Then you are not happy?" he said eagerly.

Diana did not reply.

"Why should we not be happy?" he went on passionately, looking up now
into her face. "You are mine, Diana--you belonged to me first, you have
been mine all along; only I have been robbed of you;--pure robbery;
nothing else. And has not a man a right to his own, wherever and
whenever he finds it? You had given yourself first to me. That is
irrevocable."

"No"--she said with the same gentleness, in every tone of which lurked
an unutterable sorrow; it would have broken her husband's heart to hear
her; and yet she was quiet, so quiet that she awed the young officer a
little. "No--I had promised to give myself to you; that is all."

"You gave me your heart, Di?"

She was silent, for at the moment she could not speak

"Di!"--he insisted.

"Yes."

"That is enough. That is all."

"It is not all. Since then I have"--

"How could you do it, Diana? how could you do it, after your heart was
mine? _while_ your heart was mine!"

"I was dead," she said in the same low, slow, impressive way. "I
thought I was dead,--and that it did not matter any more what I did,
one way or another. I thought I was dead; and when I found out that
there was life in me yet, it was too late." A slight shudder ran over
her shoulders, which Evan, however, did not see.

"And you doubted me!" said he.

"I heard nothing"--

"Of course!--and that was enough to make you think I was nothing but a
featherhead!"--

"I thought I was not good enough for you," she said softly.

"Not good enough!" cried Evan. "When you are just a pearl of
perfection--a diamond of loveliness--more than all I knew you would
be--like a queen rather than like a common mortal. And I could have
given you a place fit for you; and here you are"--

"Hush!" she said softly, but it stopped him.

"_Why_ did you never hear from me? I wrote, and wrote, and O, Diana,
how I looked for something from you! I walked miles on the way to meet
the waggon that brought our mails; I could hardly do my duty, or eat,
or sleep, at last. I would ride then to meet the post-carrier, though
it did not help me, for I could not open the bags till they were
brought into the post; and then I used to go and gallop thirty miles to
ride away from myself. _Why_ did you never write one word?"

"I did not know your address," she said faintly.

"I gave it you, over and over."

"You forget,--I never got the letters."

"What became of th