assed tenderly, sorrowfully, over the beautiful hair, which lay in
disordered, bright, soft masses over head and neck. For a moment he did
not speak.

"Basil--do you know who it is?"

"I know."

"What shall I do?"

"What do you want to do, Diana?"

"Right"--she said, gasping, without looking up.

"I am sure of it!" he said tenderly. "Well, then--the only way is, to
go on and do right, Diana."

"But how can I? how shall I? Suppose he comes? O Basil, it was all a
mistake; he wrote, and mother kept back the letters, and I never got
them; he sent them, and I never got them; and I thought he was not true
and it did not matter what I did, and I honoured you above everything,
Basil--and so--and so--I did what I did"--

"What cannot be undone."

"No--" she said, shivering.

He passed his hands again over her soft hair, and bent down and kissed
it.

"You honour yourself, too, Diana, as well as me."

"Yes--" she said, under breath.

"And you honour our God, who has let all this come upon us both?"

"But, O Basil! how could he? how could he?"

"I don't know."

"And yet you say he is good?"

"And so you say too. The only good; the utterly, perfectly good; who
loves his people, and keeps his promises, and who has said that all
things shall work together for the good of those that love him."

"How can such a thing as this?" she said faintly.

"Suppose you and I cannot see how? Then faith comes in and believes it
without seeing. We shall see by and by."

"But Basil--suppose--Evan--comes?"

"Well?"

"Suppose--he came--here?"

"Well, Diana?"

She was silent then, but she shook and trembled and writhed. Her head
was still where she had laid it; her face hidden.

"You are going through as great a trial, my poor wife, as almost ever
falls to the lot of a mortal. But you will go through it, and come out
from it; and then it will be found to have been 'unto praise and honour
and glory'--by and by."

"O how can you tell?"

"I trust in God. And I trust you."

"But I think he will come--here to Pleasant Valley, I mean. And if he
comes--here, to this house, I mean"--

"What then?"

"What do you want me to do?"

"About seeing him?"

"Yes."

"What you like best to do, Diana."

"Basil--he does not know."

"What does he not know?"

"About the letters or anything. He has never heard--never a word from
me."

"There was an understanding between you before he went away?"

"Oh yes!"

Both were sil