ipe on the sill and drew in his head. His brow was
wrinkled and his lips were drawn down at the corners. With some shame
I remembered that I had thought only of myself during the past few
months. "Jack," he said, "I have gone around with you for the
excitement of it, for the temporary forgetfulness, and because I wanted
to see you well cared for before I left you. The excitement took my
mind from my own malady, but it has returned to-day with all its old
violence. There is the same blood in our veins. We must have one
woman or none. I must get away from all this. We are at the parting
of the ways, old man. To-night I leave for India. The jungle is a
great place. I am glad for your sake that you are not to go with me.
Sometimes one gets lost."

"She may change her mind," I said, putting a hand on his. "Most women
do."

"Most admit of exceptions," he replied, regarding me with earnest eyes
as if to read what was going on behind mine. "There are some women who
never change. Her Highness is one of these. As I remarked before, she
has no love to give me; it is gone, and as it is gone without reward,
she will make no attempt to recall it to give to another. I love her
all the more for that. The game fate plays with our hearts is a cruel
one. For one affinity there are ten unfinished lives. Her Highness
loves a good man."

My hand fell from his, and I went over to the window. This was the
first intimation he had given to me that he knew the secret, the secret
which had made me so sad, the secret which I tried not to believe.

"You are determined to go to India?" I said, without turning my head.
I could find no other words.

"Yes. It will be the best thing in the world."

"You will promise to write?"

"Whenever I strike the post. Marry and be happy; it is the lot of the
few."

That night he started for Bombay, by the way of England, and the next
morning I put out for the feudal inn.

CHAPTER XXV

I was passing along the highway, a pipe between my teeth. It was the
beginning of twilight, that trysting hour of all our reveries, when the
old days come back with a perfume as sweet and vague as that which
hovers over a jar of spiced rose leaves. I was thinking of the year
which was gone; how I first came to the inn; of the hour when I first
held her in my arms and kissed her, and vowed my love to her; of the
parting, when she of her own will had thrown her arms about my neck and
confessed.