esumed Diana belonged, was said to be extinct. No doubt--so he had
reflected--it had come to an end in her father.

"Mallory was the name of my father's mother. He took it for various
reasons--I never quite understood--and I know a good deal of property
came to him. But his original name--my name--was Sparling."

"Sparling!" A pause. "And have you any Sparling relations."

"No. They all died out--I think--but I know so little!--when I was
small. However, I have a box of Sparling papers which I have never
examined. Perhaps--some day--we might look at them together."

Her voice shook a little.

"You have never looked at them?"

"Never."

"But why, dearest?"

"It always seemed to make papa so unhappy--anything to do with his old
name. Oliver!"--she turned upon him suddenly, and for the first time she
clung to him, hiding her face against his shoulder--"Oliver!--I don't
know what made him unhappy--I don't know why he changed his name.
Sometimes I think--there may have been some terrible thing between
him--and my mother."

He put his arm round her, close and tenderly.

"What makes you think that?" Then he whispered to her--"Tell your
lover--your husband--tell him everything."

She shrank in delicious tremor from the great word, and it was a few
moments before she could collect her thoughts. Then she said--still
resting against him in the dark--and in a low rapid voice, as though she
followed the visions of an inner sense:

"She died when I was only four. I just remember--it is almost my first
recollection of anything--seeing her carried up-stairs--" She broke off.
"And oh! it's so strange!--"

"Strange? She was ill?"

"Yes, but--what I seem to remember never explains itself--and I did not
dare to ask papa. She hadn't been with us--for a long time. Papa and I
had been alone. Then one day I saw them carrying her up-stairs--my
father and two nurses--I ran out before my nurse could catch me--and saw
her--she was in her hat and cloak. I didn't know her, and when she
called me, I ran away. Then afterward they took me in to see her in
bed--two or three times--and I remember once"--Diana began to sob
herself--"seeing her cry. She lay sobbing--and my father beside her; he
held her hand--and I saw him hide his eyes upon it. They never noticed
me; I don't know that they saw me. Then they told me she was dead--I saw
her lying on the bed--and my nurse gave me some flowers to put beside
her--some violets. They were the o