on wholly new to her.

Once or twice Meryl asked her if anything was the matter, she was so
extraordinarily restless, but she only laughed it off and tried to
steady her feelings.

In the evening, when they left the dinner-table after dessert, she
mysteriously vanished; but later, swept with an inexplicable wave of
longing and uncertain dread, she crept down to the dining-room to try
and discover what had happened. It was growing in her consciousness
with illuminating clearness that her own happiness depended upon what
decision Meryl made.

At last there was a movement in the drawing-room as of someone
stepping in from the verandah, and she waited breathlessly for a
glimpse of Meryl's face. She and van Hert came out into the hall
together, and Diana saw that her cousin looked extraordinarily frail
and white and rather exhausted. Van Hert was very gentle to her.

"Shall I see your father to-night?" he asked, and she answered, "No, I
will tell him myself. I expect he will see you to-morrow."

"Good night," and Meryl held out her hand.

Diana saw him hesitate; and then, with a movement that had in it the
graceful courtesy of the Huguenot and the reverence of a fine spirit,
he bent very low before her and kissed her hand. Afterwards he went
quietly away, and Meryl stood alone in the hall. For one moment she
waited, as if listening to his departing footsteps, and then very
slowly turned and walked to her father's study.

Diana slipped out and went upstairs, but presently her restlessness
again caused her to descend. She could not settle to anything until
she knew the truth and how Meryl took it. Thus she was again in the
dining-room when the study door opened and Meryl came out. Her father
came with her to the threshold, and it was evident that she had been
crying. Diana saw her raise a white, tear-stained face, and saw Henry
Pym kiss his child with ineffable tenderness. Then Meryl went slowly
upstairs, and Mr. Pym went back into his study and closed the door.

But something in his face, at her last glimpse of it, went swiftly to
Diana's loyal, devoted heart; and because she loved him as if he were
her own father, an impulse carried her straight across the hall with
noiseless feet to the study door. Without knocking, she opened it
softly and crept in. Henry Pym was seated at his writing-table, with
his face hidden in his hand; and she saw, perhaps more poignantly than
ever before, how the last few weeks had whitened