hed herself violently away.

"Oh, it's all very well!--but we can't all be such saints as you. It'd
be all right if he married me directly--_directly_," she repeated,
hurriedly.

Diana knelt still immovable. In her face was that agonized shock and
recoil with which the young and pure, the tenderly cherished and
guarded, receive the first withdrawal of the veil which hides from them
the more brutal facts of life. But, as she knelt there, gazing at Fanny,
another expression stole upon and effaced the first. Taking shape and
body, as it were, from the experience of the moment, there rose into
sight the new soul developed in her by this tragic year. Not for
her--not for Juliet Sparling's daughter--the plea of cloistered
innocence! By a sharp transition her youth had passed from the Chamber
of Maiden Thought into the darkened Chamber of Experience. She had
steeped her heart in the waters of sin and suffering; she put from her
in an instant the mere maiden panic which had drawn her to her knees.

"Fanny, I'll help you!" she said, in a low voice, putting her arms round
her cousin. "Don't cry--I'll help you."

Fanny raised her head. In Diana's face there was something which, for
the first time, roused in the other a nascent sense of shame. The color
came rushing into her cheeks; her eyes wavered painfully.

"You must come and stay here," said Diana, almost in a whisper. "And
where is Mr. Birch? I must see him."

She rose as she spoke; her voice had a decision, a sternness, that Fanny
for once did not resent. But she shook her head despairingly.

"I can't get at him. He sends my letters back. He'll not marry me unless
he's paid to."

"When did you see him last?"

Gradually the whole story emerged. The man had behaved as the coarse and
natural man face to face with temptation and opportunity is likely to
behave. The girl had been the victim first and foremost of her own
incredible folly. And Diana could not escape the idea that on Birch's
side there had not been wanting from the first an element of sinister
calculation. If her relations objected to the situation, it could, of
course, be made worth his while to change it. All his recent sayings and
doings, as Fanny reported them, clearly bore this interpretation.

As Diana sat, dismally pondering, an idea flashed upon her. Sir James
Chide was to dine at Beechcote that night. He was expected early, would
take in Beechcote, indeed, on his way from the train to Lytchett. W