ow. I have not spoken on
impulse; and I want you to think very thoroughly over all I have said
when your brain is cooler than it is just now."

"But suppose--I don't want to think it over?"

A half smile dispelled his gravity. "Knowing you intimately, I should
not suppose anything else! In the two big crises of our life,
remember, you were ruled purely by impulse and emotion, and you brought
us very near to shipwreck in consequence. But this time, you will do
what I ask, and give my slower methods a chance; because this time your
decision will be final. If we are to separate again, we separate for
life. That much _I_ have decided. The rest--I leave in your hands."

She stood very still, like one magnetised, her gaze riveted on the
carpet. His steadfast aloofness had chilled her first headlong impulse
of surrender; and she knew now that he was right:--that, dearly as she
loved him, independence in thought, word, and act were still the breath
of life for her and for her art. He had put the matter to practical
proof with a sledge-hammer directness all his own; had opened her eyes
to the humiliating truth that never in all her thirty years of living
had she given up anything that mattered for any one. And now----

She raised her head with a start, Zyarulla had brought in a telegram,
and Lenox stood reading it with a transfigured face, an eager light in
his eyes.

"What is it?" she wondered, not daring to ask. "He is going away
somewhere--he is delighted. And he says I come absolutely first."

Then Lenox raised his eyes, and a lightning instinct told her that for
the moment he had forgotten her existence.

"Well, Quita," he said, unconscious elation in his tone, "I think the
Foreign Office must have known we had got to a difficult corner, and
decided to give us a helping hand. They want me to undertake an
exploration north of Kashmir, and remonstrate with a small chief who
has been misbehaving up there. I am to report myself at Simla _ek
dum_,[1] to receive detailed instructions of the mission, and we shall
have time enough to think things out very thoroughly before I get back."

"Time? How long?"

Her colour had ebbed; but the change in him had steeled her to
unreasoning hardness of heart.

"Six months, certain. Possibly more."

"And you are as glad as you can be. One sees that quite plainly."

Her tone stung him to sharp retort.

"Yes, I am glad--since you insist, and since I am no hypocrite