changed. We were dead last night. Now we have come to life again.
Besides," she added, with a ghost of a laugh, "perhaps you will see
Bessie to-morrow. I should think that we ought to have come to the end
of our misfortunes."

John's face fell as a sense of the impossible and most tragic position
in which they were placed, physically and morally, swept into his mind.

"Jess, my own Jess," he said, "what _can_ we do?"

She stamped her foot in the bitter anguish of her heart. "I told you,"
she said, "that there must be no more of that. What are you thinking
about? From to-day we are dead to each other. I have done with you
and you with me. It is your own fault; you should have let me die. Oh,
John," she wailed out, "why did you not let me die? Why did we not both
die? We should have been happy now, or--asleep. We must part, John, we
must part; and what shall I do without you, how _shall_ I live without
you?"

Her distress was very poignant, and it affected him so much that for a
moment he could not trust himself to answer her.

"Would it not be best to make a clean breast of it to Bessie?" he said
at last. "I should feel a villain for the rest of my life, but upon my
word I have a mind to do it."

"No, no," she cried passionately, "I will not allow it! You shall swear
to me that you will never breathe a word to Bessie. I will not have her
happiness destroyed. We have sinned, we must suffer; not Bessie, who is
innocent, and only takes her right. I promised my dear mother to look
after Bessie and protect her, and I will not be the one to betray
her--never, never! You must marry her and I must go away. There is no
other way out of it."

John looked at her, not knowing what to say or do. A sharp pang of
despair went through him as he watched the passionate pale face and the
great eyes dim with tears. How was he to part from her? He put out his
arms to take her in them, but she pushed him away almost fiercely.

"Have you no honour?" she cried. "Is it not all hard enough to bear
without your tempting me? I tell you it is done with. Finish saddling
that horse and let us start. The sooner we get off the sooner it will
be over, unless the Boers catch us again and shoot us, which for my own
part I devoutly hope they may. You must make up your mind to remember
that I am nothing but your sister-in-law. If you will not remember
it, then I shall ride away and leave you to go your road and I will go
mine."

John said no more.