ty of the Tresilyans. When their hand was fairly laid to the
plow they were incapable of looking back. Had Mark come ten hours later,
when Cecil's purpose was absolutely fixed, all his arguments would have
been futile. As it was, once having decided finally on the line she was
to take, it never occurred to her to make farther objections. "Yes, I
will go," she said; "but I must write to him."

"I think you ought to do so," answered Waring, "and if you will give me
the letter I will deliver it myself."

Every vestige of the returning color faded from Cecil's cheek. "You do
not know him: I dare not trust you." He misinterpreted the cause of her
terror. "I promise you that, however angry Major Keene may be, I will
bear it patiently, and never dream of resenting it. He is safe from me
now."

She smiled very sadly, yet not without a dreary pride; she could have
seen Royston pitted against any mortal antagonist, and never would have
feared for _him_. "You scarcely understand me; I was not anxious for his
safety, but for yours."

Mark was too brave and single-hearted to suspect a taunt, even had such
been intended. "Then there is nothing more to be settled," he said,
quietly, "but the time and manner of your departure. I will leave you
now; I shall see you before you go."

Cecil Tresilyan rose and laid her hand on his arm, her beautiful face
fixed in its firm resolve like that of one of those fair Norse Valas,
from whose rigid lips flowed the bode of defeat or victory, when the
Vikings went forth to the Feast of the Ravens.

"I am not angry with one word you have said to-night; you have only
expressed what my own cowardly conscience ought to have uttered;
nevertheless, to-morrow sees our last meeting. All your account against
me is fairly balanced now. I do not know what I may have to suffer, but
I do know that I _will_ be alone till I die. Perhaps some day I may
thank you in my thoughts for what you have done; I can not--now."

With a heavy heart Waring owned to himself that her words were bitterly
true. In curing such diseases, the physician must work without hope of
reward or fee; it will be long before the patient can touch without a
shudder the hand that inflicted the saving cautery.

Her tone changed, and she went on murmuring, low and plaintively, as if
in soliloquy and unconscious of another's presence.

"I could not help loving him, though I knew it was sin; if there is
shame in confessing it, I can not feel