'Name it.'

'It is best named Amor.'

There was a writhing in the frame of the hearer, for she did want Love to
be respected; not shadowed by her misfortune. Her still-flushed senses
protested on behalf of the eternalness of the passion, and she was
obliged to think Emma's cold condemnatory intellect came of the no
knowledge of it.

A letter from Mr. Tonans, containing an enclosure, was a sharp trial of
Diana's endurance of the irony of Fate. She had spoken of the irony in
allusion to her freedom. Now that, according to a communication from her
lawyers, she was independent of the task of writing, the letter which
paid the price of her misery bruised her heavily.

'Read it and tear it all to strips,' she said in an abhorrence to Emma,
who rejoined: 'Shall I go at once and see him?'

'Can it serve any end? But throw it into the fire. Oh! no simulation of
virtue. There was not, I think, a stipulated return for what I did. But
I perceive clearly--I can read only by events--that there was an
understanding. You behold it. I went to him to sell it. He thanks me,
says I served the good cause well. I have not that consolation. If I
had thought of the cause--of anything high, it would have arrested me.
On the fire with it!'

The letter and square slip were consumed. Diana watched the blackening
papers.