In June, the Khans arrived en masse in Stratford-upon-Avon for their annual holiday. Their presence must have deepened Hasnat's doubts that a superstar princess could ever be absorbed into his close-knit Muslim family. It was clear to his relatives that he was wrestling with both his love for Diana and what he knew he had to do if he wished to pursue a serious medical career. A bad augury for Khan was a Sunday Mirror story on June 29 alleging that he and Diana had become unofficially engaged after the "astonishing family summit that sealed their love" in Pakistan in May.
In Snell's account, Khan, forced into the open, expressed to a trusted Pakistani confidant his agony about what to do. His friend's advice was unequivocal: "End the affair and get on with [your] life."
Resolved to do that, Hasnat met Diana in an agreed-upon spot in Hyde Park at 10 o'clock one hot night in the second week of July. Knowing she was to be rejected, Diana reproached him with scalding words and tears. She could not really accept that it was over. But Khan was not a man who played games. In August the Khan family, returning to Lahore, gave Hasnat gifts for the beautiful princess who had visited them. He told them to mail them to her instead. He wouldn't be seeing Diana anymore.