as soon as she fully understood it. But it would have been one
of the most quixotic things ever done. He had made his effort to do it;
and--frankly--he had not been capable of it. He wondered how many men of
his acquaintance would have been capable of it.

Nevertheless, he had fallen seriously in his own estimation. Nor was he
unaware that he had lost a certain amount of consideration with the
world at large. His courtship of Diana had been watched by a great many
people: and at the same moment that it came to an end and she left
England, the story of her parentage had become known in Brookshire.
There had been a remarkable outburst of public sympathy and pity,
testifying, no doubt, in a striking way, to the effect produced by the
girl's personality, even in those few months of residence. And the fact
that she was not there, that only the empty house that she had furnished
with so much girlish pleasure remained to bear its mute testimony to her
grief, made feeling all the hotter. Brookshire beheld her as a charming
and innocent victim, and, not being able to tell her so, found relief in
blaming and mocking at the man who had not stood by her. For it appeared
there was to be no engagement, although all Brookshire had expected it.
Instead of it, came the announcement of the tragic truth, the girl's
hurried departure, and the passionate feeling on her behalf of people
like the Roughsedges, or her quondam critic, the Vicar.

Marsham, thereupon, had become conscious of a wind of unpopularity
blowing through his constituency. Some of the nice women of the
neighborhood, with whom he had been always hitherto a welcome and
desired guest, had begun to neglect him; men who would never have
dreamed of allowing their own sons to marry a girl in Diana's position,
greeted him with a shade less consideration than usual; and the Liberal
agent in the division had suddenly ceased to clamor for his attendance
and speeches at rural meetings. There could be no question that by some
means or other the story had got abroad--no doubt in a most inaccurate
and unjust form--and was doing harm.

Reflections of this kind were passing through his mind as he crossed
Hyde Park Corner on his way to Eaton Square. Opposite St. George's
Hospital he suddenly became aware of Sir James Chide on the other side
of the road. At sight of him, Marsham waved his hand, quickening his
pace that he might come up with him. Sir James, seeing him, gave him a
perfunctor