a
cry--her own name--not in Diana's voice. She ran out into the hall.

At the top of the stairs, stood Fanny Merton, not daring to move
farther. Her eyes were starting out of her head, her face flushed and
distorted.

"You go to her!" She stooped, panting, over the balusters, addressing
Mrs. Colwood. "She won't let me touch her."

Diana descended, groping. At the foot of the stairs she caught at Mrs.
Colwood's hand, went swaying across the hall and into the drawing-room.
There she closed the door, and looked into Mrs. Colwood's eyes. Muriel
saw a face in which bloom and first youth were forever dead, though in
its delicate features horror was still beautiful. She threw her arms
round the girl, weeping. But Diana put her aside. She walked to a chair,
and sat down. "My mother--" she said, looking up.

Her voice dropped. She moistened her dry lips, and began once more: "My
mother--"

But the brain could maintain its flickering strength no longer. There
was a low cry of "Oliver!" that stabbed the heart; then, suddenly, her
limbs were loosened, and she sank back, unconscious, out of her friend's
grasp and ken.

CHAPTER XI

"Her ladyship will be here directly, sir." Lady Lucy's immaculate butler
opened the door of her drawing-room in Eaton Square, ushered in Sir
James Chide, noiselessly crossed the room to see to the fire, and then
as noiselessly withdrew.

"Impossible that any one should be as respectable as that man looks!"
thought Sir James, impatiently. He walked forward to the fire, warmed
hands and feet chilled by a nipping east wind, and then, with his back
to the warmth, he examined the room.

It was very characteristic of its mistress. At Tallyn Henry Marsham had
worked his will; here, in this house taken since his death, it was the
will and taste of his widow which had prevailed. A gray paper with a
small gold sprig upon it, sofas and chairs not too luxurious, a Brussels
carpet, dark and unobtrusive, and chintz curtains; on the walls,
drawings by David Cox, Copley Fielding, and De Wint; a few books with
Mudie labels; costly photographs of friends and relations, especially of
the relations' babies; on one table, and under a glass case, a model in
pith of Lincoln Cathedral, made by Lady Lucy's uncle, who had been a
Canon of Lincoln; on another, a set of fine carved chessmen; such was
the furniture of the room. It expressed--and with emphasis--the tastes
and likings of that section of English societ