hough quiet young matron, almost too wise and forbearing for her years,
was its verdict. It was wonderful how well she had turned out,
considering how she had been exposed; for every one knew John
Fitzwilliam Baring, and how little fitted he was for the care of a
motherless daughter. The more tender-hearted and sentimental world began
to look upon Mrs. Gervase Norgate's bad husband, whom she had married in
the face of his offence, as one of her merits,--a chief merit, to make
of her a popular victim and martyr, no matter that she was not naturally
constituted for the _role_, was not frank enough for popularity, not
meek enough for martyrdom.

Even Miss Tabitha, who had still a friendly feeling for the culprit, had
nothing to say against Mrs. Gervase, except that she was too good for
him. Poor Miles listened wistfully for his master's reeling step, and
went out in the night air, risking his rheumatism, for which Mr. Gervase
had always cared, making sure that the old boy had a screen to his
pantry, and shutters to his garret. He watched lest his master should
make his bed of the cold ground and catch a deadly chill; caring for the
besotted man, when he found him, with reverence and tenderness, as for
the chubby boy who had bidden so fair to be a good and happy man, worthy
of all honour, when Miles had first known him as his young master. Miles
resented feebly the perishing of the forlorn hope of a rescue, and
muttered fatuously the cart had been put before the horse, and the reins
taken out of the whip hand, and that'd never do. What could come of the
unnatural process but a crashing spill?

Diana could not accept the solution. Nineteen women out of twenty, who
had acted as she had done, would have taken the compensations, perhaps
been content with the indemnifications of her lot; but Diana was the
twentieth. Whether the cost of his mercenary marriage was far beyond
what she had estimated it, she lost heart and hope and heed of the
world's opinion, and was on the high road to loss of conscience, from
the moment she was convinced that Gervase Norgate was lost.

Diana gave up going into the society which was so willing to welcome
her, which thought so well of her. She relinquished all pride in
personal dignity and propriety, as she had never done when she had
locked her doors to shut out the jingling rattle of the bones, and,
occasionally, the curses, not loud but deep, which broke in upon the
repose of the long nights at