"This moment, if you wish it," with a short laugh.
"No; I will have no comments made. You can easily make a reasonable excuse out of your letters to-morrow morning. After all you have said, I hope I shall never see your face again."
"You never shall, if it depends on me."
"I regret that I ever—-"
"Oh, pray leave all the rest unsaid, Mrs. Carrington," he interrupts, bitterly. "I can fancy it. You regret, of course, you ever admitted such a fallen character within your doors; I have insulted and wounded you in every possible way. So be it. You say so, therefore it must be true. At the same time I would have you remember, what is also true, that I would die to save you from any grief or harm. If," sinking his voice, and speaking in a slow, peculiar tone, "if you are ever in deep trouble, and I can help you, think of me."
I am impressed without knowing why. It is as though some one had laid a curse upon me. I grow as white as death, and my breath comes from me in short, quick gasps. At this moment, a deadly fear of something intangible, far off, of something lying in the mystic future, passes over me like a cold wind.
Sir Mark, raising his hat, draws near. He takes my chilled gloveless hand.
"May I?" he asks, humbly, and with the natural grace that belongs to him. "It is a farewell."
Oppressed with my nameless terror, I cannot reply. I scarcely hear him. Stooping, he lays his lips lightly on my hand.
The touch recalls me. With a shudder I snatch away my fingers, and drawing back, sweep past him in eager haste to rid myself of him and the evil fears to which his words have given rise.