same, she did
care; and she would fain have been the only one to receive Diana's
revelations, if she could have managed it. And by what devil's
conjuration had the truth come to be revealed, when only the fire and
she knew anything about it. Mrs. Starling chewed the cud of no sweet
fancy on her road home.

CHAPTER XXVII.

BONDS

Diana did become ill. A few days of such brain work as she had endured
that first twenty-four hours were too much even for her perfect
organization. She fell into a low fever, which at times threatened to
become violent, yet never did. She was delirious often; and Basil heard
quite enough of her unconscious revelations to put him in full
possession of the situation. In different portions, Diana went over the
whole ground. He knew sometimes that she was walking with Evan, taking
leave of him; perhaps taking counsel with him, and forming plans for
life; then wondering at his silence, speculating about ways and
distances, tracing his letters out of the post office into the wrong
hand. And when she was upon that strain, Diana would break out into a
cry of "O, mother, mother, mother!"--repeating the word with an accent
of such plaintive despair that it tore the heart of the one who heard
it.

There was only one. As long as this state of things lasted, Basil gave
himself up to the single task of watching and nursing his wife. And
amid the many varieties of heart-suffering which people know in this
world, that which he tasted these weeks was one of refined bitterness.
He came to know just how things were, and just how they had been all
along. He knew what Diana's patient or reticent calm covered. He heard
sometimes her fond moanings over another name; sometimes her passionate
outcries the owner of that name to come and deliver her; sometimes--she
revealed that too--even the repulsion with which she regarded himself.
"O, not this man!" she said one night, when he had been sitting by her
and hoping that she was more quiet. "O, not this man! It was a mistake.
It was all a mistake. People ought to take better care at the post
office. Tell Evan I didn't know; but I'll come to him now just as soon
as I can."

Another time she burst out more violently. "Don't kiss me!" she
exclaimed. "Don't touch me. I won't bear it. Never again. I belong to
somebody else, don't you know? You have no business to be here." Basil
was not near her, indeed she would not have recognised him if he had
been; he