words with her. She stepped back, and gradually
got behind people, where the sight of her could not distress him. It
had distressed him, she had seen that. Was it on her account? or on his
own? Gradually, watching her chances, she was able to work her way back
into the other room, which was comparatively empty; and there she sat
down at a table covered with photographs. She would go away, she
thought, as soon as it could gracefully be done. And yet, she would
have liked to speak a few words with Evan, this last time they might
ever be together. What made him embarrassed in meeting her? With his
bride just beside him, that ought not to be, she thought.

The company had almost all crowded into the other room about the bride,
and were fully occupied with her; and Diana was alone. She turned over
the photographs and reviewed the kings and queens of Europe, with no
sort of intelligence as to their families or nationalities,
mechanically, just to cover her abstraction, and to seem to be doing
something. Then suddenly she knew that Evan was beside her. He had come
round and entered by the door from the hall; and now they both stood
together for a moment, shielded by a corner of the partition wall
between the rooms. Diana had risen.

"This is a very painful meeting"--Captain Knowlton said, after a
silence which would have been longer if he had dared to let it be so.

"No"--said Diana, looking at him with as clear and fair a brow as if
she had been the moon goddess whose name she bore; and her voice was
very sweet. "Not painful, Evan; why should it be? I am glad to see you
again."

"I didn't know you were here"--he went on hurriedly, in evident great
perturbation.

"And we did not know you were here. I had no notion of it--till I heard
your voice in the next room. I knew it instantly."

"I would have spared you this, if I could have foreseen it."

"Spared me what?"

"All this,--this pain,--I know it must be pain to you.--I did not
anticipate it."

"Why should it be pain to me?" inquired Diana steadily.

"I know your feeling--I would not have brought Clara into your
presence"--

"I am very glad to have seen her," said Diana in the same quiet way,
looking at Evan fixedly. "I should have been glad to see more of her,
and learn to know her. I could scarcely speak to her for the crowd
around."

"Yes, she is a great favourite, and everybody is eager to see her
before she goes."

"You are going away soon?"

"O yes!-