“Please do not sympathize with me,” she said.  “I cannot bear it.  I am not adamant.  You are very good—­so good to me that no unhappiness can be all unhappiness.  But let us look not one step farther into the future.”

“What you wish I shall do always.”

“Not what I wish, but what you and I ought to do is plain.”

“I ask one thing only.  I have said that I love you, said it as I shall never say it to another woman, as I never said it before.  Say to me once here, before we know what the future will be, that you love me.  Then I can bear all.”

She turned and looked him full in the eyes, that infinite flame in her own which burns all passions into one.  “I cannot, dear,” she said.

Then she hurriedly rose, her features quivering.  Without a word they went down the quiet path to the river and on toward the gates of the park where the coach was waiting to take them back to Herridon.

They did not see Mark Telford before their coach left.  But, standing back in the shadow of the trees, he saw them.  An hour before he had hated Hagar and had wished that they were in some remote spot alone with pistols in their hands.  Now he could watch the two together without anger, almost without bitterness.  He had lost in the game, and he was so much the true gamester that he could take his defeat when he knew it was defeat quietly.  Yet the new defeat was even harder on him than the old.  All through the years since he had seen her there had been the vague conviction, under all his determination to forget, that they would meet again, and that all might come right.  That was gone, he knew, irrevocably.

“That’s over,” he said as he stood looking at them.  “The king is dead.  Long live the king!”

He lit a cigar and watched the coach drive away, then saw the coach in which he had come drive up also and its passengers mount.  He did not stir, but smoked on.  The driver waited for some time, and when he did not come drove away without him, to the regret of the passengers and to the indignation of Miss Mildred Margrave, who talked much of him during the drive back.

When they had gone, Telford rose and walked back to the ruined abbey.  He went to the spot where he had first seen Mrs. Detlor that day, then took the path up the hillside to the place where they had stood.  He took from his pocket the ring she had given back to him, read the words inside it slowly, and, looking at the spot where she had stood, said aloud: 

“I met a man once who imagined he was married to the spirit of a woman living at the north pole.  Well, I will marry myself to the ghost of Marion Conquest.”

So saying, he slipped the ring on his little finger.  The thing was fantastic, but he did it reverently; nor did it appear in the least as weakness, for his face was, strong and cold.  “Till death us do part, so help me God!” he added.