The sun of her life had set--had gone down into black night--yet the warm rays of the summer sunshine glanced through the open window of her room, glowing down upon the wide _veldt_ outside and upon the distant sparkle of the blue sea. Never again would laughter issue from those lips--yet the sound of light-hearted chat and peals of mirth was ever and anon borne from without. The droning hum of insects in the afternoon air--the clink of horse-hoofs, the deep-toned conversation of natives passing near the window--all these familiar sounds of everyday life found a faint and far-away echo in her benumbed brain. What, though one heart was broken--the world went on just the same. Stay! Was it but a few minutes ago that she passed out through that door trilling the cheerful fragments of the airiest of songs--but a few minutes since she picked up that fatal scrap of paper, and then stood face to face with those who brought her news which had laid her life in ruins! Only a few minutes! Why, it seemed years--centuries--aeons. Was it a former state of existence that upon which she now looked back as across a great and yawning gulf? Was she now dead--and was this the place of torment? The fire that burned forever and ever! How should she quench the fire in her heart and brain? There was a very stoniness about her grief as if the blow had petrified her. She did not fling herself upon the couch in her agony of despair. No tears did she shed--better if she had. For long after she had gained her room and locked herself in alone she stood--stood upright--and finally when she sought a chair it was mechanically, as with the movement of a sleep walker. Her heart was broken--her life was ended. He had gone from her--it only remained for her to go to him. And then, darting in across her tortured brain, in fiery characters, came the recollection of his own words--spoken that first and last blissful morning at Anta's Kloof. "If we are doing wrong through love for each other we shall have to expiate it at some future time. We shall be made to suffer _through_ each other," and to this she had responded "Amen." How soon had those words come true. The judgment had fallen. He had gone from her, but she could not go to him. Their love, unlawful in this world, could never be ratified in another. And then, indeed, there fell upon her the gloom of outer darkness. There was no hope. CHAPTER TWENTY SIX. "AND THE SUMMER'S NIGHT IS A WINTER'S DAY." For Eanswyth Carhayes the sun of life had indeed set. The first numbing shock of the fearful news over, a period of even greater agony supervened. He who had succeeded in setting free the wholly unsuspected volcanic fires of her strong and passionate nature-- him, her first and only love--she would never see again in life. If she had sinned in yielding to a love that was unlawful, surely she was expiating it now. The punishment seemed greater than she could bear.