, as if in response to his glance, and went out on the verandah with him. “Poor little girl!” he said, putting his arm round her. “This waiting-time is very hard upon you, isn’t it? God knows I would give you comfort if I could, but I dare not raise false hopes.” Mabel freed herself from his clasp. In the dim light cast by the brazier through the small window, he could see that she was very pale, and that her eyes looked unnaturally large and dark in the whiteness of her face. “I want you to take this back, please,” she said, holding out her engagement ring. “I can’t die with a lie upon my soul.” “A lie!” he exclaimed, in bewilderment. “I don’t love you. Sometimes I think I almost hate you,” she replied, in a low, monotonous voice. His natural impulse was to take her in his arms and crush this latest attempt at rebellion by sheer weight of mingled authority and affection, as he had done more than once before; but the words died upon his lips as he looked into her face, and he stood irresolute. This was not coquetry, not the wild talk for which he had smiled at her that very evening, but desperate earnest. “Am I to take this as your own unbiassed wish, Mabel?” he asked slowly, seeing his world fall in ruins around him as he spoke. “Absolutely,” she answered.