her dear friend.

She caught at a straw: 'Tell me, it is not Diana?'

'Diana Merion!'

As soon as he had said it he perceived pity, and he drew himself tight
for the stroke. 'She's in love with some one?'

'She is engaged.'

He bore it well. He was a big-chested fellow, and that excruciating
twist within of the revolution of the wheels of the brain snapping their
course to grind the contrary to that of the heart, was revealed in one
short lift and gasp, a compression of the tremendous change he underwent.

'Why did you not speak before?' said Lady Dunstane. Her words were
tremulous.

'I should have had no justification!'

'You might have won her!' She could have wept; her sympathy and her
self-condolence under disappointment at Diana's conduct joined to swell
the feminine flood.

The poor fellow's quick breathing and blinking reminded her of cruelty in
a retrospect. She generalized, to ease her spirit of regret, by hinting
it without hurting: 'Women really are not puppets. They are not so
excessively luxurious. It is good for young women in the early days of
marriage to rough it a little.' She found herself droning, as he had