sible of my obligation. The price I pay for it is
an immovable patch-attractive to male idiots, I have heard, and a mark of
scorn to females. Between the two the remainder of my days will be
lively. "Out, out, damned spot!" But it will not. And not on the hand--on
the forehead! We'll talk of it no longer. I have sent a note, with an
enclosure, to my lawyers. I sell The Crossways, if I have the married
woman's right to any scrap of property, for money to scatter fees.'

'My purse, dear Tony!' exclaimed Emma. 'My house! You will stay with me?
Why do you shake your head? With me you are safe.' She spied at the
shadows in her friend's face. 'Ever since your marriage, Tony, you have
been strange in your trick of refusing to stay with me. And you and I
made our friendship the pledge of a belief in eternity! We vowed it.
Come, I do talk sentimentally, but my heart is in it. I beg you--all the
reasons are with me--to make my house your home. You will. You know I am
rather lonely.'

Diana struggled to keep her resolution from being broken by tenderness.
And doubtless poor Sir Lukin had learnt his lesson; still, her defensive
instincts could never quite slumber under his roof; not because of any
further fear that they would have to be summoned; it was chiefly owing to
the consequences of his treacherous foolishness. For this half-home with
her friend thenceforward denied to her, she had accepted a protector,
called husband--rashly, past credence, in the retrospect; but it had been
her propelling motive; and the loathings roused by her marriage helped to
sicken her at the idea of a lengthened stay where she had suffered the
shock precipitating her to an act of insanity.

'I do not forget you were an heiress, Emmy, and I will come to you if I
need money to keep my head up. As for staying, two reasons are against
it. If I am to fight my battle, I must be seen; I must go about--wherever
I am received. So my field is London. That is obvious. And I shall rest
better in a house where my story is not known.'

Two or three questions ensued. Diana had to fortify her fictitious
objection by alluding to her maid's prattle of the household below; and
she excused the hapless, overfed, idle people of those regions.

To Emma it seemed a not unnatural sensitiveness. She came to a settled
resolve in her thoughts, as she said, 'They want a change. London is
their element.'

Feeling that she deceived this true heart, however lightly and
necess