I had thought that you wanted to hear; but how was I to know that?
One doesn't talk about other people's private affairs unless one is
invited. In any case, it doesn't matter now. A man who can cut the
Gordian knot as you can doesn't care to hear that there's a way by which
it might have been unravelled."

"I'm not so sure about that. There are cases in which the longest way
round is the shortest way home, and if--"

"But I didn't suppose you would consider so cautious a route as that."

"I shouldn't for myself; but, you see, I have to think of Dorothea."

"But I've already told you that there's no occasion for that. If
Dorothea has made her choice with her eyes open--"

"Good Lord!" he cried, impatiently, "you talk as if all I wanted was to
get her into a noose."

"Well, isn't it? Perhaps I'm stupid, but I thought the whole reason for
bringing her down here was because--"

"Because we thought there was no other way," he finished, in a tone of
exasperation. "But if there _is_ another way--"

"I'm not at all sure that there is," she retorted, with a touch of
asperity, to keep pace with his rising emotion. "Don't begin to think
that because I said Mr. Pruyn was coming round to it he's obliged to do
it."

"No; but if there was a chance--"

"Of course there's always that. But what then?"

"Well, then--there'd be no particular reason for rushing the thing
to-night. But I don't know, though," he continued, with a sudden change of
tone; "we're here, and perhaps we might as well go through with it. All
I want is her happiness; and since she can't be happy in her own home--"

Diane laughed softly, and he stopped once more in his walk to look down
at her.

"There's one thing you ought to understand about Dorothea," she said,
with a little air of amusement. "You know how fond I am of her, and that
I wouldn't criticise her for the world. Now, don't be offended, and
don't glower at me like that, for I _must_ say it. Dorothea isn't
unhappy because she hasn't a good home, or because she has a stern
father, or because she can't marry you. She's unhappy because she isn't
getting her own way, and for no other reason whatever. She's the
dearest, sweetest, most loving little girl on earth, but she has a will
like steel. Whatever she sets her mind on, great or small, that she is
determined to do, and when it's done she doesn't care any more about it.
When I was with her, I never crossed her in anything. I let her do what
she