nce. For she did not stand firmly alone;
her story confessed it. Marriage might be the archway to the road of
good service, even as our passage through the flesh may lead to
the better state. She had thoughts of the kind, and had them while
encouraging herself to deplore the adieu to her little musk-scented
sitting-room, where a modest freedom breathed, and her individuality had
seemed pointing to a straighter growth.

She nodded subsequently to the truth of her happy Emma's remark: 'You
were created for the world, Tony.' A woman of blood and imagination in
the warring world, without a mate whom she can revere, subscribes to
a likeness with those independent minor realms between greedy mighty
neighbours, which conspire and undermine when they do not openly
threaten to devour. So, then, this union, the return to the wedding
yoke, received sanction of grey-toned reason. She was not enamoured she
could say it to herself. She had, however, been surprised, both by the
man and her unprotesting submission; surprised and warmed, unaccountably
warmed. Clearness of mind in the woman chaste by nature, however little
ignorant it allowed her to be in the general review of herself, could
not compass the immediately personal, with its acknowledgement of her
subserviency to touch and pressure--and more, stranger, her readiness to
kindle. She left it unexplained. Unconsciously the image of Dacier was
effaced. Looking backward, her heart was moved to her long-constant
lover with most pitying tender wonderment--stormy man, as her threatened
senses told her that he was. Looking at him, she had to mask her being
abashed and mastered. And looking forward, her soul fell in prayer for
this true man's never repenting of his choice. Sure of her now, Mr.
Thomas Redworth had returned to the station of the courtier, and her
feminine sovereignty was not ruffled to make her feel too feminine.
Another revelation was his playful talk when they were more closely
intimate. He had his humour as well as his hearty relish of hers.

'If all Englishmen were like him!' she chimed with Emma Dunstane's
eulogies, under the influence.

'My dear,' the latter replied, 'we should simply march over the Four
Quarters and be blessed by the nations! Only, avoid your trick of
dashing headlong to the other extreme. He has his faults.'

'Tell me of them,' Diana cooed for an answer. 'Do. I want the flavour.
A girl would be satisfied with superhuman excellence. A widow ask