But at night, in her strange little room, lying in her hammock, and looking up through her one unglazed window, high up in the roof, to the stars that slowly travelled across the space, she came back to a more collected opinion.  She had no right to sacrifice Mr. Ward as well as herself.  Louis could not be more free than she had made him already, and it would be doing evil that good might come, to accept the addresses of one man while she could not detach her heart from another.  ’Have I ever really tried yet? she thought.  ’Perhaps I am punishing him and poor Mr. Ward, because, as papa says, I have languished, and have never tried in earnest to wean my thoughts from him.  He was the one precious memory, besides my dear mother, and she never thought it would come to good.  He will turn out to have been constant to Clara all the time, though he did not know it.’

Even if Mr. Ponsonby had been in full health, he would have had no inclination to spare Mary the conversation with Mr. Ward, who took his hot nine miles’ ride from Lima in the early morning, before the shadow of the mountains had been drawn up from the arid barren slope leading to Chorillos.

He came in time for the late breakfast, when the table was loaded with various beautiful tropical fruits, tempting after his ride, and in his state of suspense.  He talked of his journey, and of his intended absence, and his regret, in a manner half mechanical, half dreamy, which made Mary quite sorry for him; it was melancholy for a man of his age to have fixed so many fond hopes where disappointment was in store for him.  She wished to deal as kindly with him as she could, and did not shrink away when her father left them, muttering something about a letter, and Rosita went to take her siesta.

With anxious diffidence he ventured to ask whether she remembered what had passed between them on the San Benito mountain.

’Yes, Mr. Ward, but I am afraid I do not think differently now, in spite of all your kindness.’

Poor Mr. Ward’s countenance underwent a change, as if he had hoped more.  ‘Your father had given me reason to trust,’ he said, ’that you had recovered your spirits; otherwise I should hardly have presumed to intrude on you.  And yet, before so long an absence, you cannot wonder that I longed to hear something decisive.’

’Indeed I wished what I said before to be decisive.  I am very sorry to give pain to one so much kinder than I deserve, and to whom I look up so much, but you see, Mr. Ward, I cannot say what is untrue.’

‘Miss Ponsonby,’ said Mr. Ward, ’I think you may be acting on a most noble but mistaken view.  I can well believe that what you have once experienced you can never feel again.  That would be more than I should dare to ask.  My own feeling for you is such that I believe I should be able to rejoice in hearing of the fulfilment of your happiness, in your own way; but since there seems no such probability, cannot you grant me what you can still give, which would be enough to cause me the greatest joy to which I have ever aspired; and if my most devoted affection could be any sufficient return, you know that it is yours already.’