Instead of flushing at the taunt, Waring's face grew paler, and there shot across it a sharp spasm of pain.
"So you can not understand disinterestedness," he said. "Before I ventured on interference, I was aware of the certain consequences, and weighed them all. Miss Tresilyan thought she had done me some wrong; and I trusted to her generosity to help me when I spoke for the right. But I knew that the spell could only be used once, and that the canceled debt could not be revived. I shall never speak to her--perhaps never see her--on earth again. Do you imagine I love her less for that? Hear this: I suppose I have as much pride as most men; but I would kneel down here and set your foot on my neck if I thought the humiliation would save her one iota of shame or sorrow."
Keene was fairly vanquished. He was filled with a great contempt for his own guilty passion, compared with the pure self-sacrifice of Mark's simple chivalry. He raised his eyes from the ground, on which they had been bent gloomily while the other was speaking, and answered without hesitation, "I owe you some amends for much that has been said to-night; and I will not keep you in suspense a moment unnecessarily. I shall leave Dorade to-morrow; but it will not be to follow Cecil Tresilyan. More than this: if there is any chance of our meeting hereafter, on my honor, I will avoid it. I wish many things could be unsaid and undone; but nothing has occurred that is past remedy. As far as any future intentions of mine are concerned, I swear she is as safe as if she were my sister."
Waring drew a long breath, as if a ponderous weight had been lifted from his chest. "I believe you," he said simply: then he rose to go. He had almost reached the door, when he turned suddenly and stretched out his hand. It was a perfectly unaccountable and perhaps involuntary impulse; for he still could not absolve the other from dark and heavy guilt. The major held it for a few seconds in a gripe that would have paralyzed weaker fingers: even Mark's tough joints and muscles were long in forgetting it. He muttered these words between his teeth as he let it go--"_You_ were worthy of her." So the interview ended--in peace. Nevertheless, there was little peace that night for Royston Keene; he passed it alone--how, no mortal can know; but the next morning his appearance fully bore out the truth of the ancient aphorism, "There is no rest for the wicked." His face was set in the stoniest calmness, but the features were haggard and drawn, and fresh lines and furrows were there deeper than should have been engraved by half a score of years. A violent, passionate nature does not lightly resign the one object of its aims and desires. Larches and firs will bear moving cautiously, for they are well-regulated plants, and natives of a frigid zone; but transplanting rarely succeeds in the tropics.