hatever he debated, came of Diana; more than if
they had been coupled, when his downright practical good sense could have
spoken. She held him suspended, swaying him in that posture; and he was
not a whit ashamed of it. The beloved woman was throned on the very
highest of the man.

Furthermore, not being encouraged, he had his peculiar reason for delay,
though now he could offer her wealth. She had once in his hearing derided
the unpleasant hiss of the ungainly English matron's title of Mrs. There
was no harm in the accustomed title, to his taste; but she disliking it,
he did the same, on her special behalf; and the prospect, funereally
draped, of a title sweeter-sounding to her ears, was above his horizon.
Bear in mind, that he underwent the reverse of encouragement. Any small
thing to please her was magnified, and the anticipation of it nerved the
modest hopes of one who deemed himself and any man alive deeply her
inferior.

Such was the mood of the lover condemned to hear another malignant
scandal defiling the name of the woman he worshipped. Sir Lukin Dunstane,
extremely hurried, bumped him on the lower step of the busy Bank, and
said:

'Pardon!' and 'Ha! Redwarth! making money?'

'Why, what are you up to down here?' he was asked, and he answered: 'Down
to the Tower, to an officer quartered there. Not bad quarters, but an
infernal distance. Business.'

Having cloaked his expedition to the distance with the comprehensive
word, he repeated it; by which he feared he had rendered it too
significant, and he said: 'No, no; nothing particular'; and that caused
the secret he contained to swell in his breast rebelliously, informing
the candid creature of the fact of his hating to lie: whereupon thus he
poured himself out, in the quieter bustle of an alley, off the main
thoroughfare. 'You're a friend of hers. I 'm sure you care for her
reputation; you 're an old friend of hers, and she's my wife's dearest
friend; and I'm fond of her too; and I ought to be, and ought to know,
and do know:--pure? Strike off my fist if there's a spot on her
character! And a scoundrel like that fellow Wroxeter! Damnedest rage I
ever was in!--Swears . . . down at Lockton . . . when she was a girl.
Why, Redworth, I can tell you, when Diana Warwick was a girl!'

Redworth stopped him. 'Did he say it in your presence?'

Sir Lukin was drawn-up by the harsh question. 'Well, no; not exactly.' He
tried to hesitate, but he was in the hot vein of a