from the shadow of his chains.

Three days antecedent to her marriage, she went down the hill over her
cottage chimneys with Redworth, after hearing him praise and cite to
Emma Dunstane sentences of a morning's report of a speech delivered by
Dacier to his constituents. She alluded to it, that she might air her
power of speaking of the man coolly to him, or else for the sake of
stirring afresh some sentiment he had roused; and he repeated his high
opinion of the orator's political wisdom: whereby was revived in
her memory a certain reprehensible view, belonging to her period of
mock-girlish naughtiness--too vile!--as to his paternal benevolence, now
to clear vision the loftiest manliness. What did she do? She was Irish;
therefore intuitively decorous in amatory challenges and interchanges.
But she was an impulsive woman, and foliage was thick around, only a few
small birds and heaven seeing; and penitence and admiration sprang the
impulse. It had to be this or a burst of weeping:--she put a kiss upon
his arm.

She had omitted to think that she was dealing with a lover a man of
smothered fire, who would be electrically alive to the act through a
coat-sleeve. Redworth had his impulse. He kept it under,--she felt the
big breath he drew in. Imagination began busily building a nest for him,
and enthusiasm was not sluggish to make a home of it. The impulse of
each had wedded; in expression and repression; her sensibility told her
of the stronger.

She rose on the morning of her marriage day with his favourite Planxty
Kelly at her lips, a natural bubble of the notes. Emma drove down to the
cottage to breakfast and superintend her bride's adornment, as to
which, Diana had spoken slightingly; as well as of the ceremony, and
the institution, and this life itself:--she would be married out of her
cottage, a widow, a cottager, a woman under a cloud; yes, a sober person
taking at last a right practical step, to please her two best friends.
The change was marked. She wished to hide it, wished to confide it. Emma
was asked: 'How is he this morning?' and at the answer, describing his
fresh and spirited looks, and his kind ways with Arthur Rhodes, and
his fun with Sullivan Smith, and the satisfaction with the bridegroom
declared by Lord Larrian (invalided from his Rock and unexpectingly
informed of the wedding), Diana forgot that she had kissed her, and this
time pressed her lips, in a manner to convey the secret bridally.

'He has