sy--of
aspiration.

* * * * *

But these were the exaltations of night and silence. With the returning
day, Diana was again the mere girl, struggling with misery and nervous
shock. In the middle of the morning arrived a special messenger with a
letter from Marsham. It contained arguments and protestations which in
the living mouth might have had some power. That the living mouth was
not there to make them was a fact more eloquent than any letter. For the
first time Diana was conscious of impatience, of a natural indignation.
She merely asked the messenger to say that "there was no answer."

Yet, as they crossed London her heart fluttered within her. One moment
her eyes were at the window scanning the bustle of the streets; the next
she would force herself to talk and smile with Muriel Colwood.

Mrs. Colwood insisted on dinner at the Charing Cross Hotel. Diana
submitted. Afterward they made their way, along the departure platform,
to the Dover-Calais train. They took their seats. Muriel Colwood
knew--felt it indeed, through every nerve--that the girl with her was
still watching, still hoping, still straining each bodily perception in
a listening expectancy.

The train was very full, and the platform crowded with friends, luggage,
and officials. Upon the tumult the great electric lamps threw their cold
ugly light. The roar and whistling of the trains filled the vast
station. Diana, meanwhile, sat motionless in her corner, looking out,
one hand propping her face.

But no one came. The signal was given for departure. The train glided
out. Diana's head slipped back and her eyes closed. Muriel, stifling her
tears, dared not approach her.

* * * * *

Northward and eastward from Dover Harbor, sweep beyond sweep, rose the
white cliffs that are to the arriving and departing Englishman the
symbols of his country.

Diana, on deck, wrapped in veil and cloak, watched them disappear, in
mists already touched by the moonrise. Six months before she had seen
them for the first time, had fed her eyes upon the "dear, dear land," as
cliffs and fields and houses flashed upon the sight, yearning toward it
with the passion of a daughter and an exile.

In those six months she had lived out the first chapter of her youth.
She stood between two shores of life, like the vessel from which she
gazed; vanishing lights and shapes behind her; darkness in front.

"Where lie