arrived there she dropped two of them in at once, and held the other a
moment in her hand, looking at it. It was addressed to "Mrs.
Fotheringham, Manningham House, Leeds."

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Diana herself was wrestling with her own fate.

When Marsham rode away from her, and she had watched his tall figure
disappear into the dusk, she turned back toward the house, and saw it
and the world round it with new eyes. The moon shone on the old front,
mellowing it to a brownish ivory; the shadows of the trees lay clear on
the whitened grass; and in the luminous air colors of sunrise and of
moonrise blended, tints of pearl, of gold, and purple. A consecrating
beauty lay on all visible things, and spoke to the girl's tender and
passionate heart. In the shadow of the trees she stood a moment, her
hands clasped on her breast, recalling Marsham's words of love and
comfort, resting on him, reaching out through him to the Power behind
the world, which spoke surely through this loveliness of the night, this
joy in the soul!

And yet, her mood, her outlook--like Marsham's--was no longer what it
had been on the hill-side. No ugly light of revelation had broken upon
her, as upon him. But the conversation in the lime-walk had sobered the
first young exaltation of love; it had somehow divided them from the
happy lovers of every day; it had also divided them--she hardly knew how
or why--from that moment on the hill when Oliver had spoken of immediate
announcement and immediate marriage. Nothing was to be said--except to
Muriel--till Lady Lucy knew. She was glad. It made her bliss, in this
intervening moment, more fully her own. She thought with yearning of
Oliver's interview with his mother. A filial, though a trembling love
sprang up in her. And the sense of having come to shelter and to haven
seemed to give her strength for what she had never yet dared to face.
The past was now to be probed, interrogated. She was firmly resolved to
write to Riley & Bonner, to examine any papers there might be; not
because she was afraid that anything might come between her and Oliver;
rather because now, with his love to support her, she could bear
whatever there might be to bear.

She stepped into the house. Some one was strumming in the
drawing-room--with intervals between the strummings--as though the
player stopped to listen for something or some one. Diana shrank into
herself. She ran up-stairs noiselessly to h