twenty hours.

She smiled at the fancied elongation and stare of the features of Mr.
Tonans in his editorial midnight den.

What if he knew it and could cap it with something novel and stranger?
Hardly. But it was an inciting suggestion.

She began to tremble as a lightning-flash made visible her fortunes
recovered, disgrace averted, hours of peace for composition stretching
before her: a summer afternoon's vista.

It seemed a duel between herself and Mr. Tonans, and she sure of her
triumph--Diana victrix!

'Danvers!' she called.

'Is it to undress, ma'am?' said the maid, entering to her.

'You are not afraid of the streets, you tell me. I have to go down to the
City, I think. It is urgent. Yes, I must go. If I were to impart the news
to you, your head would be a tolling bell for a month.'

'You will take a cab, ma'am.'

'We must walk out to find one. I must go, though I should have to go on
foot. Quick with bonnet and shawl; muffle up warmly. We have never been
out so late: but does it matter? You're a brave soul, I'm sure, and you
shall have your fee.'

'I don't care for money, ma'am.'

'When we get home you shall kiss me.'

Danvers clothed her mistress in furs and rich wrappings: Not paid for!
was Diana's desperate thought, and a wrong one; but she had to seem the
precipitated bankrupt and succeeded. She was near being it. The boiling
of her secret carried her through the streets rapidly and unobservantly
except of such small things as the glow of the lights on the pavements
and the hushed cognizance of the houses, in silence to a thoroughfare
where a willing cabman was met. The destination named, he nodded alertly
he had driven gentlemen there at night from the House of Commons, he
said.

'Our Parliament is now sitting, and you drive ladies,' Diana replied.

'I hope I know one, never mind the hour,' said he of the capes.

He was bidden to drive rapidly.

'Complexion a tulip: you do not often see a pale cabman,' she remarked to
Danvers, who began laughing, as she always expected to do on an excursion
with her mistress.

'Do you remember, ma'am, the cabman taking us to the coach, when you
thought of going to the continent?'

'And I went to The Crossways? I have forgotten him.'

'He declared you was so beautiful a lady he would drive you to the end of
England for nothing.'

'It must have been when I was paying him. Put it out of your mind,
Danvers, that there are individual cabmen. They are th