ind, seeming
to look out of the window; then slowly, moved by some instinct, not
reason, she went out of the kitchen and crept up-stairs to her own room
and laid herself upon her bed. Deaf and blind; she could neither think
nor feel; she only thought she knew that she was dead. The
consciousness of the truth pressed upon her to benumbing; but she was
utterly unable to separate points or look at the connection of them.
She had lived and suffered before; now she was crushed and dead; that
was all she knew. She could not even measure the full weight of her
misery; she lay too prostrate beneath it.

So things were, when very shortly after the minister came in. He had
put up his horse, and came in with his day's work behind him. Diana's
little parlour was bright, for a smart fire was blazing; the evenings
and mornings were cool now in Pleasant Valley; and the small table
stood ready for supper, as Diana had left it. She was up-stairs,
probably; and up-stairs he went, to wash his hands and get ready for
the evening; for the minister was the neatest man living. There he
found Diana laid upon her bed, where nobody ever saw her in the
day-time; and furthermore, lying with that nameless something in all
the lines of her figure which is the expression not of pain but of
despair; and those who have never seen it before, read it at first
sight. How it should be despair, of course, the minister had no clue to
guess; so, although it struck him with a sort of strange chill, he
supposed she must be suffering from some bodily ailment, in spite of
the fact that nobody had ever known Diana to have so much as a headache
in her life until now. Her face was hid. Basil went up softly and laid
his hand on her shoulder, and felt so the slight convulsive shiver that
ran over her. But his inquiries could get nothing but monosyllables in
return; hardly that; rather inarticulate utterances of assent or
dissent to his questions or proposals. Was she suffering?

Yes. What was the cause? No intelligible answer. Would she not come
down to tea? No. Would she have anything? No. Could he do anything for
her? No.

"Diana," said her husband tenderly, "is it bad news?"

There was a pause, and he waited.

"Just go down," she managed with great difficulty to say. "There is
nothing the matter with me. I'll come by and by. I'll just lie still a
little."

She had not shown her face, and the minister quietly withdrew, feeling
that here was more than appeare