The windows were open still, and the dusky air without was full of cool freshness. In the wide fireplace the minister had kindled a fire; and in a little blue teapot he was just making the tea; the kettle stood on the hearth. It was as pretty and cheerful a home view as any bride need wish to see for the first evening in her new house. Diana knew it, and took the effect, which possibly was only heightened by the consciousness that she wished herself five hundred miles away. What the picture was to her husband she had no idea, nor that the crowning feature of it was her own beautiful, sweet presence. Miss Collins brought in the prepared dishes, and left the two alone.
"I see I have fallen into new hands," the minister remarked presently."Mrs. Persimmon never cooked these eggs."
"You must have been tired of living in that way, I should think."
"No,—I never get tired of anything."
"Not of bad things?"
"No. I get rid of them."
"But how can you?"
"Different ways."
"Can you do everything you want to, Basil?" his wife asked, with an incredulous sort of admiration.
"I'll do everything you want me to do."
"You have already,—and more," she said with a sigh.
"How will your helpmeet in the other room answer the purpose?"
"I have never been used to have anybody, you know, Basil; and I do not need any one. I can do all easily myself."
"I know you can. I do not wish you should."
"Then what will you give me to do?"
"Plenty."
"I don't care what—if I can only be busy. I cannot bear to be idle.What shall I do, Basil?"
"Is there nothing you would like to study, that you have never had a chance to learn?"
"Learn?" said Diana, a whole vista of possible new activities opening all at once before her mind's eye;—"O yes! I would like to learn—to study. What, Basil?"
"What would you like to take hold of?"
"I would like—Latin."
"Latin!" cried the minister. "That's an excellent choice. Greek too?"
"I would like to learn Greek, very much. But I suppose I must begin with one at once."
"How about modern languages?"
"You know," said Diana shyly,—"I can have no teacher but you."
"And you stand in doubt as to my qualifications? Prudent!"
"I will learn anything you like to teach me," said Diana; and her look was both very sweet and very humble; withal had something of an anxious strain in it.
"Then there's another thing; don't you want to help me?"
"How?"
"In my work."
"How can I?"
"I don't believe you know what my work is," said the minister dryly."Do you, now?"
"I thought I did," said Diana.
"Preaching sermons, to wit!" said the minister. "But that is only one item. My business is to work in my Master's vineyard."
"Yes, and I thought that was how you did it."
"But a man may preach many sermons, and do never a bit of work,—of the sort I mentioned."
"What is the sort, then, Basil?"
"I'll show you when we get away from the table. It is time you knew."
So, when the supper tray and Miss Collins were gone, the minister took his Bible and made Diana sit down beside him where they could both look over it.
"Your notion of a minister is, that he is a sort of machine to make sermons?"
"I never thought you were amachine, of any sort," said Diana gently.
"No, of course not; but you thought that was my special business, didn't you? Now look here.—'Son of man, I have made thee a watchman unto the house of Israel: therefore hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me.'"
"A watchman"—Diana repeated.
"It is a responsible post, too, for see over here,—'If the watchman see the sword come, and blow not the trumpet, and the people be not warned; if the sword come, and take any person from among them, he is taken away in his iniquity;but his blood will I require at the watchman's hand.'"
"Do you mean, Basil"—
"Yes, I mean all that. You can understand now what was in Paul's mind, and what a great word it was, when he said to the Ephesian elders, 'I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men.' He had done his whole duty in that place!"
"I never felt that old Mr. Hardenburgh warned us against anything,"Diana remarked.
"Did I?"
"You began to make me uncomfortable almost as soon as you came."
"That's good," said the minister quietly. "Now see these words, Diana,—'Go ye into all the world, and tell the good news to everybody.'"
"'Preach the gospel'"—said Diana.
"That is simply, telling the good news."
"Is it?"
"Certainly."
"But, Basil, it never seemed so."
"There was a reason for that. 'As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.' You were not thirsty, that is all."
"Basil," said Diana, almost tremulously, "I think I am now."
"Well," said her husband tenderly, "you know who could say, and did say, 'If any man thirst, let him come unto ME and drink.' 'I am the bread of life; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.'"
That bringing together of need and supply, while yet Need does not see how it is to stretch out its hand to take the supply—how sharp and how pitiful it makes the sense of longing! Diana drooped her head till it touched Basil's arm; it seemed to her that her heart would fairly break.
"But that doesn't mean"—she said, bringing out her words with hesitation and difficulty,—"that does not mean hunger of every sort?"
"Yes."
"Of earthly sorts, Basil? how can it? people's desires for so many things?"
"Is there any limit or qualification to the promise?"
"N-o; not there."
"Is there anywhere else?"
Diana was silent.
"There is none anywhere, except the limit put by the faith of the applicant. I have known a person starving to death, relieved for the time even from the pangs of bodily hunger by the food which Christ gave her. There is no condition of human extremity for which he is not sufficient."
"But," said Diana, still speaking with difficulty, "that is for some people."
"For some people—and for everybody else."
"But—he would not like to have anybody go to him just for such a reason."
"He will never askwhyyou came, if you come. He was in this world to relieve misery, and to save from it. 'Him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out,' is his own word. He will help you if you will let him, Diana."
Diana's head pressed more heavily against Basil's arm; the temptation was to break out into wild weeping at this contact of sympathy, but she would not. Did her husband guess how much she was in want of help? That thought half frightened her. Presently she raised her head and sat up.
"Here is another verse," said her husband, "which tells of a part of my work. 'Go ye into the highways, and as many as ye shall find,bid to the marriage.'"
"I don't understand"—
"'The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son,'—it means rather a wedding entertainment."
"How, Basil?"
"The Bridegroom is Christ. The bride is the whole company of his redeemed. The time is by and by, when they shall be all gathered together, all washed from defilement, all dressed in the white robes of the king's court which are given them, and delivered from the last shadow of mortal sorrow and infirmity. Then in glory begins their perfected, everlasting union with Christ; then the wedding is celebrated; and the supper signifies the fulness and communion of his joy in them and their joy in him."
Basil's voice was a little subdued as he spoke the last words, and he paused a few minutes.
"It is my business to bid people to that supper," he said then; "and I bid you, Di."
"I will go, Basil."
But the words were low and the tears burst forth, and Diana hurried away.
Diana plunged herself now into business. She was quite in earnest in the promise she had made at the end of the conversation last recorded; but to set about a work is one thing and to carry it through is another; and Diana did not immediately see light. In the meanwhile, the pressure of the bonds of her new existence was only to be borne by forgetting it in intense occupation. Her husband wanted her to study many things; for her own sake and for his own sake he wished it, knowing that her education had been exceedingly one-sided and imperfect; he wanted all sources of growth and pleasure to be open to her, and he wanted full communion with his wife in his own life and life-work. So he took her hands from the frying-pan and the preserving kettle, and put dictionaries and philosophies into them. On her part, besides the negative incitement of losing herself and her troubles in books, Diana's mental nature was too sound and rich not to take kindly the new seeds dropped into the soil. She had gone just far enough in her own private reading and thinking to be all ready to spring forward in the wider sphere to which she was invited, and in which a hand took hers to help her along. The consciousness of awakening power, too, and of enlarging the bounds of her world, drew her on. Sometimes in Basil's study, where he had arranged a place for her, sometimes down-stairs in her own little parlour, Diana pored over books and turned the leaves of dictionaries; and felt her way along the mazes of Latin stateliness, or wondered and thrilled at the beauty of the Greek words of the New Testament as her husband explained them to her. Or she wrought out problems; or she wrote abstracts; or she dived into depths of philosophical speculation. Then Diana began to learn French, and very soon was delighting herself in one or other of a fine collection of French classics which filled certain shelves in the library. There was, besides all the motives above mentioned which quickened and stimulated her zeal for learning, another very subtle underlying cause which had not a little to do with her unflagging energy in pursuit of her objects. Nay, there were two. Diana did earnestly wish to please her husband, and for his sake to become, so far as cultivation would do it, a fit companion for him. That she knew. But she scarcely knew, how beneath all that, and mightier than all that, was the impulse to make herself worthy of the other man whose companion now she would never be. Subtle, as so many of our springs of action are, unrecognised, it drove her with an incessant impulse. To be such a woman as Evan would have been proud of; such a one as he would have liked to stand by his side anywhere; one that he need not have feared to present in any society. Diana strove for it, and that although Evan would never know it, and it did not in the least concern him. And as she felt from time to time that she was attaining her end and coming nearer and nearer to what she wished to be, Diana was glad with a secret joy, which was not the love of knowledge, nor the pride of personal ambition, nor the duty of an affectionate wife. As I said, she did not recognise it; if she had, I think she would have tried to banish it.
One afternoon she was sitting by her table at the study window, where she had been very busy, but was not busy now. The window was open; the warm summer air came in, and over the hills and the lowland the brilliance and glow of the evening sunlight was just at its brightest. Diana sat gazing out, while her thoughts went wandering. Suddenly she pulled them up; and her question was rather a departure, though standing in a certain negative connection with them.
"Basil, I can't make out just whatfaithis."
"Cannot you?"
"No. Can you help me? The Bible says, 'believe,' 'believe.' I believe. I believe everything it tells me, and you tell me; but I have not faith."
"How do you know that?"
"If I had, I should be a Christian."
"And you think you are not?"
"I am sure I am not."
"Are you willing?"
"I think—I am willing," Diana answered slowly, looking out into the sunlight.
"If you are right, then faith must be something more than mere belief."
"What more is it?" she said eagerly, turning her face towards him now.
"I think the heart has its part in it as well as the head, and it is with the heart that the difficulty lies. In true Bible faith, the heart gives its confidence where the intellect has given its assent. 'With the heartman believeth unto righteousness.' That is what the Lord wants;—our personal trust in him; unreserved and limitless trust."
"Trust?" said Diana. "Then why cannot I give it? why don't I?"
"That is the question to be answered. But, Di, the heart cannot yield that confident trust, so long as there is any point in dispute between it and God; so long as there is any consciousness of holding back something from him or refusing something to him. Disobedience and trust cannot go together. It is not the child who is standing out in rebellion who can stretch out his hand for his father's gifts, and know that they will be given."
"Do you think I am rebelling, Basil?"
"I cannot see into your heart, Di."
"What could I be 'holding back' from God?"
"Unconditional surrender."
"Surrender of what?"
"Yourself—your will. When you have made that surrender, there will be no difficulty about trusting. There never is."
Diana turned to the window again, and leaning her head on her hand, sat motionless for a long time. Sunlight left the bottom lands and crept up the hills and faded out of the sky. Dusk and dews of twilight fell all around, and the dusk deepened till the stars began to shine out here and there. Sweet summer scents came in on the dew-freshened air; sweet chirrup of insects made their gentle running commentary on the silence; Miss Collins had long ago caused the little bell with which she was wont to notify her employers that their meals were ready, to sound its tinkling call to supper; but Diana had not heard it, and the minister would not disturb her. It was after a very long time of this silence that she rose, came to the table where he was sitting, and knelt down beside it.
"I believe," she said. "And Itrust, Basil."
He took her hand, but said nothing otherwise. He could not see her face, for she had laid it down upon some books, and besides the room was very dusky now. But when he expected some further words which should tell of relief or joy, to his surprise he felt that Diana was weeping, and then that her tears had grown into a storm. Most strange for her, who very rarely let him or anyone see the outbursts of such feeling; indeed, even by herself she was very slow to come to the indulgence of tears. It was not her way. Now, before she was aware, they were flowing; and as it is with some natures, if you open the sluice-gates at all, a flood pours forth which makes it impossible to shut them again for a while. And this time I think she forgot that anybody was by. He was puzzled. Was it joy or sorrow? Hard for herself to tell, there was so much of both in it. For, with the very first finding of a sufficient refuge and help for her trouble, Diana had brought her burden to his feet, and there was weeping convulsively; partly from the sense of the burden, partly with the sense of laying it down, and with the might of that infinite sympathy the apprehension of which was beginning to dawn upon her now for the first time. What is it like? O, what is it like! It is the "Dayspring from on high." Basil could not read all she was feeling and spell it out. But I think he had a sort of instinct of it, and felt that his wife was very far from him, in this her agony of joy and sorrow; for he kept motionless, and his broad brow, which never was wrinkled, was very grave. One hand he laid lightly upon Diana's shoulder, as if so to remind her of his presence and close participation in all that concerned her; otherwise he did not interrupt her nor make any claim upon her attention.
Gradually Diana's sobs ceased; and then she grew utterly still; and the two sat so together, for neither of them knew how long. At last Diana raised her head.
"You have had no supper all this while!" she said.
"I have had something much better," said he, gently kissing her cheek.
"To see me cry?" said Diana. "I don't know why I cried."
"I think I do. Don't you feel better for it?"
"Yes. Or else, for that which made me do so. Come down, Basil."
At tea she was perfectly herself and quite as usual, except for the different expression in her face. It was hardly less grave than before, but something dark had gone out and something light had come in.
"I can face the Sewing Society now," she remarked towards the end of the meal.
"The Sewing Society!" her husband echoed. "Is that much to face?"
"I have not been once since I was married. And they make so much fuss about it, I must go now. They meet to-morrow at mother's."
"What do they sew?"
"They pretend to be making up a box for some missionary out west."
"I guess there is no pretence about it."
"Yes, there is. They have been eight months at work upon a box to go to Iowa somewhere, to a family very much in want of everything; and the children and mother are almost, or quite, I guess, in rags, and the ladies here are comfortably doing a little once a week, and don't even expect to have the box made up till Christmas time. Think of the people in Iowa waiting and waiting, with hardly anything to put on, while we meet once a week and sew a little, and talk, and have supper."
"How would you manage it?"
"I would send off the box next week, Basil."
"So would I. Suppose now we do?"
"Send off a box?"
"Yes. I will give you the money;—you can go—I will drive you—down to Gunn's, and you can get there whatever you think would be suitable, and we will have the fun to ourselves."
The colour flushed into Diana's face; it was the first flush of pleasure that had come there in a long while.
"You are very good, Basil!" she said. "Don't you think I could driveSaladin?"
"Where?"
"Anywhere. I mean, that I could go to places then without troubling you to drive me."
"I can stand so much trouble. It is not good for a man to live too easy."
"But it might be convenient for you sometimes."
"So it might, and pleasant for you. No, I should not like to trust you to Saladin. I wonder if your mother would let me have Prince, if I offer her a better horse in exchange. Perhaps I can do better than that. We will see."
"O, Basil, you must not get another horse for me!"
"I will get anything I like for you."
"But do you mean, and keep Saladin too?"
"I mean that. Saladin is necessary to me."
"Then don't, Basil. I can tell you, people will say you are extravagant if you have two horses."
"I cannot help people talking scandal."
"No; but it will hurt your influence."
"Well, we will feel the pulse of the public to-morrow. But I think they would stand it."
They drove down to Mrs. Starling's the next day. Mr. Masters had other business, and must go farther. Diana went in alone. She was early, for she had come to help her mother make the preparations; and at first these engrossed them both.
"Well," said Mrs. Starling, when some time had passed,—"how do you get along with your husband?"
Diana's eyes opened slightly. "It would be a very strange person that could not get on with Mr. Masters," she answered.
"Easy, is he? I hate easy men! The best of 'em are helpless enough; but when you get one of the easy soft, they are consented if every door hangs on one hinge."
Diana made no answer.
"How does your girl get along?"
"Very well. Pretty well."
"What you want with a girl, I don't see."
"I didn't either. But Mr. Masters wants me to do other things."
"Set you up to be a lady! Well, the world's full o' fools."
"I am as busy, mother, as ever I was in my life."
"Depends on what you call business. Making yourself unfit for business, I should say. Call it what you like. I suppose he is your humble servant, and just gives you your own way."
"He is not that sort of man at all, mother. He is as kind as he can be; but he is nobody's humble servant."
"Then I suppose you are his. There is somebody now, Diana; it's Kate Boddington. Do go in and take care of her,—you can do so much,—and keep her from coming out here where I am."
"Well, Di!" exclaimed her relative as Diana met her. "Ain't it a sight to seeyouat the sewin' meetin'! Why haven't you been before? Seems to me, you make an uncommon long honeymoon of it."
Diana's natural sweetness and dignity, and furthermore, the great ballast of old pain and new gladness which lay deep down in her heart, kept her quite steady and unruffled under all such breezes. She had many of the like to meet that day; and the sweet calm and poise of her manner through them all would have done honour to the most practised woman of the world. Most of her friends and neighbours here collected had scarce seen her since her marriage, unless in church; and they were curious to know how she would carry herself, and curious in general about many things. It was a sort of battery that Diana had to face, and sometimes a masked battery; but it was impossible to tell whether a shot hit.
"What I want to know," said Mrs. Boddington, "is, where the minister and you made it up, Di. You were awful sly about it!"
"Ain't that so?" chimed in Mrs. Carpenter. "I never had no notion o' what was goin' on—not the smallest idee; and I was jest a sayin' one day to Miss Gunn, or somebody—I declare I don't know now who 'twas, I was so dumbfounded when the news come, it took all my memory away;—but I was jes' a sayin' to somebody, and I remember it because I'd jes' been after dandelion greens and couldn't find none; they was jest about past by then, and bitter; and we was a settin' with our empty baskets; and I was jes' tellin' somebody, I don't know who 'twas, who I thought would make a good wife for the minister; when up comes Mrs. Starling's Josiah and reaches me the invitation. 'There!' says I; 'if he ain't a goin' to have Diana Starling!' I was beat."
"I daresay you could have fitted him just as well," remarked Mrs.Starling.
"Wall, I don't know. I was thinkin',—but I guess it's as well not to say now what I was thinkin'."
"That's so!" assented Miss Barry. "I don't believe he thinks nobody could ha' chosen for him no better than he has chosen for himself."
"Men never do know what is good for them," Mrs. Salter remarked, but not ill-naturedly; on the contrary, there was a gleam of fun in her face.
"I'm thankful, anyway, he hain't done worse," said another lady. "I used to be afraid he would go and get himself hitched to a fly-away."
"Euphemie Knowlton?" said Mrs. Salter. "Yes, I used to wonder if we shouldn't get our minister's wife from Elmfield. It looked likely at one time."
"Those two wouldn't ha' pulled well together, ne—ver," said another.
"I should like to know how he and Di's goin' to pull together?" saidMrs. Flandin acidly. "He goin' one way, and she another."
"Do you think so, Mrs. Flandin?" asked the lady thus in a very uncomplimentary manner referred to.
"Wall—ain't it true?" said Mrs. Flandin judicially.
"I do not think it is true."
"Wall, I'm glad to hear it, I'm sure," said the other; "but there's a word in the Scriptur' about two walking together when they ain't agreed."
"Mr. Masters and I are agreed," said Diana, while her lips parted in a very slight smile, and a lovely tinge of rose-colour came over her cheeks.
"But not in everything, I reckon?"
"In everything I know," said Diana steadily, while a considerable breeze of laughter went round the room. Mrs. Flandin was getting the worst of it.
"Then it'll be the worse for him!" she remarked with a jerk at her sewing. Diana was silent now, but Mrs. Boddington took it up.
"Do you mean to say, Mis' Flandin, you approve of quarrels between man and wife? and quarrels in high places, too?"
"High places!" echoed Mrs. Flandin. "When it says that a minister is to be the servant of all!"
"And ain't he?" said Mrs. Carpenter. "Is there a place or a thing our minister don't go to if he's wanted? and does he mind whether it's night or day, or rough or smooth? and does he care how fur it is, or how long he goes without his victuals? I will say, I never did see a no more self-forgetful man than is Mr. Masters; and I've a good right to know, and I say it with feelin's of gratitude."
"That's jes' so," said Miss Barry, her eyes glistening over her knitting, which they did not need to watch. And there was a hum of assent through the room.
"I'm not sayin' nothin' aginhim," said Mrs. Flandin in an injured manner; "but what I was hintin', I warn'tsayin'nothin', is that he's married a"—
"A beauty"—said Mrs. Boddington.
"I don't set no count on beauty," said the other. "I allays think, ef a minister is a servant of the Lord, and I hope Mr. Masters is, it's a pity his wife shouldn't be too. That's all."
"But I am, Mrs. Flandin," said Diana quietly.
"What?"
"A servant of the Lord."
"Since when?" demanded the other incredulously.
"Does it matter, since when?" said Diana, with a calm gentleness which spoke for her. "I was not always so, but I am now."
"Hev'youmet with a change?" the other asked, again judicially, and critically.
"Yes."
"Ain't that good news, now!" said Miss Barry, dropping her knitting and fairly wiping her eyes.
"I hope your evidence is clear," said the other lady.
"Do you want to hear what they are?" said Diana. "I have come to know the Lord Jesus—I have come to believe in him—I have given myself to be his servant. As truly his servant, though not so good a one, as my husband is. But what he bids me, I'll do."
The little assembly was silent, silent all round. Both the news and the manner of the teller of it were imposing. Decided, clear, calm, sweet, Diana's grey eyes as well as her lips gave her testimony; they did not shrink from other eyes, nor droop in hesitation or difficulty; as little was there a line of daring or self-assertion about them. The dignity of the woman struck and hushed her companions.
"Our minister'll be a happy man, I'm thinkin'," said good Mrs.Carpenter, speaking out what was the secret thought of many present.
"You haven't joined the church, Diana," said Mrs. Starling harshly.
"I will do that the first opportunity, mother."
"That's your husband's doing. I allays knew he'd wile a bird off a bush!"
"I am very thankful to him," said Diana calmly.
That calm of hers was unapproachable. It would neither take offence nor give it; although, it is true, it did irritate some of her neighbours and companions by the very distance it put between them and her. Diana was different from them, and growing more different; yet it was hard to find fault. She was so handsome, too; that helped the effect of superiority. And her dress; what was there about her dress? It was a pale lilac muslin, no way remarkable in itself; but it fell around lines so soft and noble, and about so queenly a carriage, it waved with so quiet and graceful motions, there was a temptation to think Diana must have called in dressmaking aid that was not lawful—for the minister's wife. As the like often happens, Diana was set apart by a life-long sorrow from all their world of experience,—and they thought she was proud.
"What did you pay for that muslin, Diana?" Mrs. Flandin asked.
"Fifteenpence."
"Du tell! well I should ha' thought it was more," remarked Miss Gunn."It's made so elegant."
"I made it myself," said Diana, smiling.
"Du tell!" said Miss Gunn again, reviewing the gown. For, as I hinted, its draperies were graceful, their lovely lines being unbroken by furbelows and flummery; and the sleeves were open and half long, with a full ruffle which fell away from Diana's beautiful arms.
"How Phemie Knowlton used to dress!" Miss Gunn went on, moved by some hidden association of ideas.
"I wonder is nobody ever comin' back to Elmfield?" said Mrs.Boddington. "They don't do nothin' with the place, and it's just waste."
The talk wandered on; but Diana's thoughts remained fixed. They had flown back over the two years since Evan and she had their explanation in the blackberry field, and for a little while she sat in a dream, feeling the stings of pain, that seemed, she thought, to grow more lively now instead of less. The coming in of Mr. Masters roused her, and with a sort of start she put away the thought of Evan, and of days and joys past for ever, and forcibly swung herself back to present things. People were very well-behaved after her husband came, and she did her part, she knew, satisfactorily; for she saw his eye now and then resting on her or meeting hers with the hidden smile in it she had learned to know. And besides, nothing was ever dull or commonplace where he was; so even in Mrs. Starling's house and Mrs. Flandin's presence, the rest of the evening went brightly off. And then, driving home, through the light of a young moon and over the quiet country, Diana watched the wonderful calm line where the hill-tops met the sky; and thought, surely, with the talisman she had just found of heavenly love and sympathy and strength, she could walk the rest of her way through life and bear it till the end. Then, by and by, beyond that dividing line of eternity, there would be bright heaven, instead of the dusky earth. If only she could prevent Basil from knowing how she felt, and so losing all peace in life himself. But his peace was so fixed in heaven, she wondered if anything on earth could destroy it? She would not try that question.
It was well for Diana that she had got a talisman of better power than the world can manufacture. It was well for her, too, that she followed up earnestly the clue to life which had been given her. If you have a treasure-house of supplies, and are going to have to get to it in the dark by and by, it is good to learn the way very well while the light is there. For weeks Diana gave herself before all other things to the study of her Bible, and to better understanding of faith's duties and privileges. In all this, Basil was a great help; and daily his wife learned more and more to admire and revere the mind and temper of the man she had married. Reverence would have led surely to love, in such a nature as Diana's; but Diana's heart was preoccupied. What love could not do, however, conscience and gratitude did as far as possible. Nothing that concerned Basil's comfort or honour was uncared for by his wife. So, among other things, she never intrusted the care of his meals entirely to Miss Collins; and quite to that lady's discomfiture, would often come into the kitchen and prepare some nice dish herself, or superintend the preparation of it. Miss Collins resented this. She shared the opinion of some of the ladies of the Sewing Society, that Mrs. Masters was quite proud and needed to be "taken down" a bit; and if she got a good chance, she had it in her mind to do a little of the "taking down" herself.
It was one evening late in September. Frosts had hardly set in yet, and every change in the light and colour carried Diana's mind back to Evan and two years ago, and mornings and evenings of that time which were so filled with nameless joys and hopes. Diana did not give herself to these thoughts nor encourage them; they came with the suddenness and the start of lightning. Merely the colour of a hill at sunset was enough to flash back her thoughts to an hour when she was looking for Evan; or a certain sort of starlight night would recall a particular walk along the meadow fence; or a gust and whiff of the wind would bring with it the thrill that belonged to one certain stormy September night that never faded in her remembrance. Or the smell of coffee sometimes, when it was just at a certain stage of preparation, would turn her heart-sick. These associations and remembrances were countless and incessant always under the reminders of the September light and atmosphere; and Diana could not escape from them, though as soon as they came she put them resolutely away.
This evening Mr. Masters was out. Diana knew he had gone a long ride and would be tired,—that is, if he ever could be tired,—and would be certainly ready for his supper when he came in. So she went out to make ready a certain dish of eggs which she knew he liked. Such service as this she could do, and she did. There was no thoughtful care, no smallest observance, which could have been rendered by the most devoted affection, which Diana did not give to her husband. Except,—she never offered a kiss, or laid her hand in his or upon his shoulder. Happily for her, Basil was not a particularly demonstrative man; for every caress from him was "as vinegar upon nitre;" she did not show repulsion, that was all.
"I guess I kin do that, Mis' Masters," said her handmaid, who always preferred to keep the kitchen for her own domain. Diana made no answer. She was slowly and delicately peeling her eggs, and probably did not notice the remark. Miss Collins, however, resented the neglect.
"Mr. Masters is gone a great deal. It's sort o' lonesome up here on the hill. Dreadfully quiet, don't you think it is?"
"I like quiet," Diana answered absently.
"Du, hey? Wall, I allays liked life. I never could git too much o' that. I should like a soldier's life uncommon,—if I was a man."
Diana had finished peeling her eggs, and now began to wash a bunch of green parsley which she had fetched from the garden, daintily dipping it up and down in a bowl of spring-water.
"It was kind o' lively down to the post office," Miss Collins remarked again, eyeing the beautiful half-bared arm and the whole figure, which in its calm elegance was both imposing and irritating to her. Miss Collins, indeed, had a very undefined sense of the beautiful; yet she vaguely knew that nobody else in Pleasant Valley looked so or carried herself so; no other woman's dress adorned her so, or was so set off by the wearer; although Diana's present attire was a very simply-made print gown, not even the stylish ladies of Elmfield produced an equal effect with their French dresses. And was not Diana "Mis' Starling's daughter?" And Diana seemed not to hear or care what she had to say!
"Everybody comes to the post office," she went on grimly; "you hev' only to watch, and you see all the folks; and you know all that is goin' on. An' that suits me 'xactly."
"But you had nothing to do with the post office," said Diana. "How could you see everybody?"
"You keep your eyes open, and you'll see things, most places," said Miss Collins. "La! I used to be in and out; why shouldn't I? And now and then I'd say to Miss Gunn—'You're jest fagged out with standin' upon your feet; you jes' go in there and sit down by the fire, and don't let the pot bile over and put it out; and I'll see to the letters and the folks.' And so she did, and so I did. It was as good as a play."
"How?" said Diana, feeling a vague pain at the thought of the post office; that place where her hopes had died. Somehow there was a vague dread in her heart also, without any reason.
"Wall—you git at folks' secrets—if they have any," Miss Collins answered, suddenly checking her flow of words. Diana did not ask again; the subject was disagreeable. She began to cut up her parsley deftly with a sharp knife; and her handmaid stood and looked at her.
"Some folks thought, you know, at one time, that Mr. Masters was courtin' Phemie Knowlton. I didn't let on, but la! I knowed it warn't so. Why, there warn't never a letter come from her to him, nor went from him to her."
"She was here herself," said Diana; "why should they write? You could tell nothing by that."
"She warn't here after she had gone away," said Miss Collins; "and that was jes' the time when I knowed all about it. I knowed about other people too."
That was also the time after Evan had quitted Pleasant Valley. YetDiana did not know why she could not keep herself from trembling. IfEvanhadwritten, then, this Jemima Collins and her employer, MissGunn, would have known it and drawn their conclusions. Well, they hadno data to go upon now.
"Bring me a little saucepan, Jemima, will you?"
Jemima brought it. Now her mistress (but she never called her so) would be away and off in a minute or two more, and leave her to watch the saucepan, she knew, and her opportunity would be over. Still she waited to choose her words.
"You ain't so fond o' life as I be," she observed.
"Perhaps not," said Diana. "I do not think I should like a situation in the post office."
"But I should ha' thought you'd ha' liked to go all over the world and see everything. Now Pleasant Valley seems to me something like a corner. Why didn't you?"
"Why didn't I what?" said Diana, standing up. She had been stooping down over her saucepan, which now sat upon a little bed of coals.
"La! you needn't look at me like that," said Miss Collins, chuckling. "It's no harm. You had your ch'ice, and you chose it; onlyIwould have took the other."
"The other what?Whatwould you have taken?"
"Wall, I don' know," said Miss Collins; "to be sure, one never doos know till one is tried, they say; but if I had, I think I should ha' took 'tother one."
"I do not understand you," said Diana, walking off to the table, where she began to gather up the wrecks of the parsley stems. She felt an odd sensation of cold about the region of her heart, physically very disagreeable.
"You are hard to make understand, then," said Miss Collins. "I suppose you know you had two sweethearts, don't you? And sure enough you had the pick of the lot. 'Tain't likely you've forgotten."
"How dare you speak so?" asked Diana, not passionately, but with a sort of cold despair, eying her handmaiden.
"Dare?" said the latter. "Dare what? I ain't saying nothin'. 'Tain't no harm to have two beaux; you chose your ch'ice, andhehain't no cause to be uncontented, anyhow. About the 'tother one I don't say nothin'. I should think hewas, but that's nat'ral. I s'pose he's got over it by now. You needn't stand and look. He's fur enough off, too. Your husband won't be jealous. You knowed you had two men after you."
"I cannot imagine why you say that," Diana repeated, standing as it were at bay.
"How I come to know? That's easy. Didn't I tell you I was in the post office? La, I know, I see the letters."
"Letters!" cried Diana, in a tone which forthwith made Miss Collins open all the eyes she had. It was not a scream; it was not even very loud; yet Miss Collins went into a swift calculation to find out what was in it. Beyond her ken, happily; it was a heart's death-cry.
"Yes," she said stolidly; "I said letters. Ain't much else goin' at the post office, 'cept letters and papers; and I ain't one o' them as sets no count by the papers. La, what do I care for the news at Washington? I don't know the folks; they may all die or get married for what I care; but in Pleasant Valley I know where I be, and I know who the folks be. And that's what made me allays like to get a chance to sort the letters, or hand 'em out."
"You never saw many letters of mine," said Diana, turning away to hide her lips, which she felt were growing strange. But she must speak; she must know more.
"N—o," said Miss Collins; "not letters o' your writin,'—ef you mean that."
"Letters of mine of any sort. I don't get many letters."
"Some of 'em's big ones, when they come, My! didn't I use to wonder what was in 'em! Two stamps, andthreestamps. I s'pose feelin's makes heavy weight." Miss Collins laughed a little.
"Two stamps and three stamps?" said Diana fiercely;—"how many were there?"
"I guess I knowed of three. Two I handed out o' the box myself; and Miss Gunn, she said there was another. There was no mistakin' them big letters. They was on soft paper, and lots o' stamps, as I said."
"You gave them out? Who to?"
"To Mis' Starlin' herself. I mind partic'lerly. She come for 'em herself, and she got 'em. You don't mean she lost 'em on her way hum? They was postmarked some queer name, but they come from Californy; I know that. You hain't never forgotten 'em? I've heerd it's good to be off with the old love before you are on with the new; but I never heerd o' folks forgettin' their love-letters. La, 'tain't no harm to have love-letters. Nobody can cast that up to ye. You have chosen your ch'ice, and it's all right. I reckon most folks would be proud to have somebody else thrown over for them."
Diana heard nothing of this. She was standing, deaf and blind, seeming to look out of the window; then slowly, moved by some instinct, not reason, she went out of the kitchen and crept up-stairs to her own room and laid herself upon her bed. Deaf and blind; she could neither think nor feel; she only thought she knew that she was dead. The consciousness of the truth pressed upon her to benumbing; but she was utterly unable to separate points or look at the connection of them. She had lived and suffered before; now she was crushed and dead; that was all she knew. She could not even measure the full weight of her misery; she lay too prostrate beneath it.
So things were, when very shortly after the minister came in. He had put up his horse, and came in with his day's work behind him. Diana's little parlour was bright, for a smart fire was blazing; the evenings and mornings were cool now in Pleasant Valley; and the small table stood ready for supper, as Diana had left it. She was up-stairs, probably; and up-stairs he went, to wash his hands and get ready for the evening; for the minister was the neatest man living. There he found Diana laid upon her bed, where nobody ever saw her in the day-time; and furthermore, lying with that nameless something in all the lines of her figure which is the expression not of pain but of despair; and those who have never seen it before, read it at first sight. How it should be despair, of course, the minister had no clue to guess; so, although it struck him with a sort of strange chill, he supposed she must be suffering from some bodily ailment, in spite of the fact that nobody had ever known Diana to have so much as a headache in her life until now. Her face was hid. Basil went up softly and laid his hand on her shoulder, and felt so the slight convulsive shiver that ran over her. But his inquiries could get nothing but monosyllables in return; hardly that; rather inarticulate utterances of assent or dissent to his questions or proposals. Was she suffering?
Yes. What was the cause? No intelligible answer. Would she not come down to tea? No. Would she have anything? No. Could he do anything for her? No.
"Diana," said her husband tenderly, "is it bad news?"
There was a pause, and he waited.
"Just go down," she managed with great difficulty to say. "There is nothing the matter with me. I'll come by and by. I'll just lie still a little."
She had not shown her face, and the minister quietly withdrew, feeling that here was more than appeared on the surface. There was enough appearing on the surface to make him uneasy; and he paid no attention to Miss Collins, who brought in the supper and bustled about rather more than was necessary.
"Don't ring the bell, Jemima," Mr. Masters said. "Mrs. Masters is not coming down."
Miss Collins went on to make the tea. That was always Diana's business.
"What ails her?" she asked abruptly.
"You ought to know," said the minister. "What did she complain of."
"Complain!" echoed the handmaiden. "She was as well as you be, not five minutes afore you come in."
"How do you know?"
"Guess I had ought to! Why, she was in the kitchen talkin' and fiddle-faddlin' with them eggs; she thinks I ain't up to 'em. There warn't nothin' on earth the matter with her then. She had sot the table in here and fixed up the fire, and then she come in to the kitchen and went to work at the supper. There ain't never nothin' the matter with her."
The minister made no sort of remark, nor put any further inquiry, nor looked even curious, Miss Collins, however,did. Her brain got into a sudden confusion of possibilities. Pouring out the tea, she stood by the table reflecting what she should say next.
"I guess she's mad at me," she began slowly. "Or maybe she's afeard you'll be mad with her. La! 'tain't nothin'. I told her, you'd never be jealous. 'Tain't no harm for a girl to have two beaus, is it?"
The minister gave her a quick look from under his brows, and replied calmly that he "supposed not."
"Wall, I told her so; and now she's put out 'cause I knowed o' them letters. La, folks that has the post office can't help but know more o' what concerns their fellow-creatures than other folks doos. I handled them myself, you see, and handed them out; leastways two o' them; that warn't no fault o' mine nor of anybody's. La, she needn't to mind!"
"How much tea did you put in, Jemima?"
"I don't know, Mr. Masters. I put in a pinch. Mrs. Masters had ought to ha' been here to make it herself. She knows how you like it."
"I like more than such a pinch as this was. If you will empty the tea-pot, I will make a cup for myself. That will do, thank you."
Left alone, Mr. Masters sat for a little while with his head on his hand, neglecting the supper. Then he roused himself and went on to make some fresh tea. And very carefully and nicely he made it, poured out a cup and prepared it, put it on a little tray then, and carried it steaming and fragrant up to his wife's room. Diana was lying just as he had left her. Mr. Masters shut the door, and came to the bedside.
"Di," said he gently, "I have brought you a cup of tea."
There was neither answer nor movement. He repeated his words. She murmured an unintelligible rejection of the proposal, keeping her face carefully covered.
"No," said he, "I think you had better take it. Lift up your head, Di, and try. It is good."
The tone was tender and quiet, nevertheless Diana had known Mr. Masters long enough to be assured that when he had made up his mind to a thing, there was no bringing him off it. She would have to take the tea; and as he put his hand under her head to lift her up, she suffered him to do it. Then he saw her face. Only by the light of a candle, it is true; but that revealed more than enough. So wan, so deathly pale, so dark in the lines round the eyes, and those indescribable shadows which mental pain brings into a face, that her husband's heart sank down. No small matter, easy to blow away, had brought his strong beautiful Diana to look like that. But his face showed nothing, though indeed she never looked at it; and his voice was clear and gentle just as usual in the few words he said. He held the cup to her lips, and after she had drank the tea and lay down again, he passed his hand once or twice with a tender touch over her brow and the disordered hair. Then, with no more questions or remarks, he took away the candle and the empty cup, and Diana saw him no more that night.
The mischief-maker slept peacefully till morning. Nobody else. Diana did not keep awake, it is true; she was at that dull stage of misery when something like stupor comes over the brain; she slumbered heavily from time to time. Nature does claim such a privilege sometimes. It was Basil who watched the night through; watched and prayed. There was no stupor in his thoughts; he had a very full, though vague, realization of great evil that had come upon them both. He was very near the truth, too, after an hour or two of pondering. Putting Miss Collins' hints, Diana's own former confessions, and her present condition together, he saw, clearer than it was good to see, the probable state of affairs. And yet he was glad to see it; if any help or bettering was ever to come, it was desirable that his vision should be true, and his wisdom have at least firm data to act upon. But what action could touch the case?—the most difficult that a man can have to deal with. Through the night Basil alternately walked the floor and knelt down, sometimes at his study table, sometimes before the open window, where it seemed almost as if he could read signs of that invisible sympathy he was seeking. The air was a little frosty, but very still; he kept up a fire in his chimney, and Basil was not one of those ministers who live in perpetual terror about draughts; it was a comfort to him to-night to look off and away from earth, even though he could not see into heaven. The stars were witnesses to him and for him, in their eternal calmness. "He calleth them all by their names; for that he is strong in power, not one faileth. Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is passed over from my God?"—And in answer to the unspoken cry of appeal that burst forth as he knelt there by the window—"O Lord, my strength, my fortress, and my refuge in the day of affliction!"—came the unspoken promise: "The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee." The minister had something such a night of it as Jacob had before his meeting with Esau; with the difference that there was no lameness left the next morning. Before the dawn came up, when the stars were fading, Basil threw himself on the lounge in his study, and went into a sleep as deep and peaceful as his sleeps were wont to be. And when he rose up, after some hours, he was entirely himself again; refreshed and restored and ready for duty. Neither could anybody, that day or afterwards, see the slightest change in him from what he had been before.
He went out and attended to his horse; the minister always did that himself. Then came in and changed his dress, and went through his morning toilet with the usual dainty care. Then he went in to see Diana.
She had awaked at last out of her slumberous stupor, sorry to see the light and know that it was day again. Another day! Why should there be another day for her? what use? why could she not die and be out of her trouble? Another day! and now would come, had come, the duties of it; how was she to meet them? how could she do them? life energy was gone. She was dead; how was she to play the part of the living, and among the living? What mockery! And Basil, what would become of him? As for Evan, Diana dared not so much in her thoughts as even to glance his way. She had risen half up in bed—she had not undressed at all—and was sitting with her arms slung round her knees, gazing at the daylight and wondering vaguely about all these things, when the door between the rooms swung lightly open. If she had dared, Diana would have crouched down and hid her face again; she was afraid to do that; she sat stolidly still, gazing out at the window. Look at Basil she could not. His approach filled her with so great a feeling of repulsion that she would have liked to spring from the bed and flee,—anywhere, away and away, where she would see him no more. No such flight was possible. She sat motionless and stared at the window, keeping down the internal shiver which ran over her.
Basil came with his light quick step and stood beside her; took her hand and felt her pulse.
"You are not feeling very well, Di," he said gravely.
"Well enough,"—said Diana. "I will get up and be down presently."
"Will you?" said he. "Now I think you had better not. The best thing you can do will be to lie still here and keep quiet all day. May I prescribe for you?"
"Yes. I will do what you please," said Diana. She never looked at him, and he knew it.
"Then this is what I think you had better do. Get up and take a bath; then put on your dressing-gown and lie down again. You shall have your breakfast up here—and I will let nobody come up to disturb you."
"I'm not hungry. I don't want anything."
"You are a little feverish—but you will be better for taking something. Now you get your bath—and I'll attend to the breakfast."
He kissed her brow gravely, guessing that she would rather he did not, but knowing nevertheless that he might and must; for he was her husband, and however gladly she, and unselfishly he, would have broken the relation between them, it subsisted and could not be broken. And then he went down-stairs.
"Where's Mis' Masters?" demanded Jemima when she brought in the breakfast-tray, standing attention.
"Not coming down."
"Ain't anything ails her, is there?"
"Yes. But I don't know how serious. Give me the kettle, Jemima; I told her to lie still, and that I would bring her a cup of tea."
"I'll take it up, Mr. Masters; and you can eat your breakfast."
"Thank you. I always like to keep my promises. Fetch in the kettle,Jemima."
Jemima dared not but obey. So when Diana, between dead and alive, had done as she was bid, taken her bath, and wrapped in her dressing-gown was laid upon her bed again, her husband made his appearance with a little tray and the tea. There had been a certain bodily refreshment about the bath and the change of dress, but with that little touch of the everyday work of life there had come such a rebellion against life in general and all that it held, that Diana was nearly desperate. In place of dull despair, had come a wild repulsion against everything that was left her in the world; and yet the girl knew that she would neither die nor go mad, but must just live and bear. She looked at Basil and his tray with a sort of impatient horror.
"I don't want anything!" she said. "I don't want anything!"
"Try the tea. It is out of the green chest."
Diana had learned, as I said, to know her husband pretty well; and she knew that though the tone in which he spoke was very quiet, and for all a certain sweet insistence in it could scarcely be said to be urging, nevertheless there was under it something to which she must yield. His will never had clashed with hers once; nevertheless Diana had seen and known that whatever Basil wanted to do with anybody, he did. Everybody granted it to him, somehow. So did she now. She raised herself up and tasted the tea.
"Eat a biscuit—."
"I don't want it. I don't want anything, Basil."
"You must eat something, though," said he. "It is bad enough for me to have to carry along with me all day the thought of you lying here; I cannot bear in addition the thought of you starving."
"O no, I am not starving," Diana answered; and unable to endure to look at him or talk to him, she covered her face with her hands, leaning it down upon her knees. Basil did not say anything, nor did he go away; he stood beside her, with an outflow of compassion in his heart, but waiting patiently. At last touched her smooth hair with his hand.
"Di," said he gently, "look up and take something."
She hastily removed her hands, raised her head, swallowed the tea, and managed to swallow the biscuit with it. He leaned forward and kissed her brow as he had done last night.
"Now lie down and rest," said he. "I must ride over to Blackberry Hill again—and I do not know how long I may be kept there. I will tell Jemima to let no visitors come up to bother you. Lie still and rest. I will give you a pillow for your thoughts, Di.—'Under the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.'"
He went away; and Diana covered her face again. She could not bear the light. Her whole nature was in uproar. The bath and dressing, the tea, her husband's presence and words, his last words especially, had roused her from her stupor, and given her as it were a scale with which to measure the full burden of her misery. There was no item wanting, Diana thought, to make it utterly immeasurable and unbearable. If she had married a less good man, it would have been less hard to spoil all his hopes of happiness; if he had been a weaker man, she would not have cared about him at all. If any hand but her own mother's had dashed her cup of happiness out of her hand, she would have had there a refuge to go to. Most girls have their mothers. If Evan had not been sent to so distant a post—but when her thoughts dared turn to Evan, Diana writhed upon her bed in tearless agony. Evan, writing in all the freshness and strength of his love and his trust in her, those letters;—waiting and looking for her answer;—writing again and again; disappointed all the while; and at last obliged to conclude that there was no faith in her, and that her love had been a sham or a fancy. What had he not suffered on her account! even as she had suffered for him. But that he should think so of her was not to be borne; she would write. Might she write? From hiding her head on her pillow, Diana sat bolt upright now and stared at the light as if it could tell her. Might she write to Evan, just once, this once, to tell him how it had been? Would that be any wrong against her husband? Would Basil have any right to forbid her? The uneasy sense of doubt here was met by a furious rebellion against any authority that would interfere with her doing herself—as she said—so much justice, and giving herself and Evan so much miserable comfort. Could there be a right to hinder her? Suppose she were to ask Basil?—But what disclosures that would involve! Would he bear them, or could she? Better write without his knowledge. Then, on the other hand, Basil was so upright himself, so true and faithful, and trusted her so completely. No, she never could deceive his trust, not if she died. O that she could die! But Diana knew that she was not going to die. Suppose she charged her mother with what she had done, and getherto write and confess it? A likely thing, that Mrs. Starling would be wrought upon to make such a humiliation of herself! She was forced to give up that thought. And indeed she was not clear about the essential distinction between communicating directly herself with Evan, and getting another to do it for her. And what had been Mrs. Starling's motive in keeping back the letters? But Diana knew her mother, and that problem did not detain her long.
For hours and hours Diana's mind was like a stormy sea, where the thunder and the lightning were not wanting any more than the wind. Once in a while, like the faint blink of a sun-ray through the clouds, came an echo of the words Basil had quoted—"In the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge"—but they hurt her so that she fled from them. The contrast of their peace with her turmoil, of their intense sweetness with the bitter passion which was wasting her heart; the hint of that harbour for the storm-tossed vessel, which could only be entered, she knew, by striking sail; all that was unbearable. I suppose there was a whisper of conscience, too, which said, "Strike sail, and go in!"—while passion would not take down an inch of canvas.Couldnot, she said to herself. Could she submit to have things be as they were? submit, and be quiet, and accept them, and go her way accepting them, and put the thought of Evan away, and live the rest of her life as though he had no existence? That was the counsel Basil would give, she had an unrecognised consciousness; and for the present, pain was easier to bear than that. And now memory flew back over the years, and took up again the thread of her relations with Evan, and traced them to their beginning; and went over all the ground, going back and forward, recalling every meeting, and reviewing every one of those too scanty hours. For a long while she had not been able to do this, because Evan, she thought, had been faithless, and in that case she really never had had what she thought she had in him. Now she knew he was not faithless, and she had got the time and him back again, and she in a sort revelled in the consciousness. And with that came then the thought, "Too late!"—She had got him again only to see an impassable barrier set between which must keep them apart for ever. And that barrier was her husband. What the thought of Basil, or rather what his image was to Diana that day, it is difficult to tell; she shunned it whenever it appeared, with an intolerable mingling of contradictory feelings. Her fate,—and yet more like a good angel to her than anybody that had ever crossed the line of her path; the destroyer of her hope and joy for ever,—and yet one to whom she was bound, and to whom she owed all possible duty and affection; she wished it were possible never to see him again in the world, and at the same time there was not another in the world of whom she believed all the good she believed of him. His image was dreadful to her. Basil was the very centre-point of her agonized struggles that day. To be parted from Evan she could have borne, if she might have devoted herself to the memory of him and lived in quiet sorrow; but to put this man in his place!—to belong to him, to be his wife—
In proportion to the strength and health of Diana's nature was the power of her realization and the force of her will. But also the possibility of endurance. The internal fight would have broken down a less pure and sound bodily organization. It was characteristic of this natural soundness and sweetness, which was mental as well as physical, that her mother's part in the events which had destroyed her happiness had very little of her attention that day. She thought of it with a kind of sore wonder and astonishment, in which resentment had almost no share. "O, mother, mother!"—she said in her heart; but she said no more.
Miss Collins came up once or twice to see her, but Diana lay quiet, and was able to baffle curiosity.
"Are ye goin' to git up and come down to supper?" the handmaid asked in the second visit, which occurred late in the afternoon.
"I don't know. I shall do what Mr. Masters says."
"You don't look as ef there was much ailin' you;—and yet you look kind o' queer, too. I shouldn't wonder a bit ef you was a gettin' a fever. There's a red spot on one of your cheeks that's like fire. T'other one's pale enough. You must be in a fever, I guess, or you couldn't lie here with the window open."
"Leave it open—and just let me be quiet."
Miss Collins went down, marvelling to herself. But when Basil came home he found the flush spread to both cheeks, and a look in Diana's eyes that he did not like.
"How has the day been?" he asked, passing his hand over the flushed cheek and the disordered hair. Diana shrank and shivered and did not answer. He felt her pulse.
"Diana," said he, "what is the matter with you?"
She stared at him, in the utter difficulty of answering. "Basil"—she began, and stopped, not finding another word to add. For prevarication was an accomplishment Diana knew nothing of. She closed her eyes, that they might not see the figure standing there.
"Would you like me to fetch your mother to you?"