can we judge?"

"Ah, my dear, we don't judge," said she. "Anyhow, no judgment of ours
has any effect. It is done with as far as she is concerned."

Jeannie's face suddenly brightened into a semblance of a smile. It was
veiled, but it was but the flesh that veiled it; at the core it was
wholly loving.

"Then we are content to leave dear Diana in the hands of the Infinite
Pity?" she said. "That must be certain before we can talk further."

"But with my whole heart," said Lady Nottingham.

Again there was silence; and in that Jeannie openly dried the tears that
were on her face. She had been crying: there was no question about that.

"I had to tell you, dear Alice," she said at length. "I could not bear
it alone. You see why it is impossible, beyond the bounds of speech,
that Daisy should marry him. You see also why I thank Heaven that she
does not love him. At all costs, also, Daisy must not know why it is
impossible. That was my promise to Diana when she was dying. I would do
anything within my power and the stretched-out limits of it to prevent
her knowing. Diana, poor darling, wished for that. It was the last
request she made. It is sacred to me, as sacred as my honour."

"Do you mean to tell him?" asked Alice.

"I hope not to. I want to keep poor Diana's secret as close as can
be. And I am not in the least certain, from what I know of him, that
it would do any good. If he wants Daisy, do you think a man like that
would let that stand in his way? No, we must do better than that.
Now, is he in love with her?"

"I can't say. It is clear, however, that he wants to marry her. He has
been in love so many times that one doubts if he has been in love at
all. There was----"

"Oh, spare me the list of his conquests. He has been in love many times.
That is sufficient."

"Sufficient for what?"

"For the plan that has occurred to me as possible. I don't say it is
easy; I don't say it is nice; but we want, above all things, to keep
poor Diana's dreadful secret, to let no one, if possible--and, above
all, Daisy--know that it was her sister who lived those years in Paris,
and in that manner."

Jeannie got up.

"Clearly the easiest way of arriving at what we want is to make Daisy
think that he has only been flirting with her," she said--"that he is
not serious. It will hurt the poor child, I know; but if she were in
love with him, which you think she is not, it would hurt her far, far
more. Therefore, we must waste n