ee her with her solicitor
in prison."

Diana breathlessly asked for the rest of the story.

"He defended her magnificently. It was a shocking case. The sentence was
commuted, but she died almost immediately. They say Sir James has never
got over it."

Diana pondered; her eyes dim.

"How one would like to do something for him!--to give him pleasure!"

Marsham caressed her hand.

"So you shall, darling. He shall be one of our best friends. But he
mustn't make Ferrier jealous."

Diana smiled happily. She looked forward to all the new ties of kindred
or friendship that Marsham was to bring her--modestly indeed, yet in the
temper of one who feels herself spiritually rich and capable of giving.

"I shall love all your friends," she said, with a bright look. "I'm glad
you have so many!"

"Does that mean that you've felt rather lonely sometimes? Poor darling!"
he said, tenderly, "it must have been solitary often at Portofino."

"Oh no--I had papa." Then her truthfulness overcame her. "I don't mean
to say I didn't often want friends of my own age--girl friends
especially."

"You can't have them now!"--he said, passionately, as they paused at a
wicket-gate, under a yew-tree. "I want you all--all--to myself." And in
the shadow of the yew he put his arms round her again, and their hearts
beat together.

But our nature moves within its own inexorable limits. In Diana,
Marsham's touch, Marsham's embrace awakened that strange mingled
happiness, that happiness reared and based on tragedy, which the pure
and sensitive feel in the crowning moments of life. Love is tortured by
its own intensity; and the thought of death strikes through the
experience which means the life of the race. As her lips felt Marsham's
kiss, she knew, as generations of women have known before her, that life
could give her no more; and she also knew that it was transiency and
parting that made it so intolerably sweet.

"Till death us do part," she said to herself. And in the intensity of
her submission to the common lot she saw down the years the end of what
had now begun--herself lying quiet and blessed, in the last sleep, her
dead hand in Marsham's.

* * * * *

"Why must we go home?" he said, discontentedly, as he released her. "One
turn more!--up the avenue! There is light enough yet!"

She yielded weakly; pacifying her social conscience by the half-penitent
remark that Mrs. Colwood would have said good-bye to