LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY Of 
 CALIFORNIA 
 SAN OIEOO 
 
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 F
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory

 
 "THERE SHE WAITED WHILE THE DAWN STOLE UPON THE NIGHT "
 
 The Testing of 
 Diana M all orij 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 W. HATHERELL, R. I. 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 1908
 
 BOOKS BY 
 MRS. HUMPHRY WARD 
 
 THE TESTING OP DIANA MALLORT. Ill'd. . . $1.50 
 
 LADY ROSE'S DAUGHTER. Illustrated . . . 1.50 
 
 Two volume edition 3.00 
 
 THE MARRIAGE OF WILLIAM ASHB. Ill'd. . . 1.50 
 
 Two volume Autograph edition . . net 4.00 
 
 FENWICK'S CAREER. Illustrated- 1.50 
 
 De Luxe edition, two volumes. . . net 5.00 
 
 ELEANOR 1.50 
 
 LIFE OF W. T. ARNOLD net 1.50 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, N. Y. 
 
 Copyright, 1907, 1908, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights rtstnttf. 
 
 Published September, 1908.
 
 TO 
 MY KIND HOSTS BEYOND THE ATLANTIC 
 
 FROM 
 
 A GRATEFUL TRAVELLER 
 
 JULY. 19O8
 
 Illustrations 
 
 "THERE SHE WAITED WHILE THE DAWN STOLE UPON 
 
 THE NIGHT " Frontispiece 
 
 "THE MAN'S PULSES LEAPED ANEW" Facing p. 98 
 
 "YOU NEEDN'T BE CROSS WITH ME, DIANA" ... " 174 
 "'DEAR LADY,' HE SAID, GENTLY, 'i THINK YOU 
 
 OUGHT TO GIVE WAY!'" " 256 
 
 " ALICIA, UPRIGHT IN HER CORNER OLIVER, DEEP 
 
 IN HIS ARMCHAIR" " 332 
 
 "SIR JAMES PLAYED DIANA*S GAME WITH PERFECT 
 
 DISCRETION" " 462 
 
 " SIR JAMES MADE HIMSELF DELIGHTFUL TO THEM" . " 492 
 
 " ROUGHSEDGE STOOD NEAR, RELUCTANTLY WAITING" " 514
 
 Part I
 
 '* Action is transitory a step, a blow. 
 The motion of a muscle this way or that 
 "Tis done, and in the after-vacancy 
 We wonder at ourselves like men betrayed: 
 Suffering is permanent, obscure, and dark, 
 And shares the nature of infinity" 
 
 THE BORDERERS.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE clock in the tower of the village church had just 
 struck the quarter. In the southeast a pale dawn 
 light was beginning to show above the curving hollow of 
 the down wherein the village lay enfolded; but the face 
 of the down itself was still in darkness. Farther to the 
 south, in a stretch of clear night sky hardly touched by 
 the mounting dawn, Venus shone enthroned, so large and 
 brilliant, so near to earth and the spectator, that she 
 held, she pervaded the whole dusky scene, the shadowed 
 fields and wintry woods, as though she were their very 
 soul and voice. 
 
 "The Star of Bethlehem ! and Christmas Day!" 
 Diana Mallory had just drawn back the curtain of 
 her bedroom. Her voice, as she murmured the words, 
 was full of a joyous delight; eagerness and yearning 
 expressed themselves in her bending attitude, her parted 
 lips and eyes intent upon the star. 
 
 The panelled room behind her was dimly lit by a 
 solitary candle, just kindled. The faint dawn in front, 
 the flickering candle-light behind, illumined Diana's tall 
 figure, wrapped in a white dressing-gown, her small head 
 and slender neck, the tumbling masses of her dark hair, 
 
 3
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 and the hand holding the curtain. It was a kind and 
 poetic light ; but her youth and grace needed no softening. 
 
 After the striking of the quarter, the church bell began 
 to ring, with a gentle, yet insistent note which gradually 
 filled the hollows of the village, and echoed along the 
 side of the down. Once or twice the sound was effaced 
 by the rush and roar of a distant train; and once the 
 call of an owl from a wood, a call melancholy and pro- 
 longed, was raised as though in rivalry. But the bell 
 held Diana's strained ear throughout its course, till its 
 mild clangor passed into the deeper note of the clock 
 striking the hour, and then all sounds alike died into 
 a profound yet listening silence. 
 
 "Eight o'clock! That was for early service," she 
 thought; and there flashed into her mind an image of 
 the old parish church, dimly lit for the Christmas 
 Eucharist, its walls and pillars decorated with ivy and 
 holly, yet austere and cold through all its adornings, with 
 its bare walls and pale windows. She shivered a little, 
 for her youth had been accustomed to churches all color 
 and lights and furnishings churches of another type and 
 faith. But instantly some warm leaping instinct met 
 the shrinking, and overpowered it. She smote her hands 
 together. 
 
 "England! England! my own, own country!" 
 
 She dropped upon the window-seat half laughing, yet 
 the tears in her eyes. And there, with her face pressed 
 against the glass, she waited while the dawn stole upon 
 the night, while in the park the trees emerged upon the 
 grass white with rime, while on the face of the down 
 thickets and paths became slowly visible, while the first 
 wreaths of smoke began to curl and hover in the frosty 
 air. 
 
 4
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Suddenly, on a path which climbed the hill-side till it 
 was lost in the beech wood which crowned the summit, 
 she saw a flock of sheep, and behind them a shepherd 
 boy running from side to side. At the sight, her eyes 
 kindled again. "Nothing changes," she thought, "in 
 this country life!" On the morning of Charles I.'s 
 execution in the winters and springs when Elizabeth 
 was Queen while Becket lay dead on Canterbury steps 
 when Harold was on his way to Senlac that hill, 
 that path were there sheep were climbing it, and 
 shepherds were herding them. "It has been so since 
 England began it will be so when I am dead. We are 
 only shadows that pass. But England lives always 
 always and shall live!" 
 
 And still, in a trance of feeling, she feasted her eyes 
 on the quiet country scene. 
 
 The old house which Diana Mallory had just begun ', 
 to inhabit stood upon an upland, but it was an upland 
 so surrounded by hills to north and east and south that 
 it seemed rather a close-girt valley, leaned over and 
 sheltered by the downs. Pastures studded with trees 
 sloped away from the house on all sides; the village was 
 hidden from it by boundary woods ; only the church tower 
 emerged. From the deep oriel window where she sat 
 Diana could see a projecting wing of the house itself, 
 its mellowed red brick, its Jacobean windows and roof. 
 She could see also a corner of the moat with its running 
 stream, a moat much older than the building it encircled, 
 and beneath her eyes lay a small formal garden planned 
 in the days of John Evelyn with its fountain and its 
 sundial, and its beds in arabesque. The cold light of 
 December lay upon it all ; there was no special beauty in 
 the landscape, and no magnificence in the house or its 
 
 5
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 surroundings. But every detail of what she saw pleased 
 the girl's taste, and satisfied her heart. All the while she 
 was comparing it with other scenes and another land- 
 scape, amid which she had lived till now a monotonous 
 blue sea, mountains scorched and crumbled by the sun, 
 dry palms in hot gardens, roads choked with dust and 
 tormented with a plague of motor-cars, white villas 
 crowded among high walls, a wilderness of hotels, and 
 everywhere a chattering unlovely crowd. 
 
 "Thank goodness! that's done with," she thought 
 only to fall into a sudden remorse. "Papa papa! if 
 you were only here tool" 
 
 She pressed her hands to her eyes, which were moist 
 with sudden tears. But the happiness in her heart over- 
 came the pang, sharp and real as it was. Oh! how 
 blessed to have done with the Riviera, and its hybrid 
 empty life, for good and all! how blessed even, to have 
 done with the Alps and Italy! how blessed, above all, 
 to have come home! home into the heart of this Eng- 
 lish land warm mother-heart, into which she, stranger 
 and orphan, might creep and be at rest. 
 
 The eloquence of her own thoughts possessed her. 
 They flowed on in a warm, mute rhetoric, till suddenly 
 the Comic Spirit was there, and patriotic rapture began 
 to see itself. She, the wanderer, the exile, what did she 
 know of England or England of her? What did she 
 know of this village even, this valley in which she had 
 pitched her tent ? She had taken an old house, because 
 it had pleased her fancy, because it had Tudor gables, 
 pretty panelling, and a sundial. But what natural link 
 had she with it, or with these peasants and countrymen ? 
 She had no true roots here. What she had done was 
 mere whim and caprice. She was an alien, like anybody 
 
 6
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 else like the new men and prowling millionaires, who 
 bought old English properties, moved thereto by a feel- 
 ing which was none the less snobbish because it was also 
 sentimental. 
 
 She drew herself up rebelling hotly yet not seeing 
 how to disentangle herself from these associates. And 
 she. was still struggling to put herself back in the ro- 
 mantic mood, and to see herself and her experiment 
 anew in the romantic light, when her maid knocked at 
 the door, and distraction entered with letters, and a cup 
 of tea. 
 
 An hour later Miss Mallory left her room behind her, 
 and went tripping down the broad oak staircase of Beech- 
 cote Manor. 
 
 By this time romance was uppermost again, and self- 
 congratulation. She was young just twenty- two; she 
 was she knew it agreeable to look upon; she had as 
 much money as any reasonable woman need want; she 
 had already seen a great deal of the world outside Eng- 
 land ; and she had fallen headlong in love with this charm- 
 ing old house, and had now, in spite of various difficul- 
 ties, managed to possess herself of it, and plant her life in 
 it. Full of ghosts it might be ; but she was its living mis- 
 tress henceforth ; nor was it either ridiculous or snobbish 
 that she should love it and exult in it quite the contrary. 
 And she paused on the slippery stairs, to admire the old 
 panelled hall below, the play of wintry sunlight on the 
 oaken surfaces she herself had rescued from desecrating 
 paint, and the effect of some old Persian rugs, which had 
 only arrived from London the night before, on the dark 
 polished boards. For Diana, there were two joys con- 
 nected with the old house: the joy of entering in, a 
 
 7
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 stranger and conqueror, on its guarded and matured 
 beauty, and the joy of adding to that beauty by a deft 
 modernness. Very deft, and tender, and skilful it must 
 be. But no one could say that time-worn Persian rugs, 
 with their iridescent blue and greens and rose reds or 
 old Italian damask and cut-velvet from Genoa, or Flor- 
 ence, or Venice were out of harmony with the charm- 
 ing Jacobean rooms. It was the horrible furniture 
 of the Vavasours, the ancestral possessors of the place, 
 which had been an offence and a disfigurement. In 
 moving it out and replacing it, Diana felt that she had 
 become the spiritual child of the old house, in spite of 
 her alien blood. There is a kinship not of the flesh; 
 and it thrilled all through her. 
 
 But just as her pause of daily homage to the place in 
 which she found herself was over, and she was about to 
 run down the remaining stairs to the dining-room, a 
 new thought delayed her for a moment by the staircase 
 window the thought of a lady who would no doubt be 
 waiting for her at the breakfast-table. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood, Miss Mallory's new chaperon and com- 
 panion, had arrived the night before, on Christmas Eve. 
 She had appeared just in time for dinner, and the two 
 ladies had spent the evening together. Diana's first im- 
 pressions had been pleasant yes, certainly, pleasant; 
 though Mrs. Colwood had been shy, and Diana still 
 more so. There could be no question but that Mrs. Col- 
 wood was refined, intelligent, and attractive. Her gentle, 
 almost childish looks appealed for her. So did her deep 
 black, and the story which explained it. Diana had 
 heard of her from a friend in Rome, where Mrs. Colwood's 
 husband, a young Indian Civil servant, had died of fever 
 and lung mischief, on his way to England for a long sick 
 
 8
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 leave . and where the little widow had touched the hearts 
 of all who came in contact with her. 
 
 Diana thought, with one of her ready compunctions, 
 that she had not been expansive enough the night before. 
 She ran down-stairs, determined to make Mrs. Colwood 
 feel at home at once. 
 
 When she entered the dining-room the new companion 
 was standing beside the window looking out upon the 
 formal garden and the lawn beyond it. Her attitude was 
 a little drooping, and as she turned to greet her hostess 
 and employer, Diana's quick eyes seemed to perceive 
 a trace of recent tears on the small face. The girl 
 was deeply touched, though she made no sign. Poor 
 little thing ! A widow, and childless, in a strange 
 place. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood, however, showed no further melan- 
 choly. vShe was full of admiration for the beauty of 
 the frosty morning, the trees touched with rime, the 
 browns and purples of the distant woods. She spoke 
 shyly, but winningly, of the comfort of her room, and 
 the thoughtfulness with which Miss Mallory had arranged 
 it; she could not say enough of the picturesqueness of 
 the house. Yet there was nothing fulsome in her praise. 
 She had the gift which makes the saying of sweet and 
 flattering things appear the merest simplicity. They 
 escaped her whether she would or no that at least was 
 the impression; and Diana found it agreeable. So agree- 
 ble that before they had been ten minutes at table Miss 
 Mallory, in response, was conscious on her own part of an 
 unusually strong wish to please her new companion to 
 make a good effect. Diana, indeed, was naturally gov- 
 erned by the wish to please. She desired above all 
 things to be liked that is, if she could not be loyeci. 
 9
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Mrs. Colwood brought with her a warm and favoring 
 atmosphere. Diana unfolded. 
 
 In the course of this first exploratory conversation, 
 it appeared that the two ladies had many experiences in 
 common. Mrs. Colwood had been two years, her two 
 short years of married life, in India ; Diana had travelled 
 there with her father. Also, as a girl, Mrs. Colwood had 
 spent a winter at Cannes, and another at Santa Mar- 
 gherita. Diana expressed with vehemence her weariness 
 of the Riviera; but the fact that Mrs. Colwood differed 
 from her led to all the more conversation. 
 
 " My father would never come home," sighed Diana. 
 " He hated the English climate, even in summer. Every 
 year I used to beg him to let us go to England. But he 
 never would. We lived abroad, first, I suppose, for his 
 health, and then I can't explain it. Perhaps he thought 
 he had been so long away he would find no old friends 
 left. And indeed so many of them had died. But 
 whenever I talked of it he began to look old and ill. So 
 I never could press it never!" 
 
 The girl's voice fell to a lower note musical, and 
 full of memory. Mrs. Colwood noticed the quality of it. 
 
 "Of course if my mother had lived," said Diana, in 
 the same tone, " it would have been different." 
 
 " But she died when you were a child?" 
 
 " Eighteen years ago. I can just remember it. We 
 were in London then. Afterwards father took me 
 abroad, and we never came back. Oh! the waste of all 
 those years!" 
 
 "Waste?" Mrs. Colwood probed the phrase a little. 
 Diana insisted, first with warmth, and then with an 
 eloquence that startled her companion, that for an Eng- 
 
 10
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 lishwoman to be brought up outside England, away from 
 country and countrymen, was to waste and forego a 
 hundred precious things that might have been gathered 
 up. " I used to be ashamed when I talked to English 
 people. Not that we saw many. We lived for years and 
 years at a little villa near Rapallo, and in the summer we 
 used to go up into the mountains, away from everybody. 
 But after we came back from a long tour, we lived for a 
 time at a hotel in Mentone our own little house was let 
 and I used to talk to people there though papa never 
 liked making friends. And I made ridiculous mistakes 
 about English things and they'd laugh. But one can't 
 know unless one has lived has breathed in a country, 
 from one's birth. That's what I've lost." 
 
 Mrs. Colwood demurred. 
 
 "Think of the people who wish they had grown up 
 without ever reading or hearing about the Bible, so that 
 they might read it for the first time, when they could 
 really understand it. You feel England all the more 
 intensely now because you come fresh to her." 
 
 Diana sprang up, with a change of face half laugh, 
 half frown. 
 
 "Yes, I feel her! Above all, I feel her enemies!" 
 
 She let in her dog, a fine collie, who was scratching 
 at the door. As she stood before the fire, holding up a 
 biscuit for him to jump at, she turned a red and con- 
 scious face towards her companion. The fire in the 
 eyes, the smile on the lip seemed to say: 
 
 "There! now we have come to it. This is my pas- 
 sion -my hobby this is me!" 
 
 "Her enemies! You are political?" 
 
 "Desperately!" 
 
 "A Tory?" 
 
 ii
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " Fanatical. But that's only part of it, ' What should 
 they know of England, that only England know!" 1 
 
 Miss Mallory threw back her head with a gesture that 
 became it. 
 
 "Ah, I see an Imperialist?" 
 
 Diana nodded, smiling. She had seated herself in a 
 chair by the fireside. Her dog's head was on her knees, 
 and one of her slender hands rested on the black and 
 tan. Mrs. Colwood admired the picture. Miss Mallory's 
 sloping shoulders and long waist were well shown by her 
 simple dress of black and closely fitting serge. Her head 
 crowned and piled with curly black hair, carried itself 
 with an amazing self-possesion and pride, which was yet 
 all feminine. This young woman might talk politics, 
 thought her new friend; no male man would call her 
 prater, while she bore herself with that air. Her eyes 
 the chaperon noticed it for the first time owed some 
 of their remarkable intensity, no doubt, to short sight. 
 They were large, finely colored and thickly fringed, but 
 their slightly veiled concentration suggested an habitual, 
 though quite unconscious struggle to see with that clear- 
 ness which the mind behind demanded of them. The 
 complexion was a clear brunette, the cheeks rosy; the 
 nose was slightly tilted, the mouth fresh and beautiful 
 though large; and the face of a lovely oval. Altogether, 
 an aspect of rich and glowing youth : no perfect beauty ; 
 but something arresting, ardent charged, perhaps over- 
 charged, with personality. Mrs. Colwood said to herself 
 that life at Beechcote would be no stagnant pool. 
 
 While they lingered in the drawing-room before church, 
 she kept Diana talking. It seemed that Miss Mallory 
 had seen Egypt, India, and Canada, in the course 
 of her last two years of life with her father. Their 
 
 12
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 travels had spread over more than a year; and Diana 
 had brought Mr. Mallory back to the Riviera, only, 
 it appeared, to die, after some eight months of illness. 
 But in securing to her that year of travel, her father 
 had bestowed his last and best gift upon her. Aided 
 by his affection, and stimulated by his knowledge, her 
 mind and character had rapidly developed. And, as 
 through a natural outlet, all her starved devotion for 
 the England she had never known, had spent itself 
 upon the Englands she found beyond the seas; upon 
 the hard-worked soldiers and civilians in lonely Indian 
 stations, upon the captains of English ships, upon the 
 pioneers of Canadian fields and railways; upon Eng- 
 land, in fact, as the arbiter of oriental faiths the wrestler 
 with the desert the mother and maker of new states. 
 A passion for the work of her race beyond these narrow 
 seas a passion of sympathy, which was also a passion 
 of antagonism, since every phase of that work, according 
 to Miss Mallory, had been dogged by the hate and 
 calumny of base minds expressed itself through her 
 charming mouth, with a quite astonishing fluency. Mrs. 
 Colwood's mind moved uneasily. She had expected an 
 orphan girl, ignorant of the world, whom she might 
 mother, and perhaps mould. She found a young Egeria, 
 talking politics with raised color and a throbbing voice, 
 as other girls might talk of lovers or chiffons. vEgeria's 
 companion secretly and with some alarm reviewed her 
 own equipment in these directions. Miss Mallory dis- 
 coursed of India. Mrs. Colwood had lived in it. But 
 her husband had entered the Indian Civil Service, simply 
 in order that he might have money enough to marry her. 
 And during their short time together, they had proba- 
 bly been more keenly alive to the depreciation of the
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 rupee than to ideas of England's imperial mission. But 
 Herbert had done his duty, of course he had. Once 
 or twice as Miss Mallory talked the little widow's eyes 
 filled with tears again unseen. The Indian names Diana 
 threw so proudly into air were, for her companion, 
 symbols of heart-break and death. But she played her 
 part; and her comments and interjections were all that 
 was necessary to keep the talk flowing. 
 
 In the midst of it voices were suddenly heard outside. 
 Diana started. 
 
 "Carols!" she said, with flushing cheeks. "The first 
 time I have heard them in England itself!" 
 
 She flew to the hall, and threw the door open. A hand- 
 ful of children appeared shouting "Good King Wences- 
 las" in a hideous variety of keys. Miss Mallory heard 
 them with enthusiasm ; then turned to the butler behind 
 her. 
 
 "Give them a shilling, please, Brown." 
 
 A quick change passed over the countenance of the 
 man addressed. 
 
 "Lady Emily, ma'am, never gave more than three- 
 pence." 
 
 This stately person had formerly served the Vavasours, 
 and was much inclined to let his present mistress know it. 
 
 Diana looked disappointed, but submissive. 
 
 "Oh, very well, Brown I don't want to alter any of 
 the old ways. But I hear the choir will come up to-night. 
 Now they must have five shillings and supper, please, 
 Brown." 
 
 Brown drew himself up a little more stiffly. 
 
 " Lady Emily always gave 'em supper, ma'am, but, 
 begging your pardon, she didn't hold at all with giving 
 'em money." 
 
 14
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Oh, I don't care!" said Miss Mallory, hastily. "I'm 
 sure they'll like it, Brown! Five shillings, please." 
 
 Brown withdrew, and Diana, with a laughing face 
 and her hands over her ears, to mitigate the farewell 
 bawling of the children, turned to Mrs. Colwood, with an 
 invitation to dress for church. 
 
 " The first time for me," she explained. " I have been 
 coming up and down, for a month or more, two or three 
 days at a time, to see to the furnishing. But now I am 
 at home!" 
 
 The Christmas service in the parish church was agree- 
 able enough. The Beechcote pew was at the back of 
 the church, and as the new mistress of the old house 
 entered and walked down the aisle, she drew the eyes of 
 a large congregation of rustics and small shopkeepers. 
 Diana moved in a kind of happy absorption, glancing 
 gently from side to side. This gathering of villagers was 
 to her representative of a spiritual and national fellow- 
 ship to which she came now to be joined. The old church, 
 wreathed in ivy and holly; the tombs in the southern 
 aisle ; the loaves standing near the porch for distribution 
 after service, in accordance with an old benefaction; the 
 fragments of fifteenth-century glass in the windows; 
 the school-children to her left; the singing, the prayers, 
 the sermon found her in a welcoming, a child-like mood. 
 She knelt, she sang, she listened, like one undergoing 
 initiation, with a tender aspiring light in her eyes, and 
 an eager mobility of expression. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood was more critical. fThe clergyman who 
 preached the sermon did not, in fact, please her at all. 
 He was a thin High Churchman, with an oblong face and 
 head, narrow shoulders, and a spare frame. He wore
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 spectacles, and his voice was disagreeably pitched. His 
 sermon was nevertheless remarkable. A bare yet pene- 
 trating style; a stern view of life; the voice of a prophet, 
 and apparently the views of a socialist all these he 
 possessed. None of them, it might have been thought, 
 were especially fitted to capture either the female or the 
 rustic mind. Yet it could not be denied that the congre- 
 gation was unusually good for a village church; and by 
 the involuntary sigh which Miss Mallory gave as the 
 sermon ended, Mrs. Col wood was able to gauge the 
 profound and docile attention with which one at least 
 had listened to it. 
 
 After church there was much lingering in the church- 
 yard for the exchange of Christmas greetings. Mrs. 
 Colwood found herself introduced to the Vicar, Mr. 
 La very; to a couple of maiden ladies of the name of 
 Bertram, who seemed to have a good deal to do with the 
 Vicar, and with the Church affairs of the village; and 
 to an elderly couple, Dr. and Mrs. Roughsedge, white- 
 haired, courteous, and kind, who were accompanied by 
 a soldier son, in whom it was evident they took a bound- 
 less pride. The young man, of a handsome and open 
 countenance, looked at Miss Mallory as much as good 
 manners allowed. She, however, had eyes for no one but 
 the Vicar, with whom she started, tete-a-tete, in the direc- 
 tion of the Vicarage. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood followed, shyly making acquaintance 
 with the Roughsedges, and the elder Miss Bertram. 
 That lady was tall, fair, and faded; she had a sharp, 
 handsome nose, and a high forehead; and her eyes, 
 which hardly ever met those of the person with whom 
 she talked, gave the impression of a soul preoccupied, 
 with few or none of the ordinary human curiosities. 
 
 16
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge, on the -other hand, was most human, 
 motherly, and inquisitive. She wore two curls on either 
 side of her face held by small combs, a large bonnet, 
 and an ample cloak. It was clear that whatever adora- 
 tion she could spare from her husband was lavished on 
 her son. But there was still enough good temper and 
 good will left to overflow upon the rest of mankind. She 
 perceived in a moment that Mrs. Colwood was the new 
 "companion" to the heiress, that she was a widow, and 
 sad in spite of her cheerfulness. 
 
 "Now I hope Miss Mallory is going to like us!" she 
 said, with a touch of confidential good-humor, as she 
 drew Mrs. Colwood a little behind the others. "We are 
 all in love with her already. But she must be patient 
 with us. We're very humdrum folk!" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood could only say that Miss Mallory seem- 
 ed to be in love with everything the house, the church, 
 the village, and the neighbors. Mrs. Roughsedge shook 
 her gray curls, smiling, as she replied that this was no 
 doubt partly due to novelty. After her long residence 
 abroad, Miss Mallory was it was very evident glad to 
 come home. Poor thing she must have known a great 
 deal of trouble an only child, and no mother! "Well, 
 I'm sure if there's anything we can do " 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge nodded cheerfully towards her hus- 
 band and son in front. The gesture awakened a certain 
 natural reserve in Mrs. Colwood, followed by a quick 
 feeling of amusement with herself that she should so 
 soon have developed the instinct of the watch-dog. 
 But it was not to be denied that the new mistress of 
 Beechcote was well endowed, as single women go. Fond 
 mothers with marriageable sons might require some 
 handling. 
 
 n
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 But Mrs. Roughsedge's simple kindness soon baffled 
 distrust. And Mrs. Colwood was beginning to talk freely, 
 when suddenly the Vicar and Miss Mallory in front 
 came to a stop. The way to the Vicarage lay along a 
 side road. The Roughsedges also, who had walked so 
 far for sociability's sake, must return to the village and 
 early dinner. The party broke up. Miss Mallory, as she 
 made her good-byes, appeared a little flushed and dis- 
 composed. But the unconscious fire in her glance, and 
 the vigor of her carriage, did but add to her good looks. 
 Captain Roughsedge, as he touched her hand, asked 
 whether he should find her at home that afternoon if he 
 called, and Diana absently said yes. 
 
 (^What a strange impracticable man!" cried Miss 
 Mallory hotly, as the ladies turned into the Beechcote 
 drive. " It is really a misfortune to find a man of such 
 opinions in this place." 
 
 "The Vicar?" said Mrs. Colwood, bewildered. 
 
 "A Little Englander! a socialist! And so rude too! 
 I asked him to let me help him with his poor and he 
 threw back my offers in my face. What they wanted, he 
 said, was not charity, but justice. And justice apparently 
 means cutting up the property of the rich, and giving it 
 to the poor. Is it my fault if the Vavasours neglected 
 their cottages? I just mentioned emigration, and he 
 foamed! I am sure he would give away the Colonies for 
 a pinch_of soap, and abolish the Army and Navy to- 
 morrow."^ 
 
 DianaTs face glowed with indignation with wound- 
 ed feeling besides. Mrs. Colwood endeavored to soothe 
 her, but she remained grave and rather silent for some 
 time. The flow of Christmas feeling and romantic 
 pleasure had been arrested, and the memory of a harsh 
 
 18
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 personality haunted the day. In the afternoon, however, 
 in the unpacking of various pretty knick-knacks, and in 
 the putting away of books and papers, Diana recovered 
 herself. She flitted about the house, arranging her 
 favorite books, hanging pictures, and disposing em- 
 broideries. The old walls glowed afresh under her hand, 
 and from the combination of their antique beauty with 
 her young taste, a home began to emerge, stamped 
 with a woman's character and reflecting her enthusiasms. 
 As she assisted in the task, Mrs. Colwood learned many 
 things. She gathered that Miss Mallory read two or three 
 languages, that she was passionately fond of French me- 
 moirs and the French classics, that her father had taught 
 her Latin and German, and guided every phase of her ed- 
 ucation. Traces indeed of his poetic and scholarly tem- 
 per were visible throughout his daughter's possessions 
 so plainly, that at last as they came nearly to the end 
 of the books, Diana's gayety once more disappeared. She 
 moved soberly and dreamily, as though the past returned 
 upon her ; and once or twice Mrs. Colwood came upon her 
 standing motionless, her finger in an open book, her eyes 
 wandering absently through the casement windows to 
 the distant wall of hill. Sometimes, as she bent over the 
 books and packets she would say little things, or quote 
 stories of her father, which seemed to show a pretty 
 wish on her part to make the lady who was now to be 
 her companion understand something of the feelings and 
 memories on which her life was based. But there was 
 dignity in it all, and, besides, a fundamental awe and 
 reserve. Mrs. Colwood seemed to see that there were 
 remembrances connected with her father far too poignant 
 to be touched in speech. 
 
 At tea-time Captain Roughsedge appeared. Mrs. Col- 
 
 19
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 wood's first impression of his good manners and good 
 looks was confirmed. But his conversation could not 
 be said to flow: and in endeavoring to entertain him 
 the two ladies fought a rather uphill fight. Then Di- 
 ana discovered that he belonged to the Sixtieth Rifles, 
 whereupon the young lady disclosed a knowledge of the 
 British Army, and its organization, which struck her 
 visitor as nothing short of astounding. He listened to 
 her open-mouthed while she rattled on, mainly to fill up 
 the gaps in his own remarks; and when she paused, he 
 bluntly complimented her on her information. "Oh, 
 that was papa!" said Diana, with a smile and a sigh. 
 " He taught me all he could about the Army, though he 
 himself had only been a Volunteer. There was an old 
 History of the British Army I was brought up on. It 
 was useful when we went to India because I knew so 
 much about the regiments we came across." 
 
 This accomplishment of hers proved indeed a god- 
 send; the young man found his tongue; and the visit 
 ended much better than it began. 
 
 As he said good-bye, he looked round the drawing- 
 room in wonderment. 
 
 "How you've altered it! The Vavasours made it 
 hideous. But I've only been in this room twice before, 
 though my people have lived here thirty years. We 
 were never smart enough for Lady Emily." 
 
 He colored as he spoke, and Diana suspected in him 
 a memory of small past humiliations. Evidently he was 
 sensitive as well as shy. 
 
 "Hard work dear young man!" she said, with a 
 smile, and a stretch, as the door closed upon him. " But 
 after all ' que faime k militaire ' ! Now, shall we go 
 back to work?" 
 
 20
 
 The Testing o Diana Mallory 
 
 There were still some books to unpack. Presently 
 Mrs. Colwood found herself helping to carry a small but 
 heavy box of papers to the sitting-room which Diana 
 had arranged for herself next to her bedroom. Mrs. 
 Colwood noticed that before Diana asked her assistance 
 she dismissed her new maid, who had been till then ac- 
 tively engaged in the unpacking. Miss Mallory herself un- 
 locked the trunk in which the despatch-box had arrived, 
 and took it out. The box had an old green baize cover- 
 ing which was much frayed and worn. Diana placed it 
 on the floor of her bedroom, where Mrs. Colwood had 
 been helping her in various unpackings, and went away 
 for a minute to clear a space for it in the locked wall- 
 cupboard to which it was to be consigned. Her com- 
 panion, left alone, happened to see that an old mended 
 tear in the green baize had given way in Diana's handling 
 of the box, and quite involuntarily her eyes caught a 
 brass plate on the morocco lid, which bore the words, 
 "Sparling papers." Diana came back at the moment, 
 and perceived the uncovered label. She flushed a little, 
 hesitated, and then said, looking first at the label and 
 then at Mrs. Colwood : " I think I should like you to 
 know my name was not always Mallory. We were 
 Sparlings but my father took the name of Mallory 
 after my mother's death. It was his mother's name, 
 and there was an old Mallory uncle who left him a prop- 
 erty. I believe he was glad to change his name. He 
 never spoke to me of any Sparling relations. He was 
 an only child, and I always suppose his father must have 
 been very unkind to him and that they quarrelled. 
 At any rate, he quite dropped the name, and never 
 would let me speak of it. My mother had hardly any 
 relations either only one sister who married and went 
 
 ax
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 to Barbadoes. So our old name was very soon forgotten. 
 And please" she looked up appealingly "now that 
 I have told you, will you forget it too ? It always seem- 
 ed to hurt papa to hear it, and I never could bear to do 
 or say anything that gave him pain." 
 
 She spoke with a sweet seriousness. Mrs. Colwood, 
 who had been conscious of a slight shock of puzzled 
 recollection, gave an answer which evidently pleased 
 Diana, for the girl held out her hand and pressed that of 
 her companion; then they carried the box to its place, 
 and were leaving the room, when suddenly Diana, with 
 a joyous exclamation, pounced on a book which was lying 
 on the floor, tumbled among a dozen others recently 
 unpacked. 
 
 "Mr. Marsham's Rossetti! I am glad, Now I can 
 face him!" 
 
 She looked up all smiles. 
 
 " Do you know that I am going to take you to a party 
 next week? to the Marshams? They live near here 
 at Tallyn Hall. They have asked us for two nights 
 Thursday to Saturday. I hope you won't mind." 
 
 "Have I got a dress?" said Mrs. Colwood, anxiously. 
 
 "Oh, that doesn't matter! not at the Marshams. I 
 am glad!" repeated Diana, fondling the book " If I really 
 had lost it, it would have given him a horrid advantage !" 
 
 "Who is Mr. Marsham?" 
 
 " A gentleman we got to know at Rapallo," said Diana, 
 still smiling to herself. " He and his mother were there 
 last winter. Father and I quarrelled with him all day 
 long. He is the worst Radical I ever met, but " 
 
 "But? but agreeable?" 
 
 " Oh yes," said Diana, uncertainly, and Mrs. Colwood 
 thought she colored "oh yes agreeable!" 
 
 22
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "And he lives near here?" 
 
 " He is the member for the division. Such a crew 
 as we shall meet there!" Diana laughed out. "I had 
 better warn you. But they have been very kind. They 
 called directly they knew I had taken the house. 'They' 
 means Mr. Oliver Marsham and his mother. I am glad 
 I've found his book!" She went off embracing it. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood was left with two impressions one sharp, 
 the other vague. One was that Mr. Oliver Marsham 
 might easily become a personage in the story of which 
 she had just, as it were, turned the first leaf. The other 
 was connected with the name on the despatch-box. 
 Why did it haunt her ? It had produced a kind of indis- 
 tinguishable echo in the brain, to which she could put no 
 words which was none the less dreary; like a voice of 
 wailing from a far-off past.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 DURING the days immediately following her arrival 
 at Beechcote, Mrs. Colwood applied herself to a 
 study of Miss Mallory and her surroundings none the 
 less penetrating because the student was modest and her 
 method unperceived. She divined a nature unworldly, 
 impulsive, steeped, moreover, for all its spiritual and 
 intellectual force, which was considerable, in a kind of 
 sensuous romance much connected with concrete things 
 and symbols, places, persons, emblems, or relics, any 
 contact with which might at any time bring the color to 
 the girl's cheeks and the tears to her eyes. Honor 
 personal or national the word was to Diana like a spark 
 to dry leaves. Her whole nature flamed to it, and there 
 were moments when she walked visibly transfigured in 
 the glow of it. Her mind was rich, moreover, in the 
 delicate, inchoate lovers, the half-poetic, half-intellectual 
 passions, the mystical yearnings and aspirations, which 
 haunt a pure expanding youth. Such human beings, 
 Mrs. Colwood reflected, are not generally made for hap- 
 piness. But there were also in Diana signs both of 
 practical ability and of a rare common-sense. Would 
 this last avail to protect her from her enthusiasms? 
 Mrs. Colwood remembered a famous Frenchwoman of 
 whom it was said: "Her judgment is infallible her 
 conduct one long mistake!" The little companion was 
 already sufficiently attached to Miss Mallory to hope 
 
 24
 
 The Testing of* Diana Mallory 
 
 that in this case a natural tact and balance might not be 
 thrown away. 
 
 As to suitors and falling in love, the natural accom- 
 paniments of such a charming youth, Mrs. Colwood came 
 across no traces of anything of the sort. During her 
 journey with her father to India, Japan, and America, 
 Miss Mallory had indeed for the first time seen some- 
 thing of society. But in the villa beside the Mediter- 
 ranean it was evident that her life with her father had 
 been one of complete seclusion. She and he had lived 
 for each other. Books, sketching, long walks, a friendly 
 interest in their peasant neighbors these had filled 
 their time. 
 
 It took, indeed, but a short time to discover in Miss 
 Mallory a hunger for society which seemed to be the 
 natural result of long starvation. With her neighbors 
 the Roughsedges she was already on the friendliest terms. 
 To Dr. Roughsedge, who was infirm, and often a prisoner 
 to his library, she paid many small attentions which soon 
 won the heart of an old student. She was in love with 
 Mrs. Roughsedge's gray curls and motherly ways; and 
 would consult her about servants and tradesmen with an 
 eager humility. She liked the son, it seemed, for the 
 parents' sake, nor was it long before he was allowed at 
 his own pressing request to help in hanging pictures 
 and arranging books at Beechcote. A girl's manner 
 with young men is always a matter of interest to older 
 women. Mrs. Colwood thought that Diana's manner to 
 the young soldier could not have been easily bettered. 
 It was frank and gay with just that tinge of old- 
 fashioned reserve which might be thought natural in a 
 girl of gentle breeding, brought up alone by a fastidious 
 father. With all her impetuosity, indeed, there was
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 about her something markedly virginal and remote, 
 which is commoner, perhaps, in Irish than English 
 women. Mrs. Colwood watched the effect of it on 
 Captain Roughsedge. After her third day of acquaint- 
 ance with him, she said to herself: " He will fall in love 
 with her!" But she said it with compassion, and with- 
 out troubling to speculate on the lady. Whereas, with 
 regard to the Marsham visit, she already she could 
 hardly have told why found herself full of curiosity. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the few days which elapsed before that 
 visit was due, Diana was much called on by the country- 
 side. The girl restrained her restlessness, and sat at 
 home, receiving everybody with a friendliness which 
 might have been insipid but for its grace and spontane- 
 ity. She disliked no one, .was bored by no one. The 
 joy of her home-coming seemed to halo them all. Even 
 the sour Miss Bertrams could not annoy her; she thought 
 them sensible and clever ; even the tiresome Mrs. Minchin 
 of Minchin Hall, the "gusher" of the county, who 
 "adored" all mankind and ill-treated her step-daughter, 
 even she was dubbed "very kind," till Mrs. Roughsedge, 
 next day, kindled a passion in the girl's eyes by some 
 tales of the step-daughter. Mrs. Colwood wondered 
 whether, indeed, she could be bored, as Mrs. Minchin 
 had not achieved it. Those who talk easily and well, like 
 Diana, are less keenly aware, she thought, of the plati- 
 tudes of their neighbors. They are not defenceless, like 
 the shy and the silent. 
 
 Nevertheless, it was clear that if Diana welcomed the 
 neighbors with pleasure she often saw them go with 
 relief. As soon as the house was clear of them, she would 
 stand pensively by the fire, looking down into the blaze 
 like one on whom a dream suddenly descends then 
 
 26
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallort^ 
 
 would often call her dog, and go out alone, into the winter 
 twilight. From these rambles she would return grave 
 sometimes with reddened eyes. But at all times, as Mrs. 
 Col wood soon began to realize, there was but a thin line 
 of division between her gayety and some inexplicable 
 sadness, some unspoken grief, which seemed to rise upon 
 her and overshadow her, like a cloud tangled in the 
 woods of spring. Mrs. Colwood could only suppose that 
 these times of silence and eclipse were connected in some 
 way with her father and her loss of him. But whenever 
 they occurred, Mrs. Colwood found her own mind in- 
 vincibly recalled to that name on the box of papers, 
 which still haunted her, still brought with it a vague 
 sense of something painful and harrowing a breath of 
 desolation, in strange harmony, it often seemed, with 
 certain looks and moods of Diana. But Mrs. Colwood 
 searched her memory in vain. And, indeed, after a lit- 
 tle while, some imperious instinct even forbade her the 
 search so rapid and strong was the growth of sympathy 
 with the young life which had called her to its aid. 
 
 The day of the Marsham visit arrived a January 
 afternoon clear and frosty. In the morning before they 
 were to start, Diana seemed to be often closeted with her 
 maid, and once in passing Miss Mallory's open door, her 
 companion could not help seeing a consultation going on, 
 and a snowy white dress, with black ribbons, lying on the 
 bed. Heretofore Diana had only appeared in black, the 
 strict black which French dressmakers understand, for it 
 was little more than a year since her father's death. The 
 thought of seeing her in white stirred Mrs. Col wood's 
 expectations. 
 
 Tallyn Hall was eight miles^ fro,m Beechcote. The 
 
 27
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 ladies were to drive, but in order to show Mrs. Colwood 
 something of the country, Diana decreed that they should 
 walk up to the downs by a field path, meeting the carriage 
 which bore their luggage at a convenient point on the 
 main road. 
 
 The day was a day of beauty the trees and grass 
 lightly rimed, the air sparkling and translucent. Nature 
 was held in the rest of winter ; but beneath the outward 
 stillness, one caught as it were the strong heart-beat 
 of the mighty mother. Diana climbed the steep down 
 without a pause, save when she turned round from 
 time to time to help her companion. Her slight firm 
 frame, the graceful decision of her movements, the ab- 
 sence of all stress and effort showed a creature accus- 
 tomed to exercise and open air; Mrs. Colwood, the frail 
 Anglo-Indian to whom walking was a task, tried to rival 
 her in vain; and Diana was soon full of apologies and 
 remorse for having tempted her to the climb. 
 
 "Please! please!" the little lady panted, as they 
 reached the top "wasn't this worth it?" 
 
 For they stood in one of the famous wood and com- 
 mon lands of Southern England great beeches tower- 
 ing overhead glades opening to right and left ferny 
 paths over green turf-tracks, and avenues of imme- 
 morial age, the highways of a vanished life old earth- 
 works, overgrown lanes deep-sunk in the chalk where 
 the pack-horses once made their way gnarled thorns, 
 bent with years, yet still white-mantled in the spring: a 
 wild, enchanted no-man's country, owned it seemed by 
 rabbits and birds, solitary, lovely, and barren yet from 
 its furthest edge, the high spectator, looking eastward, 
 on a clear night, might see on the horizon the dim flare 
 of London. 
 
 28
 
 The Testing of Diana Maliory 
 
 Diana's habitual joy broke out, as she stood gazing 
 at the village below, the walls and woods of Beech- 
 cote, the church, the plough-lands, and the far- western 
 plain, drawn in pale grays and purples under the de- 
 clining sun. 
 
 " Isn't it heavenly ! the browns the blues the 
 soberness, the delicacy of it all? Oh, so much better 
 than any tiresome Mediterranean any stupid Riviera! 
 Ah!" She stopped and turned, checked by a sound 
 behind her. 
 
 Captain Roughsedge appeared, carrying his gun, his 
 spaniel beside him. He greeted the ladies with what 
 seemed to Mrs. Colwood a very evident start of pleasure, 
 and turned to walk with them. 
 
 "You have been shooting?" said Diana. 
 
 He admitted it. 
 
 "That's what you enjoy?" 
 
 He flushed. 
 
 "More than anything in the world." 
 
 But he looked at his questioner a little askance, as 
 though uncertain how she might take so gross a con- 
 fession. 
 
 Diana laughed, and hoped he got as much as he 
 desired. Then he was not like his father who cared so 
 much for books ? 
 
 "Oh, books!" He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, 
 the fact is, I I don't often read if I can help it. But of 
 course they make you do a lot of it with these beastly 
 examinations. They've about spoiled the army with 
 them." 
 
 " You wouldn't do it for pleasure ?" 
 
 "What reading?" He shook his head decidedly. 
 " Not while I could be doing anything else." 
 
 29
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Not history or poetry?" 
 
 He looked at her again nervously. But the girl's face 
 was gay, and he ventured on the truth. 
 
 "Well, no, I can't say I do. My father reads a deal 
 of poetry aloud." 
 
 "And it bores you?" 
 
 "Well, I don't understand it," he said, slowly and 
 candidly. 
 
 "Don't you even read the papers?" asked Diana, 
 wondering. 
 
 He started. 
 
 "Why, I should think I do!" he cried. "I should 
 rather think I do! That's another thing altogether 
 that's not books." 
 
 "Then perhaps you read the debate last night?" She 
 looked at him with a kindling eye. 
 
 "Of course I did every word of it! Do you know 
 what those Radical fellows are up to now? They'll 
 never rest until we've lost the Khaibar and then the 
 Lord only knows what '11 happen." 
 
 Diana flew into discussion quick breath, red cheeks! 
 Mrs. Colwood looked on amazed. 
 
 Presently both appealed to her, the Anglo-Indian. 
 But she smiled and stammered declining the challenge. 
 Beside their eagerness, their passion, she felt herself 
 tongue-tied. Captain Roughsedge had seen two years' 
 service on the Northwest Frontier; Diana had ridden 
 through the Khaibar with her father and a Lieutenant- 
 Go vernor. In both the sense of England's historic task 
 as the guardian of a teeming India against onslaught 
 from the north, had sunk deep, not into brain merely. 
 Figures of living men, acts of heroism and endurance, the 
 thought of English soldiers ambushed in mountain de- 
 
 30
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 files, or holding out against Afridi hordes in lonely forts, 
 dying and battling, not for themselves, but that the 
 great mountain barrier might hold against the savagery 
 of the north, and English honor and English power 
 maintain themselves unscathed these had mingled, 
 in both, with the chivalry and the red blood of youth. 
 The eyes of both had seen; the hearts of both had 
 felt. 
 
 And now, in the English House of Commons, there 
 were men who doubted and sneered about these things 
 who held an Afridi life dearer than an English one who 
 cared nothing for the historic task, who would let India 
 go to-morrow without a pang! 
 
 Misguided recreants! But Mrs. Colwood, looking on, 
 could only feel that had they never played their impish 
 part, the winter afternoon for these two companions of 
 hers would have been infinitely less agreeable. 
 
 For certainly denunication and argument became 
 Diana-^-all the more that she was no "female franzy" 
 who must have all the best of the talk ; she listened she 
 evoked she drew on, and drew out. Mrs. Colwood was 
 secretly sure that this very modest and ordinarily stupid 
 young man had never talked so well before, that his 
 mother would have been astonished could she have be- 
 held him. What had come to the young women of this 
 generation! Their grandmothers cared for politics only 
 so far as they advanced the fortunes of their lords other- 
 wise what was Hecuba to them, or they to Hecuba? 
 But these women have minds for the impersonal. Diana 
 was not talking to make an effect on Captain Roughsedge 
 that was the strange part of it. Hundreds of women 
 can make politics serve the primitive woman's game; 
 the " come hither in the ee " can use that weapon as well 
 
 3 1
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 as any other. But here was an intellectual, a patriotic 
 passion, veritable, genuine, not feigned. 
 
 Well ! the spectator admitted it unwillingly so 
 long as the debater, the orator, were still desirable, still 
 lovely. She stole a glance at Captain Roughsedge. Was 
 he, too, so unconscious of sex, of opportunity ? Ah ! that 
 she doubted! The young man plaj^ed his part stoutly; 
 flung back the ball without a break; but there were 
 glances, and movements and expressions, which to this 
 shrewd feminine eye appeared to betray what no scrutiny 
 could detect in Diana a pleasure within a pleasure, and 
 thoughts behind thoughts. At any rate, he prolonged the 
 walk as long as it could be prolonged; he accompanied 
 them to the very door of their carriage, and would have 
 delayed them there but that Diana looked at her watch 
 in dismay. 
 
 "You'll hear plenty of that sort of stuff to-night!" 
 he said, as he helped them to their wraps. " ' Perish 
 India!' and all the rest of it. All they'll mind at Tallyn 
 will be that the Afridis haven't killed a few more Brit- 
 ishers." 
 
 Diana gave him a rather grave smile and bow as the 
 carriage drove on. Mrs. Colwood wondered whether the 
 Captain's last remark had somehow offended her com- 
 panion. But Miss Mallory made no reference to it. 
 Instead, she began to give her companion some pre- 
 liminary information as to the party they were likely to 
 find at Tallyn. 
 
 (As Mrs. Colwood already knew, Mr. Oliver Marsham, 
 member for the Western division of Brookshire, was 
 young and unmarried. He lived with his mother, Lady 
 Lucy Marsham, the owner of Tallyn Hall; and his 
 widowed sister, Mrs. Fotheringham, was also a constant 
 
 32
 
 The Testing of! Diana Mallory 
 
 inmate of the house. Mrs. Fotheringham was if possible 
 more extreme in opinions than her brother, frequented 
 platforms, had quarrelled with all her Conservative re- 
 lations, including a family of stepsons, and supported 
 Women's Suffrage. It was evident that Diana was steel- 
 ing herself to some endurance in this quarter. As to the 
 other guests whom they might expect, Diana knew little. 
 She had heard that Mr. Ferrier was to be there ex- V- 
 Home Secretary, and now leader of the Opposition and 
 old Lady Niton. Diana retailed what gossip she knew 
 of this rather famous personage, whom three-fourths of 
 the world found insolent and the rest witty. "They 
 say, anyway, that she can snub Mrs. Fotheringham," 
 said Diana, laughing. 
 
 "You met them abroad?" 
 
 "Only Mr. Marsham and Lady Lucy. Papa and I 
 were walking over the hills at Portofmo. We fell in with 
 him, and he asked us the way to San Fruttuoso. We 
 were going there, so we showed him. Papa liked him, 
 and he came to see us afterwards several times. Lady 
 Lucy came once." 
 
 "She is nice?" 
 
 "Oh yes," said Diana, vaguely, "she is quite beautiful 
 for her age. You never saw such lovely hands. And so 
 fastidious so dainty! I remember feeling uncomfort- 
 able all the time, because I knew I had a tear in my 
 dress, and my hair was untidy and I was certain she 
 noticed." 
 
 " It's all rather alarming," said Mrs. Colwood, smiling. 
 
 " No, no !" Diana turned upon her eagerly. " They're 
 very kind very, very kind!" 
 
 The winter day was nearly gone when they reached 
 
 33
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 their destination. But there was just light enough, as 
 they stepped out of the carriage, to show a large mod- 
 ern building, built of red brick, with many gables and 
 bow-windows, and a generally restless effect. As they 
 followed the butler through the outer hall, a babel of 
 voices made itself heard, and when he threw open the 
 door into the inner hall, they found themselves ushered 
 into a large party. 
 
 There was a pleased exclamation from a tall fair man 
 standing near the fire, who came forward at once to meet 
 them. 
 
 "So glad to see you! But we hoped for you earlier! 
 Mother, here is Miss Mallory." 
 
 Lady Lucy, a woman of sixty, still slender and stately, 
 greeted them kindly, Mrs. Colwood was introduced, and 
 room was made for the new-comers in the circle round 
 the tea-table, which was presided over by a lady with 
 red hair and an eye-glass, who gave a hand to Diana, 
 and a bow, or more precisely a nod, to Mrs. Colwood. 
 
 '* I'm Oliver's sister my name's Fotheringham. That's 
 my cousin Madeleine Varley. Madeleine, find me some 
 cups! This is Mr. Ferrier Mr. Ferrier, Miss Mallory. 
 I expect you know Lady Niton. Sir James Chide, Miss 
 Mallory. Perhaps that '11 do to begin with!" said Mrs. 
 Fotheringham, carelessly, glancing at a further group of 
 people. "Now I'll give you some tea." 
 
 Diana sat down, very shy, and a little flushed. Mr. 
 Marsham hovered about her, inducing her to loosen her 
 furs, bringing her tea, and asking questions about her 
 settlement at Beechcote. He showed also a marked 
 courtesy to Mrs. Colwood, and the little widow, suscept- 
 ible to every breath of kindness, formed the prompt 
 opinion that he was both handsome and agreeable. 
 
 34
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Oliver Mar sham, indeed, was not a person to be over- 
 looked. His height was about six foot three; and his 
 long slender limbs and spare frame had earned him, as 
 a lad, among the men of his father's works, the descrip- 
 tion of " two yards o' pump-waater, straight oop an' 
 down." But in his thin lengthiness there was nothing 
 awkward rather a graceful readiness and vigor. And 
 the head which surmounted this lightly built body gave 
 to the whole personality the force and weight it might 
 otherwise have missed. The hair was very thick and 
 very fair, though already slightly grizzled. It lay in 
 heavy curly masses across a broad head, defining a 
 strong brow above deeply set small eyes of a pale con- 
 spicuous blue. The nose, aquiline and large; the mouth 
 large also, but thin-lipped and flexible; slight hollows 
 in the cheeks, and a long, lantern jaw. The whole 
 figure made an impression of ease, power, and self-con- 
 fidence i j 
 
 "So you like your old house?" he said, presently, to 
 Diana, sitting down beside her, and dropping his voice a 
 little. 
 
 " It suits me perfectly." 
 
 "I am certain the moat is rheumatic! But you will 
 never admit it." 
 
 "I would, if it were true," she said, smiling. 
 
 " No ! you are much too romantic. You see, I re- 
 member our conversations." 
 
 "Did I never admit the truth?" 
 
 " You would never admit it was the truth. And my 
 difficulty was to find an arbiter between us." 
 
 Diana's face changed a little. He perceived it in- 
 stantly. 
 
 'Your father was sometimes arbiter," he said, in a 
 
 35
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 still lower tone "but naturally he took your side. I 
 shall always rejoice I had that chance of meeting him." 
 
 Diana said nothing, but her dark eyes turned on him 
 with a soft friendly look. His own smiled in response, 
 and he resumed: 
 
 " I suppose you don't know many of these people 
 here?" 
 
 "Not any." 
 
 " I'm sure you'll like Mr. Ferrier. He is our very old 
 friend almost my guardian. Of course on politics 
 you won't agree!" 
 
 " I didn't expect to agree with anybody here," said 
 Diana, slyly. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " I might offer you Lady Niton but I refrain. To- 
 morrow I have reason to believe that two Tories are 
 coming to dinner." 
 
 "Which am I to admire? your liberality, or their 
 courage?" 
 
 " I have matched them by two socialists. Which will 
 you sit next?" 
 
 "Oh, I am proof!" said Diana. "'Come one, come 
 all.'" 
 
 He looked at her smilingly. 
 
 " Is it always the same ? Are you still in love with all 
 the dear old abuses?" 
 
 "And do you still hate everything that wasn't made 
 last week?" 
 
 "Oh no! We only hate what cheats or oppresses 
 the people." 
 
 "The people?" echoed Diana, with an involuntary 
 lift of the eyebrows, and she looked round the immense 
 hall, with its costly furniture, its glaring electric lights, 
 
 36
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 and the band of bad fresco which ran round its lower 
 walls. 
 
 Oliver Marsham reddened a little; then said: 
 
 "I see my cousin Miss Drake. May I introduce her? 
 Alicia!" 
 
 A young lady had entered, from a curtained archway 
 dividing the hall from a passage beyond. She paused 
 a moment examining the company. The dark curtain 
 behind her made an effective background for the brill- 
 iance of her hair, dress, and complexion, of which fact 
 such at least was Diana's instant impression she was 
 most composedly aware. At least she lingered a few 
 leisurely seconds, till everybody in the hall had had the 
 opportunity of marking her entrance. Then beckoned by 
 Oliver Marsham, she moved toward Diana. 
 
 " How do you do ? I suppose you've had a long drive ? 
 Don't you hate driving?" 
 
 And without waiting for an answer, she turned af- 
 fectedly away, and took a place at the tea-table where 
 room had been made for her by two young men. Reach- 
 ing out a white hand, she chose a cake, and began to 
 nibble it slowly, her elbows resting on the table, the 
 ruffles of white lace falling back from her bare and 
 rounded arms. Her look meanwhile, half absent, half 
 audacious, seemed to wander round the persons near, as 
 though she saw them, without taking any real account of 
 them. 
 
 "What have you been doing, Alicia, all this time?" 
 said Marsham, as he handed her a cup of tea. 
 
 " Dressing." 
 
 An incredulous shout from the table. 
 
 "Since lunch!" 
 
 Miss Drake nodded. Lady Lucy put in an explana- 
 
 37
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 tory remark about a "dressmaker from town," but was 
 not heard. The table was engaged in watching the new- 
 comer. 
 
 "May we congratulate you on the result?" said Mr. 
 Ferrier, putting up his eye-glass. 
 
 " If you like," said Miss Drake, indifferently, still 
 gently munching at her cake. Then suddenly she smiled 
 a glittering infectious smile, to which unconsciously 
 all the faces near her responded. " I have been read- 
 ing the book you lent me!" she said, addressing Mr. 
 Ferrier. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I'm too stupid I can't understand it." 
 
 Mr. Ferrier laughed. 
 
 " I'm afraid that excuse won't do, Miss Alicia. You 
 must find another." 
 
 She was silent a moment, finished her cake, then took 
 some grapes, and began to play with them in the same 
 conscious provocative way till at last she turned upon 
 her immediate neighbor, a young barrister with a broad 
 boyish face. 
 
 "Well, I wonder whether you'd mind?" 
 
 "Mind what?" 
 
 " If your father had done something shocking forged 
 or murdered or done something of that kind suppos- 
 ing, of course, he were dead." 
 
 "Do you mean if I suddenly found out?" 
 
 She nodded assent. 
 
 "Well!" he reflected; "it would be disagreeable!" 
 
 " Yes but would it make you give up all the things 
 you like? golfing and cards and parties and the 
 girl you were engaged to and take to slumming, and 
 that kind of thing?" 
 
 38
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 The slight inflection of the last words drew smiles. 
 Mr. Ferrier held up a finger. 
 
 "Miss Alicia, I shall lend you no more books." 
 
 "Why? Because I can't appreciate them?" 
 
 Mr. Ferrier laughed. 
 
 " I maintain that book is a book to melt the heart of a 
 stone." 
 
 " Well, I tried to cry," said the girl, putting another 
 grape into her mouth, and quietly nodding at her in- 
 terlocutor " I did honor bright. But really what 
 does it matter what your father did?" 
 
 "My dear!" said Lady Lucy, softly. Her singularly 
 white and finely wrinkled face, framed in a delicate 
 capote of old lace, looked coldly at the speaker. 
 
 " By- the- way," said Mr. Ferrier, " does not the ques- 
 tion rather concern you in this neighborhood? I hear 
 young Brenner has just come to live at West Hill. I 
 don't now what sort of a youth he is, but if he's a decent 
 fellow, I don't imagine anybody will boycott him on 
 account of his father's misdoings." 
 
 He referred to one of the worst financial scandals of 
 the preceding generation. Lady Lucy made no answer, 
 but any one closely observing her might have noticed a 
 sudden and sharp stiffening of the lips, which was in 
 truth her reply. 
 
 "Oh, you can always ask a man like that to garden- 
 parties!" said a shrill, distant voice. The group round 
 the table turned. The remark was made by old Lady 
 Niton, who sat enthroned in an arm-chair near the fire, 
 sometimes knitting, and sometimes observing her neigh- 
 bors with a malicious eye. 
 
 " Anything's good enough, isn't it, for garden-parties ?" 
 said Mrs. Fotheringham, with a little sneer. 
 
 39
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Lady Niton's face kindled. " Let us be Radicals, my 
 dear," she said, briskly, "but not hypocrites. Garden- 
 parties are invaluable for people you can't ask into the 
 house. By-the-way, wasn't it you, Oliver, who scolded 
 me last night, because I said somebody wasn't 'in 
 Society'?" 
 
 " You said it of a particular hero of mine," laughed 
 Marsham. "I naturally pitied Society." 
 
 "What is Society? Where is it?" said Sir James 
 Chide, contemptuously. "I suppose Lady Palmerston 
 knew." 
 
 The famous lawyer sat a little apart from the rest. 
 Diana, who had only caught his name, and knew nothing 
 else of him, looked with sudden interest at the man's 
 great brow and haughty look. Lady Niton shook her 
 head emphatically. 
 
 "We know quite as well as she did. Society is just 
 as strong and just as exclusive as it ever was. But it is 
 clever enough now to hide the fact from outsiders." 
 
 " I am afraid we must agree that standards have been 
 much relaxed," said Lady Lucy. 
 
 "Not at all not at all!" cried Lady Niton. "There 
 were black sheep then; and there are black sheep now." 
 
 Lady Lucy held her own. 
 
 " I am sure that people take less care in their invita- 
 tions," she said, with soft obstinacy. "I have often 
 heard my mother speak of society in her young days, 
 how the dear Queen's example purified it and how 
 much less people bowed down to money then than now." 
 
 "Ah, that was before the Americans and the Jews," 
 said Sir James Chide. 
 
 " People forget their responsibility," said Lady Lucy, 
 turning to Diana, and speaking so as not to be heard by 
 
 40
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 the whole table. " In old days it was birth; but now 
 now when we are all democratic it should be character. 
 Don't you agree with me?" 
 
 "Other people's character?" asked Diana. 
 
 "Oh, we mustn't be unkind, of course. But when a 
 thing is notorious. Take this young Brenner. His father's 
 frauds ruined hundreds of poor people. How can I 
 receive him here, as if nothing had happened ? It ought 
 not to be forgotten. He himself ought to wish to live 
 quietly!" 
 
 Diana gave a hesitating assent, adding: "But I'm 
 sorry for Mr. Brenner!" 
 
 Mr. Ferrier, as she spoke, leaned slightly across the 
 tea-table as though to listen to what she said. Lady 
 Lucy moved away, and Mr. Ferrier, after spending a 
 moment of quiet scrutiny on the young mistress of Beech- 
 cote, came to sit beside her. 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham threw herself back in her chair 
 with a little yawn. " Mamma is more difficult than the 
 Almighty!" she .said, in a loud aside to Sir James Chide. 
 " One sin or even somebody else's sin and you are 
 done for." 
 
 Sir James, who was a Catholic, and scrupulous in 
 speech, pursed his lips slightly, drummed on the table 
 with his fingers, and finally rose without reply, and 
 betook himself to the Times. Miss Drake meanwhile 
 had been carried off to play billiards at the farther end 
 of the hall by the young men of the party. It might 
 have been noticed that, before she went, she had spent a 
 few minutes of close though masked observation of her 
 cousin Oliver's new friend. Also, that she tried to carry 
 Oliver Marsham with her, but unsuccessfully. He had 
 returned to Diana's neighborhood, and stood leaning 
 4 41
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 over a. chair beside her, listening to her conversation 
 with Mr. Ferrier. 
 
 His sister, Mrs. Fotheringham, was not content to 
 listen. Diana's impressions of the country-side, which 
 presently caught her ear, evidently roused her pugnacity. 
 She threw herself on all the girl's rose-colored appre- 
 ciations with a scorn hardly disguised. All the " locals, " 
 according to her, were stupid or snobbish bores, in fact, 
 of the first water. And to Diana's discomfort and amaze- 
 ment, Oliver Marsham joined in. He showed himself 
 possessed of a sharper and more caustic tongue than 
 Diana had yet suspected. His sister's sallies only amused 
 him, and sometimes he improved on them, with epithets 
 or comments, shrewder than hers indeed, but quite as 
 biting. 
 
 "His neighbors and constituents!" thought Diana, in 
 a young astonishment. "The people who send him to 
 Parliament!" 
 
 Mr. Ferrier seemed to become aware of her surprise 
 and disapproval, for he once or twice threw in a satirical 
 word or two, at the expense, not of the criticised, but 
 of the critics. The well-known Leader of the Opposi- 
 tion was a stout man of middle height, with a round 
 head and face, at first sight wholly undistinguished, 
 an ample figure, and smooth, straight hair. But there 
 was so much honesty and acuteness in the eyes, so much 
 humor in the mouth, and so much kindness in the 
 general aspect, that Diana felt herself at once attracted; 
 and when the master of the house was summoned by his 
 head gamekeeper to give directions for the shooting- 
 party of the following day, and Mrs. Fotheringham had 
 gone off to attend what seemed to be a vast correspond- 
 ence, the politician and the young girl fell into a con- 
 
 42
 
 The Testing of Diaria Mallorg 
 
 versation which soon became agreeable and even absorb- 
 ing to both. Mrs. Colwood, sitting on the other side of the 
 hall, timidly discussing fancy work with the Miss Varleys, 
 Lady Lucy's young nieces, saw that Diana was making 
 a conquest; and it seemed to her, moreover, that Mr. 
 Ferrier's scrutiny of his companion was somewhat more 
 attentive and more close than was quite explained by the 
 mere casual encounter of a man of middle-age with a 
 young and charming girl. Was he like herself aware 
 that matters of moment might be here at their be- 
 ginningj) 
 
 Meanwhile, if Mr. Ferrier was making discoveries, so 
 was Diana. A man, it appeared, could be not only one of 
 the busiest and most powerful politicians in England, but 
 also a philosopher, and a reader, one whose secret tastes 
 were as unworldly and romantic as her own. Books, 
 music, art he could handle these subjects no less skil- 
 fully than others political or personal. And, throughout, 
 his deference to a young and pretty woman was never at 
 fault. Diana was encouraged to talk, and then, without 
 a word of flattery, given to understand that her talk 
 pleased. Under this stimulus, her soft dark beauty was 
 soon glowing at its best; innocence, intelligence, and 
 youth, spread as it were their tendrils to the sun. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sir James Chide, a few yards off, was 
 apparently absorbed partly in the Times, partly in the 
 endeavor to make Lady Lucy's fox terrier go through its 
 tricks. 
 
 VjDnce Mr. Ferrier drew Diana's attention to her neigh- 
 bor. 
 
 "You know him?" 
 
 " I never saw him before." 
 
 "You know who he is?" 
 
 43
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Ought I? I am so sorry!" 
 
 " He is perhaps the greatest criminal advocate we 
 have. And a very distinguished politician too. When- 
 ever our party comes in, he will be in the Cabinet. You 
 must make him talk this evening." 
 
 " I?" said Diana, laughing and blushing. 
 
 "You can!" smiled Mr. Ferrier. "Witness how you 
 have been making me chatter! But I think I read you 
 right ? You do not mind if one chatters ? if one gives 
 you information?" 
 
 "Mind! How could I be anything but grateful? It 
 puzzles me so this " she hesitated. 
 
 " This English life ? especially the political life ? 
 Well! let me be your guide. I have been in it for a 
 long while." 
 
 Diana thanked him, and rose. 
 
 " You want your room ?" he asked her, kindly. " Mrs. 
 Fotheringham, I think, is in the drawing-room. Let me 
 take you to her. But, first, look at two or three of these 
 pictures as you go." 
 
 "These pictures?" faltered Diana, looking round her, 
 her tone changing. 
 
 "Oh, not those horrible frescos! Those were per- 
 petrated by Marsham's father. They represent, as you 
 see, the different processes of the Iron Trade. Old Henry 
 Marsham liked them, because, as he said, they explained 
 him, and the house. Oliver would like to whitewash 
 them but for filial piety. People might suppose him 
 ashamed of his origin. No, no! I mean those two or 
 three old pictures at the end of the room. Come and 
 look at them they are on our way." 
 
 He led her to inspect them. They proved to be two 
 Gainsboroughs and a Raeburn, representing ancestors on 
 
 44
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 Lady Lucy's side. Mr. Ferrier's talk of them showed his 
 intimate knowledge both of Varleys and Marshams, the 
 knowledge rather of a kinsman than a friend. Diana 
 perceived, indeed, how great must be the affection, the 
 intimacy, between him and them. 
 
 Meanwhile, as the man of fifty and the slender girl 
 in black passed before him, on their way to examine \ 
 the pictures ,/Sir James Chide, casually looking up, was \ 
 apparently struck by some rapid and powerful impres- 
 sion. It arrested the hand playing with the dog; it 
 held and transformed the whole man. His eyes, open 
 as though in astonishment or pain, followed every move- 
 ment of Diana, scrutinized every look and gesture. His 
 face had flushed slightly his lips were parted. He 
 had the aspect of one trying eagerly, passionately, to 
 follow up some clew that would not unwind itself; and 
 every now and then he bent forward listening trying 
 to catch her voice. 
 
 Presently the inspection was over. Diana turned 
 and beckoned to Mrs. Colwood. The two ladies went 
 toward the drawing-room, Mr. Ferrier showing the 
 way. 
 
 When he returned to the hall, Sir James Chide, its 
 sole occupant, was walking up and down. 
 
 "Who was that young lady?" said Sir James, turning 
 abruptly. 
 
 "Isn't she charming? Her name is Mallory and 
 she has just settled at Beechcote, near here. That small 
 fair lady was her companion. Oliver tells me she is an 
 orphan well off with no kith or kin. She has just come 
 to England, it seems, for the first time. Her father ' 
 brought her up abroad away from everybody. She will 
 have a success I But of all the little Jingoes!" 
 
 45
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Mr. Ferrier's face expressed an amused recollection of 
 some of Diana's speeches. 
 
 "Mallory?" said Sir James, under his breath 
 " Mallory f" He walked to the window, and stood look- 
 ing out, his hands in his pockets. 
 
 Mr. Ferrier went up-stairs to write letters. In a few 
 minutes the man at the window came slowly back tow- 
 ard the fire, staring at the ground. 
 
 "The look in the eyes!" he said to himself "the 
 mouth! the voice!" 
 
 He stood by the vast and pompous fireplace hanging 
 over the blaze the prey of some profound agitation, 
 some flooding onset of memory. Servants passed and 
 repassed through the hall; sounds loud and merry came 
 from the drawing-room. Sir James neither saw nor 
 heard.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 ALICIA DRAKE a vision of pale pink had just 
 2~\ appeared in the long gallery at Tallyn, on her way 
 to dinner. Her dress, her jewels, and all her minor ap- 
 pointments were of that quality and perfection to which 
 only much thought and plentiful money can attain. 
 She had not, in fact, been romancing in that account of 
 her afternoon which has been already quoted. Dress 
 was her weapon and her stock in trade; it was, she said, 
 necessary to her " career." And on this plea she steadily 
 exacted in its support a proportion of the family income 
 which left but small pickings for the schooling of her 
 younger brothers and the allowances of her two younger 
 sisters. But so great were the indulgence and the pride 
 of her parents small Devonshire land-owners living on 
 an impoverished estate that Alicia's demands were con- 
 ceded without a murmur. They themselves were in- 
 significant folk, who had, in their own opinion, failed in 
 life ; and most of their children seemed to them to possess 
 the same ineffective qualities or the same absence of 
 qualities as themselves. But Alicia represented their 
 one chance of something brilliant and interesting, some- 
 thing to lift them above their neighbors and break up 
 the monotony of their later lives. Their devotion was a 
 strange mixture of love and selfishness; at any rate, 
 Alicia could always feel, and did always feel, that she 
 was playing her family's game as well as her own. 
 
 47
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Her own game, of course, came first. She was not a 
 beauty, in the sense in which Diana Mallory was a 
 beauty; and of that fact she had been perfectly aware 
 after her first apparently careless glance at the new- 
 comer of the afternoon. But she had points that never 
 failed to attract notice: a free and rather insolent 
 carriage, audaciously beautiful eyes, a general roundness 
 and softness, and a grace unfailing, deliberate, and prov- 
 ocative, even in actions, morally, the most graceless 
 that would have alone secured her the "career" on 
 which she was bent. 
 
 Of her mental qualities, one of the most profitable 
 was a very shrewd power of observation. As she swept 
 slowly along the corridor, which overlooked the hall at 
 Tallyn, none of the details of the house were lost upon 
 her. Tallyn was vast, ugly above all, rich. Henry 
 Marsham, the deceased husband of Lady Lucy and 
 father of Oliver and Mrs. Fotheringham, had made an 
 enormous fortune in the Iron Trade of the north, retiring 
 at sixty that he might enjoy some of those pleasures of 
 life for which business had left him too little time. One 
 of these pleasures was building. Henry Marsham had 
 spent ten years in building Tallyn, and at the end of that 
 time, feeling it impossible to live in the huge incoherent 
 place he had created, he hired a small villa at Nice and 
 went to die there in privacy and peace. Nevertheless, 
 his will laid strict injunctions upon his widow to in- 
 habit and keep up Tallyn; injunctions backed by con- 
 siderable sanctions of a financial kind. His will, indeed, 
 had been altogether a document of some eccentricity; 
 though as eight years had now elapsed since his death, 
 the knowledge of its provisions possessed by outsiders 
 had had time to grow vague. Still, there were strong 
 
 48
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 general impressions abroad, and as Alicia Drake surveyed 
 the house which the old man had built to be the incubus 
 of his descendants, some of them teased her mind. It was 
 said, for instance, that Oliver Marsham and his sister only 
 possessed pittances of about a thousand a year apiece, 
 while Tallyn, together with the vast bulk of Henry Mar- ... 
 sham's fortune, had been willed to Lady Lucy, and lay, 
 moreover, at her absolute disposal. Was this so, or no? 
 Miss Drake's curiosity, for some time past, would have 
 been glad to be informed. 
 
 Meanwhile, here was the house about which there 
 was no mystery least of all, as to its cost. Inter- 
 minable broad corridors, carpeted with ugly Brussels and 
 suggesting a railway hotel, branched out before Miss 
 Drake's eyes in various directions; upon them opened 
 not bedrooms but "suites," as Mr. Marsham pere had 
 loved to call them, of which the number was legion, 
 while the bachelors' wing alone would have lodged a 
 regiment. Every bedroom was like every other, except 
 for such variations as Tottenham Court Road, rioting at 
 will, could suggest. Copies in marble or bronze of well- 
 known statues ranged along the corridors a forlorn 
 troupe of nude and shivering divinities. The immense 
 hall below, with its violent frescos and its brand-new 
 Turkey carpets, was panelled in oak, from which some 
 device of stain or varnish had managed to abstract every 
 particle of charm. A whole oak wood, indeed, had been 
 lavished on the swathing and sheathing of the house, 
 with the only result that the spectator beheld it steeped 
 in a repellent yellow-brown from top to toe, against 
 which no ornament, no piece of china, no picture, even 
 did they possess some individual beauty, could possibly 
 make it prevail. 
 
 49
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 And the drawing-room! As Alicia Drake advanced 
 alone into its empty and blazing magnificence she could 
 only laugh in its face so eager and restless was the 
 effort which it made, and so hopeless the defeat. Enor- 
 mous mirrors, spread on white and gold walls; large 
 copies from Italian pictures, collected by Henry Marsham 
 in Rome; more facile statues holding innumerable lights; 
 great pieces of modern china painted with realistic roses 
 and poppies; crimson carpets, gilt furniture, and flaring 
 cabinets Miss Drake frowned as she looked at it. 
 "What could be done with it?" she said to herself, walk- 
 ing slowly up and down, and glancing from side to 
 side "What could be done with it?" 
 
 A rustle in the hall announced another guest. Mrs. 
 Fotheringham entered. Marsham's sister dressed with 
 severity; and as she approached her cousin she put up 
 her eye-glass for what was evidently a hostile inspection 
 of the dazzling effect presented by the young lady. But 
 Alicia was not afraid of Mrs. Fotheringham. 
 
 "How early we are!" she said, still quietly looking at 
 the reflection of herself in the mirror over the mantel- 
 piece and warming a slender foot at the fire. " Haven't 
 some more people arrived, Cousin Isabel? I thought 
 I heard a carriage while I was dressing." 
 
 "Yes; Miss Vincent and three men came by the late 
 train." 
 
 "All Labor members?" asked Alicia, with a laugh. 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham explained, with some tartness, 
 that only one of the three was a Labor member Mr. 
 Barton. Of the other two, one was Edgar Frobisher, the 
 other Mr. McEwart, a Liberal M.P., who had just won 
 a hotly contested bye-election. At the name of Edgar 
 Frobisher, Miss Drake's countenance showed some ani- 
 
 50
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 mation. She inquired if he had been doing anything 
 madder than usual. Mrs. Fotheringham replied, with- 
 out enthusiasm, that she knew nothing about his recent 
 doings nor about Mr. McEwart, who was said, however, 
 to be of the right stuff. Mr. Barton, on the other hand, 
 " is a great friend of mine and a most remarkable man. 
 Oliver has been very lucky to get him. ' ' 
 
 Alicia inquired whether he was likely to appear in 
 dress clothes. 
 
 " Certainly not. He never does anything out of keep- 
 ing with his class and he knows that we lay no stress 
 on that kind of thing." This, with another glance at the 
 elegant Paris frock which adorned the person of Alicia a 
 frock, in Mrs. Fotheringham's opinion, far too expensive 
 for the girl's circumstances. Alicia received the glance 
 without flinching. It was one of her good points that 
 she was never meek with the people who disliked her. 
 She. merely threw out another inquiry as to " Miss 
 Vincent." 
 
 " One of mamma's acquaintances. She was a private 
 secretary to some one mamma knows, and she is going to 
 do some work for Oliver when the session begins. 
 
 "Didn't Oliver tell me she is a Socialist?" 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham believed it might be said. 
 
 "How Miss Mallory will enjoy herself!" said Alicia, 
 with a little laugh. 
 
 "Have you been talking to Oliver about her?" Mrs. 
 Fotheringham stared rather hard at her cousin. 
 
 "Of course. Oliver likes her." 
 
 "Oliver likes a good many people." 
 
 " Oh no, Cousin Isabel ! Oliver likes very few people- 
 very, very few," said Miss Drake, decidedly, looking 
 down into the fire.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " I don't know why you give Oliver such an un- 
 amiable character! In my opinion, he is often not so 
 much on his guard as I should like to see him." 
 
 "Oh, well, we can't all be as critical as you, dear 
 Cousin Isabel! But, anyway, Oliver admires Miss Mai- 
 lory extremely. We can all see that." 
 
 The girl turned a steady face on her companion. Mrs. 
 Fotheringham was conscious of a certain secret admira- 
 tion. But her own point of view had nothing to do with 
 Miss Drake's. 
 
 " It amuses him to talk to her," she said, sharply; " I 
 am sure I hope it won't come to anything more. It 
 would be very unsuitable." 
 
 " Why ? Politics ? Oh ! that doesn't matter a bit. ' ' 
 
 " I beg your pardon. Oliver is becoming an important 
 man, and it will never do for him to hamper himself with 
 a wife who cannot sympathize with any of his enthu- 
 siasms and ideals." 
 
 Miss Drake shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "He would convert her and he likes triumphing. 
 Oh! Cousin Isabel! look at that lamp!" 
 
 An oil lamp in an inner drawing-room, placed to 
 illuminate an easel portrait of Lady Lucy, was smoking 
 atrociously. The two ladies flew toward it, and were 
 soon lost to sight and hearing amid a labyrinth of furni- 
 ture and palms. 
 
 The place they left vacant was almost immediately 
 filled by Oliver Marsham himself, who came in studying 
 a pencilled paper, containing the names of the guests. 
 He and his mother had not found the dinner very easy 
 to arrange. Upon his heels followed Mr. Ferrier, who 
 hurried to the fire, rubbing his hands and complaining 
 of the cold. 
 
 52
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " I never felt this house cold before. Has anything 
 happened to your caloriferef These rooms are too big! 
 By-the-way, Oliver" Mr. Ferrier turned his back to the 
 blaze, and looked round him " when are you going to 
 reform this one?" 
 
 Oliver surveyed it. 
 
 " Of course I should like nothing better than to make 
 a bonfire of it all! But mother " 
 
 "Of course of course! Ah, well, perhaps when you 
 marry, my dear boy ! Another reason for making haste !" 
 
 The older man turned a laughing eye on his com- 
 panion. Marsham merely smiled, a little vaguely, with- 
 out reply. Ferrier observed him, then began abstractedly 
 to study the carpet. After a moment he looked up 
 
 " I like your little friend, Oliver I like her par* 
 ticularly!" 
 
 "Miss Mallory? Yes, I saw you had been making 
 acquaintance. Well?" 
 
 His voice affected a light indifference, but hardly suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 "A very attractive personality! fresh and womanly 
 no nonsense heart enough for a dozen. But all the 
 same the intellect is hungry, and wants feeding. No 
 one will ever succeed with her, Oliver, who forgets she 
 has a brain. Ah! here she is!" 
 
 For the door had been thrown open, and Diana entered, 
 followed by Mrs. Colwood. She came in slowly, her brow 
 slightly knit, and her black eyes touched with the intent 
 seeking look which was natural to them. Her dress of 
 the freshest simplest white fell about her in plain folds. 
 It made the same young impression as the childish curls 
 on the brow and temples, and both men watched her with 
 delight. Marsham went to meet her. 
 
 S3
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "Will you sit on my left? I must take in Lady 
 Niton." 
 
 Diana smiled and nodded. 
 
 " And who is to be my fate ?" 
 
 41 Mr. Edgar Frobisher. You will quarrel with him 
 and like him!" 
 
 " One of the ' Socialists' ?" 
 
 41 Ah you must find out!" 
 
 He threw her a laughing backward glance as he went 
 off to give directions to some of his other guests. The 
 room filled up. Diana was aware of a tall young man, 
 fair-haired, and evidently Scotch, whom she had not seen 
 before, and then of a girl, whose appearance and dress 
 riveted her attention. She was thin and small hand- 
 some, but for a certain strained emaciated air, a lack of 
 complexion and of bloom. But her blue eyes, black- 
 lashed and black-browed, were superb ; they made indeed 
 the note, the distinction of the whole figure. The thick 
 hair, cut short in the neck, was brushed back and held by 
 a blue ribbon, the only trace of ornament in a singular 
 costume, which consisted of a very simple morning dress, 
 of some woollen material, nearly black, garnished at the 
 throat and wrists by some plain white frills. The dress 
 hung loosely on the girl's starved frame, the hands were 
 long and thin, the face sallow. Yet such was the force of 
 the eyes, the energy of the strong chin and mouth, the 
 flashing freedom of her smile, as she stood talking to Lady 
 Lucy, that all the ugly plainness of the dress seemed to 
 Diana, as she watched her, merely to increase her strange 
 effectiveness, to mark her out the more favorably from 
 the glittering room, from Lady Lucy's satin and dia- 
 monds, or the shimmering elegance of Alicia Drake. 
 
 As she bowed to Mr. Frobisher, and took his arm amid 
 
 54
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 the pairs moving toward the dining-room, Diana asked 
 him eagerly who the lady in the dark dress might be. 
 
 "Oh! a great friend of mine," he said, pleasantly. 
 "Isn't she splendid? Did you notice her evening 
 dress?" 
 
 "Is it an evening dress?" 
 
 " It's her evening dress. She possesses two costumes 
 both made of the same stuff, only the morning one has 
 a straight collar, and the evening one has frills." 
 
 " She doesn't think it right to dress like other peo- 
 ple?" 
 
 " "Well she has very little money, and what she has 
 she can't afford to spend on dress. No I suppose she 
 doesn't think it right.'* 
 
 By this time they were settled at table, and Diana, 
 convinced that she had found one of the two Socialists 
 promised her, looked round for the other. Ah! there he 
 was, beside Mrs. Fotheringham who was talking to 
 him with an eagerness rarely vouchsafed to her acquaint- 
 ances. A powerful, short-necked man, in the black 
 Sunday coat of the workman, with sandy hair, blunt 
 features, and a furrowed brow he had none of the 
 magnetism, the strange refinement of the lady in the 
 frills. Diana drew a long breath. 
 
 " How odd it all is!" she said, as though to herself. 
 
 Her companion looked at her with amusement. 
 
 "What is odd? The combination of this house 
 with Barton and Miss Vincent?" 
 
 "Why do they consent to come here?" she asked, 
 wondering. " I suppose they despise the rich." 
 
 "Not at all! The poor things the rich can't help 
 themselves just yet. We come here because we mean 
 to use the rich." 
 
 55
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "You! you too?" 
 
 "A Fabian " he said, smiling. "Which means that 
 I am not in such a hurry as Barton." 
 
 "To ruin your country? You would only murder 
 her by degrees ?" flashed Diana. 
 
 "Ah! you throw down the glove? so soon? Shall 
 we postpone it for a course or two? I am no use till I 
 have fed." 
 
 Diana laughed. They fell into a gossip about their 
 neighbors. The plain young man, with a shock of fair 
 hair, a merry eye, a short chin, and the spirits of a 
 school-boy, sitting on Lady Niton's left, was, it seemed, 
 the particular pet and prote'ge' of that masterful old lady. 
 Diana remembered to have seen him at tea-time in Miss 
 Drake's train. Lady Niton, she was told, disliked her 
 own sons, but was never tired of befriending two or three 
 young men who took her fancy. Bobbie Forbes was a 
 constant frequenter of her house on Campden Hill. 
 "But he is no toady. He tells her a number of plain 
 truths and amuses her guests. In return she provides 
 him with what she calls ' the best society ' and pushes 
 his interests in season and out of season. He is in the 
 Foreign Office, and she is at present manoeuvring to get 
 him attached to the Special Mission which is going out 
 to Constantinople." 
 
 Diana glanced across the table, and in doing so met 
 the eyes of Mr. Bobbie Forbes, which laughed into hers 
 involuntarily as much as to say " You see my 
 plight? ridiculous, isn't it?" 
 
 For Lady Niton was keeping a greedy conversational 
 hold on both Marsham and the young man, pouncing to 
 right or left, as either showed a disposition to escape 
 from it so that Forbes was violently withheld from 
 
 56
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Alicia Drake, his rightful lady, and Marsham could 
 engage in no consecutive conversation with Diana. 
 
 "No escape for you!" smiled Mr. Frobisher, presently, 
 observing the position. " Lady Niton always devastates 
 a dinner-party." 
 
 Diana protested that she was quite content. Might 
 she assume, after the fourth course, that his hunger was 
 at least scotched and conversation thrown open? 
 
 " I am fortified thank you. Shall we go back to 
 where we left off ? You had just accused me of ruining 
 the country?" 
 
 "By easy stages," said Diana. "Wasn't that where 
 we had come to ? But first tell me, because it's all so 
 puzzling! do you and Mr. Marsham agree?" 
 
 " A good deal. But he thinks he can use us which is 
 his mistake." 
 
 "And Mr. Ferrier?" 
 
 Mr. Frobisher shook his head good-humoredly. 
 
 "No, no! Ferrier is a Whig the Whig of to-day, 
 bien entendu, who is a very different person from the 
 Whig of yesterday still, a Whig, an individualist, a 
 moderate man. He leads the Liberal party and it is 
 changing all the time under his hand into something he 
 dreads and detests. The party can't do without him 
 now but" 
 
 He paused, smiling. 
 
 " It will shed him some day?" 
 
 "It must!" 
 
 "And where will Mr. Marsham be then?" 
 
 " On the winning side I think." 
 
 The tone was innocent and careless; but the words 
 offended her. 
 
 She drew herself up a little. 
 5 57
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " He would never betray his friends!" 
 
 " Certainly not," said Mr. Frobisher, hastily; " I didn't 
 mean that. But Marsham has a mind more open, 
 more elastic, more modern than Ferrier great man as 
 he is." 
 
 Diana was silent. She seemed still to hear some 
 of the phrases and inflections of Mr. Ferrier's talk of 
 the afternoon. Mr. Frobisher' s prophecy wounded some 
 new-born sympathy in her. She turned the conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 With Oliver Marsham she talked when she could, as 
 Lady Niton allowed her. She succeeded, at least, in 
 learning something more of her right-hand neighbor and 
 of Miss Vincent. Mr. Frobisher, it appeared, was a 
 Fellow of Magdalen, and was at present lodging in Lime- 
 house, near the docks, studying poverty and Trade- 
 unionism, and living upon a pound a week. As for Miss 
 Vincent, in her capacity of secretary to a well-known 
 Radical member of Parliament, she had been employed, 
 for his benefit, in gathering information first-hand, very 
 often in the same fields where Mr. Frobisher was at work. 
 This brought them often together and they were the 
 best of comrades, and allies. 
 
 Diana's eyes betrayed her curiosity; she seemed to 
 be asking for clews in a strange world. Marsham ap- 
 parently felt that nothing could be more agreeable than 
 to guide her. He began to describe for her the life of 
 such a woman of the people as Marion Vincent. An orphan 
 at fourteen, earning her own living from the first; self- 
 dependent, self-protected; the friend, on perfectly equal 
 terms, of a group of able men, interested in the same 
 social ideals as herself; living alone, in contempt of all 
 
 58
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 ordinary conventions, now in Kensington or Belgravia, 
 and now in a back street of Stepney, or Poplar, and 
 equally at home and her own mistress in both ; exacting 
 from a rich employer the full market value of the services 
 she rendered him, and refusing to accept the smallest 
 gift or favor beyond ; a convinced Socialist and champion 
 of the poor, who had within the past twelve months, to 
 Marsham's knowledge, refused an offer of marriage from 
 a man of large income, passionately devoted to her, 
 whom she liked mainly, it was believed, because his 
 wealth was based on sweated labor: such was the 
 character sketched by Marsham for his neighbor in the 
 intermittent conversation, which was all that Lady 
 Niton allowed him. 
 
 Diana listened silently, but inwardly her mind was 
 full of critical reactions. Was this what Mr. Marsham 
 most admired, his ideal of what a woman should be? 
 Was he exalting, exaggerating it a little, by way of an- 
 tithesis to those old-fashioned surroundings, that unreal 
 atmosphere, as he would call it, in which, for instance, he 
 had found her Diana at Rapallo under her father's 
 influence and bringing up ? The notion spurred her 
 pride as well as her loyalty to her father. She began to 
 hold herself rather stiffly, to throw in a critical remark or 
 two, to be a little flippant even, at Miss Vincent's expense. 
 Homage so warm laid at the feet of one ideal was she 
 felt it a disparagement of others; she stood for those 
 others; and presently Marsham began to realize a hurt- 
 ling of shafts in the air, an incipient battle between 
 them. 
 
 He accepted it with delight. Still the same poetical, 
 combative, impulsive creature, with the deep soft voice! 
 She pleased his senses; she stirred his mind; and he 
 
 59
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 would have thrown himself into one of the old Rapallo 
 arguments with her then and there but for the gad-fly 
 at his elbow. 
 
 Immediately after dinner Lady Niton possessed her- 
 self of Diana. "Come here, please, Miss Mallory! I 
 wish to make your acquaintance." Thus commanded, 
 the laughing but rebellious Diana allowed herself to be 
 led to a corner of the over-illuminated drawing-room. 
 
 "Well!" said Lady Niton, observing her "so you 
 have come to settle in these parts?" 
 
 Diana assented. 
 
 "What made you choose Brookshire?" The question 
 was enforced by a pair of needle-sharp eyes. " There 
 isn't a person worth talking to within a radius of twenty 
 miles." 
 
 Diana declined to agree with her; whereupon Lady 
 Niton impatiently exclaimed : " Tut tut! One might as 
 well milk he-goats as talk to the people here. Nothing 
 to be got out of any of them. Do you like conversa- 
 tion?" 
 
 " Immensely!" 
 
 "Hum! But mind you don't talk too much. Oliver 
 talks a great deal more than is good for him. So you 
 met Oliver in Italy? What do you think of him?" 
 
 Diana, keeping a grip on laughter, said something 
 civil. 
 
 "Oh, Oliver's clever enough and ambitious!" Lady 
 Niton threw up her hands. "But I'll tell you what 
 stands in his way. He says too sharp things of people. 
 Do you notice that?" 
 
 " He is very critical," said Diana, evasively. 
 
 "Oh, Lord, much worse than that!" said Lady Niton, 
 
 60
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 coolly. " He makes himself very unpopular. You 
 should tell him so." 
 
 "That would be hardly my place," said Diana, flush- 
 ing a little. 
 
 Lady Niton stared at her a moment rather hard 
 then said : " But he's honey and balm itself compared to 
 Isabel! The Marshams are old friends of mine, but I 
 don't pretend to like Isabel Fotheringham at all. She 
 calls herself a Radical, and there's no one insists more 
 upon their birth and their advantages than she. Don't 
 let her bully you come to me if she does I'll protect 
 you." 
 
 Diana said vaguely that Mrs. Fotheringham had been 
 very kind. 
 
 " You haven't had time to find out," said Lady N ; ton, 
 grimly. She leaned back fanning herself, her queer white 
 face and small black eyes alive with malice. " Did you 
 ever see such a crew as we were at dinner ? I reminded 
 Oliver of the rhyme ' The animals went in two by two.' 
 It's always the way here. There's no society in this 
 house, because you can't take anything or any one for 
 granted. One must always begin from the beginning. 
 What can I have in common with that man Barton? 
 The last time I talked to him, he thought Lord Grey 
 the Reform Bill Lord Grey was a Tory and had never 
 heard of Louis Philippe. He knows nothing that we 
 know and what do I care about his Socialist stuff? 
 Well, now Alicia " her tone changed " do you admire 
 Alicia?" 
 
 Diana, in discomfort, glanced through the archway, 
 leading to the inner drawing-room, which framed the 
 sparkling figure of Miss Drake and murmured a com- 
 plimentary remark. 
 
 61
 
 The Testing of Diana Mal.lorg 
 
 "No!" said Lady Niton, with emphasis; "no she's 
 not handsome though she makes people believe she is. 
 You'll see in five years. Of course the stupid men 
 admire her, and she plays her cards very cleverly; but 
 my dear!" suddenly the formidable old woman bent 
 forward, and tapped Diana's arm with her fan " let me 
 give you a word of advice. Don't be too innocent here 
 or too amiable. Don't give yourself away especially 
 to Alicia!" 
 
 Diana had the disagreeable feeling of being looked 
 through and through, physically and mentally; though at 
 the same time she was only very vaguely conscious as to 
 what there might be either for Lady Niton or Miss Drake 
 to see. 
 
 "Thank you very much," she said, trying to laugh 
 it off. "It is very kind of you to warn me but really 
 I don't think you need." She looked round her waver- 
 ingly. 
 
 " May I introduce you to my friend ? Mrs. Colwood 
 Lady Niton." For her glance of appeal had brought Mrs. 
 Colwood to her aid, and between them they coped with 
 this enfant terrible among dowagers till the gentlemen 
 came in. 
 
 " Here is Sir James Childe," said Lady Niton, rising. 
 " He wants to talk to you, and he don't like me. So I'll 
 go." 
 
 Sir James, not without a sly smile, discharged arrow- 
 like at the retreating enemy, took the seat she had 
 vacated. 
 
 "This is your first visit to Tallyn, Miss Mallory?" 
 
 The voice speaking was the voix d'or familiar to 
 Englishmen in many a famous case, capable of any note, 
 any inflection, to which sarcasm or wrath, shrewdness or 
 
 62
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 pathos, might desire to tune it. In this case it was 
 gentleness itself; and so was the countenance he turned 
 upon Diana. Yet it was a countenance built rather for 
 the sterner than the milder uses of life. A natural majesty 
 expressed itself in the domed forehead, and in the fine 
 head, lightly touched with gray; the eyes too were 
 gray, the lips prominent and sensitive, the face long, 
 and, in line, finely regular. A face of feeling and of 
 power; the face of a Celt, disciplined by the stress and 
 conflict of a non-Celtic world. Diana's young sym- 
 pathies sprang to meet it, and they were soon in easy 
 conversation. 
 
 Sir James questioned her kindly, but discreetly. This 
 was really her first visit to Brookshire? 
 
 "To England!" said Diana; and then, on a little woo- 
 ing, came out the girl's first impressions, natural, enthu- 
 siastic, gay. Sir James listened, with eyes half-closed, 
 following every movement of her lips, every gesture of 
 head and hand. 
 
 "Your parents took you abroad quite as a child?" 
 
 " I went with my father. My mother died when I was 
 quite small." 
 
 Sir James did not speak for a moment. At last he 
 said: 
 
 "But before you went abroad, you lived in London?" 
 
 "Yes in Kensington Square." 
 
 Sir James made a sudden movement which displaced 
 a book on a little table beside him. He stooped to pick 
 it up. 
 
 "And your father was tired of England?" 
 
 Diana hesitated 
 
 " I I think he had gone through great trouble. He 
 never got over mamma's death." 
 
 63
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "Oh yes, I see," said Sir James, gently. Then, in 
 another tone : 
 
 " So you settled on that beautiful -coast? I wonder if 
 that was the winter I first saw Italy?" 
 
 He named the year. 
 
 "Yes that was the year," said Diana. "Had you 
 never seen Italy before that?" She looked at him in a 
 little surprise. 
 
 "Do I seem to you so old?" said Sir James, smiling. 
 " I had been a very busy man, Miss Mallory, and my 
 holidays had been generally spent in Ireland. But that 
 year 1 ' he paused a moment " that year I had been ill, 
 and the doctors sent me abroad in October," he added, 
 slowly and precisely. " I went first to Paris, and I was 
 at Genoa in November." 
 
 " We must have been there just about then ! Mamma 
 died in October. And I remember the winter was just 
 beginning at Genoa it was very cold and I got bron- 
 chitis I was only a little thing." 
 
 " And Oliver tells me you found a home at Portofino ?" 
 
 Diana replied. He kept her talking ; yet her impression 
 was that he did not listen very much to what she said. 
 At the same time she felt herself studied, in a way which 
 made her self-conscious, which perhaps she might have 
 resented in any man less polished and less courteous. 
 
 " Pardon me ' he said, abruptly, at a pause in the 
 conversation. " Your name interests me particularly. 
 It is Welsh, is it not? I knew two or three persons of 
 that name; and they were Welsh." 
 
 Diana's look changed a little. 
 
 "Yes, it is Welsh," she said, in a hesitating, reserved 
 voice; and then looked round her as though in search of 
 a change of topic. 
 
 64
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Sir James bent forward. 
 
 " May I come and see you some day at Beechcote ?" 
 
 Diana flushed with surprise and pleasure. 
 
 " Oh! I should be so honored!" 
 
 "The honor would be mine," he said, with pleasant 
 deference. " Now I think I see that Marsham is wroth 
 with me for monopolizing you like this." 
 
 He rose and walked away, just as Marsham brought 
 up Mr. Barton to introduce him to Diana. 
 
 Sir James wandered on into a small drawing-room at 
 the end of the long suite of rooms; in its seclusion he 
 turned back to look at the group he had left behind. His 
 face, always delicately pale, had grown strained and 
 white. 
 
 " Is it possible" he said to himself " that she knows 
 nothing? that that man was able to keep it all from 
 her?" 
 
 He walked up and down a little by himself ponder- 
 ing the prey of the same emotion as had seized him in 
 the afternoon; till at last his ear was caught by some 
 hubbub, some agitation in the big drawing-room, espe- 
 cially by the sound of the girlish voice he had just been 
 listening to, only speaking this time in quite another key. 
 He returned to see what was the matter. 
 
 He found Miss Mallory the centre of a circle of spec- 
 tators and listeners, engaged apparently in a three- 
 cornered and very hot discussion with Mr. Barton, the 
 Socialist member, and Oliver Marsham. Diana had en- 
 tirely forgotten herself, her shyness, the strange house, 
 and all her alarms. If Lady Niton took nothing for 
 granted at Tallyn, that was not, it seemed, the case with 
 John Barton. He, on the contrary, took it for granted 
 
 65
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 that everybody there was at least a good Radical, and as 
 stoutly opposed as himself to the " wild-cat " and " Jingo" 
 policy of the Government on the Indian frontier, where 
 one of our perennial little wars was then proceeding. 
 News had arrived that afternoon of an indecisive engage- 
 ment, in which the lives of three English officers and 
 some fifty men of a Sikh regiment had been lost. Mr. 
 Barton, in taking up the evening paper, lying beside 
 Diana, which contained the news, had made very much 
 the remark foretold by Captain Roughsedge in the after- 
 noon. It was, he thought, a pity the repulse had not 
 been more decisive so as to show all the world into 
 what a hornet's nest the Government was going " and a 
 hornet's nest which will cost us half a million to take 
 before we've done." 
 
 Diana's cheeks flamed. Did Mr. Barton mean to 
 regret that no more English lives had been lost ? 
 
 Mr. Barton was of opinion that if the defeat had been 
 a bit worse, bloodshed might have been saved in the end. 
 A Jingo Viceroy and a Jingo press could only be stopped 
 by disaster 
 
 On the contrary, said Diana, we could not afford to be 
 stopped by disaster. Disaster must be retrieved. 
 
 Mr. Barton asked her why? Were we never to 
 admit that we were in the wrong? 
 
 The Viceroy and his advisers, she declared, were not 
 likely to be wrong. And prestige had to be maintained. 
 
 At the word "prestige" the rugged face of the Labor 
 member grew contemptuous and a little angry. He 
 dealt with it as he was accustomed to deal with it in 
 Socialist meetings or in Parliament. His touch in 
 doing so was neither light nor conciliatory; the young 
 lady, he thought, required plain speaking. 
 
 66
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 But so far from intimidating the young lady, he found 
 in the course of a few more thrusts and parries that he 
 had roused a by no means despicable antagonist. Diana 
 was a mere mouth-piece ; but she was the mouth-piece of 
 eye-witnesses; whereas Barton was the mouth-piece of 
 his daily newspaper and a handful of partisan books 
 written to please the political section to which he be- 
 longed. 
 
 He began to stumble and to make mistakes gross 
 elementary mistakes in geography and fact and there- 
 with to lose his temper. Diana was upon him in a 
 moment very cool and graceful controlling herself 
 well; and it is probable that she would have won the 
 day triumphantly but for the sudden intervention of her 
 host. 
 
 Oliver Marsham had been watching her with mingled 
 amusement and admiration. The slender figure held 
 defiantly erect, the hands close-locked on the knee, the 
 curly head with the air of a Nike" he could almost see 
 the palm branch in the hand, the white dress and the 
 silky hair, blown back by the blasts of victory! appealed 
 to a rhetorical element in his nature always closely com- 
 bined both with his feelings and his ambitions. Head- 
 long energy and partisanship he was enchanted to find 
 how beautiful they could be, and he threw himself into 
 the discussion simply at first that he might prolong 
 an emotion, might keep the red burning on her lip and 
 cheek. That blundering fellow Barton should not have 
 it all to himself! 
 
 But he was no sooner well in it than he too began to 
 flounder. He rode off upon an inaccurate telegram in a 
 morning paper; Diana fell upon it at once, tripped it up, 
 exposed it, drove it from the field, while Mr. Ferrier 
 
 67
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 approved her from the background with a smiling eye 
 and a quietly applauding hand. Then Marsham quoted 
 a speech in the Indian Council. 
 
 Diana dismissed it with contempt, as the shaft of 
 a frondeur discredited by both parties. He fell back 
 on Blue Books, and other ponderosities Barton by this 
 time silent, or playing a clumsy chorus. But if Diana was 
 not acquainted with these things in the ore, so to speak, 
 she was more than a little acquainted with the missiles 
 that could be forged from them. That very afternoon 
 Hugh Roughsedge had pointed her to some of the best. 
 She took them up a little wildly now for her coolness 
 was departing and for a time Marsham could hardly 
 keep his footing. 
 
 A good many listeners were by now gathered round 
 the disputants. Lady Niton, wielding some noisy knit- 
 ting needles by the fireside, was enjoying the fray all 
 the more that it seemed to be telling against Oliver. 
 Mrs. Fotheringham, on the other hand, who came up 
 occasionally to the circle, listened and went away again, 
 was clearly seething with suppressed wrath, and had to 
 be restrained once or twice by her brother from inter- 
 fering, in a tone which would at once have put an end 
 to a duel he himself only wished to prolong. 
 
 Mr. Ferrier perceived her annoyance, and smiled over 
 it. In spite of his long friendship with the family, Isabel 
 Fotheringham was no favorite with the great man. She 
 had long seemed to him a type a strange and modern 
 type of the feminine fanatic who allows political differ- 
 ence to interfere not only with private friendship but 
 with the nearest and most sacred ties; and his philos- 
 opher's soul revolted. Let a woman talk politics, if she 
 must, like this eager idealist girl not with the venom 
 
 68
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 and gall of the half-educated politician. "As if we 
 hadn't enough of that already!" 
 
 Other spectators paid more frivolous visits to the 
 scene. Bobbie Forbes and Alicia Drake, attracted by 
 the sounds of war, looked in from the next room. Forbes 
 listened a moment, shrugged his shoulders, made a 
 whistling mouth, and then walked off to a glass book- 
 case the one sign of civilization in the vast room 
 where he was soon absorbed in early editions of English 
 poets, Lady Lucy's inheritance from a literary father. 
 Alicia moved about, a little restless and scornful, now 
 listening unwillingly, and now attempting diversions. 
 But in these she found no one to second her, not even 
 the two pink-and-white nieces of Lady Lucy, who did 
 not understand a word of what was going on, but were 
 none the less gazing open-mouthed at Diana. 
 
 Marion Vincent meanwhile had drawn nearer to 
 Diana. Her strong significant face wore a quiet smile; 
 there was a friendly, even an admiring penetration in 
 the look with which she watched the young prophetess 
 of Empire and of War. As for Lady Lucy, she was 
 silent, and rather grave. In her secret mind she thought 
 that young girls should not be vehement or presump- 
 tuous. It was a misfortune that this pretty creature had 
 not been more reasonably brought up; a mother's hand 
 had been wanting. While not only Mr. Ferrier and 
 Mrs. Colwood, sitting side by side in the background, 
 but everybody else present, in some measure or degree, 
 was aware of some play of feeling in the scene, beyond 
 and behind the obvious, some hidden forces, or rather, 
 perhaps, some emerging relation, which gave it signifi- 
 cance and thrill. The duel was a duel of brains un- 
 equal at that; what made it fascinating was the universal 
 
 69
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 or typical element in the clash of the two personalities 
 the man using his whole strength, more and more tyran- 
 nously, more and more stubbornly the girl resisting, 
 flashing, appealing, fighting for dear life, now gaining, 
 now retreating and finally overborne. 
 
 For Marsham's staying powers, naturally, were the 
 greater. He summoned finally all his nerve and all his 
 knowledge. The air of the carpet-knight with which he 
 had opened battle disappeared; he fought seriously and 
 for victory. And suddenly Diana laughed a little hys- 
 terically and gave in. He had carried her into regions 
 of history and politics where she could not follow. She 
 dropped her head in her hands a moment then fell 
 back in her chair silenced her beautiful passionate 
 eyes fixed on Marsham, as his were on her. 
 
 "Brava! Brava!" cried Mr. Ferrier, clapping his 
 hands. The room joined in laughter and applause. 
 
 A few minutes later the ladies streamed out into the 
 hall on their way to bed. Marsham came to light a 
 candle for Diana. 
 
 "Do you forgive me?" he said, as he gave it to her. 
 
 The tone was gay and apologetic. 
 
 She laughed unsteadily, without reply. 
 
 " When will you take your revenge ?" 
 
 She shook her head, touched his hand for "good- 
 night," and went up-stairs. 
 
 As Diana reached her room she drew Mrs. Colwood 
 in with her but not, it seemed, for purposes of conversa- 
 tion. She stood absently by the fire taking off her 
 bracelets and necklace. Mrs. Colwood made a few 
 remarks about the evening and the guests, with little 
 response, and presently wondered why she was detained. 
 
 70
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 At last Diana put up her hands, and smoothed back the 
 hair from her temples with a long sigh. Then she laid a 
 sudden grasp upon Mrs. Colwood, and looked earnestly 
 and imploringly into her face. 
 
 " Will you please call me Diana ? And and will 
 you kiss me ?" 
 
 She humbly stooped her head. Mrs. Colwood, much 
 touched, threw her arms around her, and kissed her 
 heartily. Then a few warm words fell from her as to 
 the scene of the evening. Diana withdrew herself at 
 once, shivering a little. 
 
 " Oh, I want papa!" she said " I want him so much!" 
 
 And she hid her eyes against the mantel-piece. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood soothed her affectionately, perhaps ex- 
 pecting some outburst of confidence, which, however, did 
 not come. Diana said a quiet "good-night," and they 
 parted. 
 
 But it was long before Mrs. Colwood could sleep. 
 Was the emotion she had just witnessed flinging itself 
 geyserlike into sight, only to sink back as swiftly out of 
 ken was it an effect of the past or an omen of the 
 future? The longing expressed in the girl's heart and 
 voice, after the brave show she had made had it over- 
 powered her just because she felt herself alone, without 
 natural protectors, on the brink of her woman's des- 
 tiny ?
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE next day, when Diana looked out from her 
 window, she saw a large and dreary park wrapped 
 in scudding rain which promised evil things for the shoot- 
 ing - party of the day. Mr. Marsham senior had ap- 
 parently laid out his park and grounds on the same 
 principles as those on which he had built his house. 
 Everything was large and expensive. The woods and 
 plantations were kept to a nicety; not a twig was out of 
 place. Enormous cost had been incurred in the plant- 
 ing of rare evergreens ; full-grown trees had been trans- 
 planted wholesale from a distance, and still wore in many 
 cases a sickly and invalided air ; and elaborate contrasts 
 in dark and light foliage had been arranged by the land- 
 scape - gardener employed. Dark plantations had a 
 light border light plantatons a dark one. A lake or 
 large pond, with concrete banks and two artificial islands, 
 held the centre of the park, and on the monotonous 
 stretches of immaculate grass there were deer to be 
 seen wherever anybody could reasonably expect them. 
 Diana surveyed it all with a lively dislike. She pitied 
 Lady Lucy and Mr. Marsham because they must live in 
 such a place. Especially, surely, must it be hampering 
 and disconcerting to a man, preaching the democratic 
 gospel, and looking forward to the democratic millen- 
 nium, to be burdened with a house and estate which 
 could offer so few excuses for the wealth of which they 
 
 72
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 made an arrogant and uninviting display. Immense 
 possessions and lavish expenditure may be, as we all 
 know, so softened by antiquity, or so masked by taste, as 
 not to jar with ideals the most different or remote. But 
 here "proputty! proputty!" was the cry of every ugly 
 wood and tasteless shrubbery, whereas the prospective 
 owner of them, according to his public utterances and 
 career, was magnificently careless of property was, in 
 fact, in the eyes of the lovers of property, its enemy. 
 The house again spoke loudly and aggressively of money ; 
 yet it was the home of a champion of the poor. 
 
 Well a man cannot help it, if his father has suffered 
 from stupidity and bad taste ; and encumbrances of this 
 kind are more easily created than got rid of. No doubt 
 Oliver Marsham's democratic opinions had been partly 
 bred in him by opposition and recoil. Diana seemed to 
 get a good deal of rather comforting light on the problem 
 by looking at it from this point of view. 
 
 Indeed, she thought over it persistently while she 
 dressed. From the normal seven-hours' sleep of youth 
 she had awakened with braced nerves. To remember 
 her duel of the night before was no longer to thrill with 
 an excitement inexplicable even to herself, and strangely 
 mingled with a sense of loneliness or foreboding. Under 
 the morning light she looked at things more sanely. Her 
 natural vanity, which was the reflection of her wish to 
 please, told her that she had not done badly. She felt a 
 childish pleasure in the memory of Mr. Barton's dis- 
 comfiture; and as to Mr. Marsham, it was she, and not 
 her beliefs, not the great Imperial "cause" which had 
 been beaten. How could she expect to hold her own 
 with the professional politician when it came really to 
 business? In her heart of hearts she knew that she 
 6 73
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 would have despised Oliver Marsham if he had not been 
 able to best her in argument. "If it had been papa," 
 she thought, proudly, "that would have been another 
 story!" 
 
 Nevertheless, as she sat meekly under the hands of 
 her maid, smiles "went out and in," as she remembered 
 the points where she had pressed him hard, had almost 
 overcome him. An inclination to measure herself with 
 him again danced within her. Will against will, mind 
 against mind her temperament, in its morning rally, 
 delighted in the thought. And all the time there hovered 
 before her the living man, with his agreeable, energetic, 
 challenging presence. How much better she had liked 
 him, even in his victory of the evening, than in the 
 carping sarcastic mood of the afternoon ! 
 
 In spite of gayety and expectation, however, she felt her 
 courage fail her a little as she left her room and ventured 
 out into the big populous house. Her solitary bringing- 
 up had made her liable to fits of shyness amid her general 
 expansiveness, and it was a relief to meet no one least 
 of all, Alicia Drake on her way down-stairs. Mrs. Col- 
 wood, indeed, was waiting for her at the end of the pas- 
 sage, and Diana held her hand a little as they descended. 
 
 A male voice was speaking in the hall Mr. Marsham 
 giving the last directions for the day to the head keeper. 
 The voice was sharp and peremptory too peremptory, 
 one might have thought, for democracy addressing a 
 brother. But the keeper, a gray-haired, weather-beaten 
 man of fifty, bowed himself out respectfully, and Mar- 
 sham turned to greet Diana. Mrs. Colwood saw the 
 kindling of his eyes as they fell on the girl's morning 
 freshness. No sharpness in the voice now! he was all 
 eagerness to escort and serve his guests. 
 
 74
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 He led them to the breakfast-room, which seemed to 
 be in an uproar, caused apparently by Bobbie Forbes 
 and Lady Niton, who were talking at each other across 
 the table. 
 
 "What is the matter?" asked Diana, as she slipped 
 into a place to which Sir James Chide smilingly invited 
 her between himself and Mr. Bobbie. 
 
 Sir James, making a pretence of shutting his ears 
 against the din, replied that he believed Mr. Forbes was 
 protesting against the tyranny of Lady Niton in obliging 
 him to go to church. 
 
 " She never enters a place of worship herself, but she 
 insists that her young men friends shall go. Mr. Bobbie 
 is putting his foot down!" ; -^ r 
 
 " Miss Mallory, let me get you some fish," said Forbes, 
 turning to her with a flushed and determined counte- 
 nance. " I have now vindicated the rights of man, and 
 am ready to attend if you will allow me to the wants 
 of woman. Fish? or bacon?" 
 
 Diana made her choice, and the young man supplied 
 her; then bristling with victory, and surrounded by 
 samples of whatever food the breakfast-table afforded, he 
 sat down to his own meal. "No!" he said, with energy, 
 addressing Diana. "One must really draw the line. 
 The last Sunday Lady Niton took me to church, the 
 service lasted an hour and three-quarters. I am a High 
 Churchman I vow I am an out-and-outer. I go in 
 for snippets and shortening things. The man here is 
 a dreadful old Erastian piles on everything you can 
 pile on so I just felt it necessary to give Lady Niton 
 notice. To-morrow I have work for the department 
 at home! Take my advice, Miss Mallory don't go." 
 
 "I'm not staying over Sunday," smiled Diana. 
 
 75
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 The young man expressed his regret. "I say," he 
 said, with a quick look round, " you didn't think I was 
 rude last night, did you?" 
 
 "Rude? When?" 
 
 "In not listening. I can't listen when people talk 
 politics. I want to drown myself. Now, if it was poetry 
 or something reasonable. You know the only things 
 worth looking at in this beastly house" he lowered 
 his voice " are the books in that glass bookcase. It 
 was Lady Lucy's father old Lord Merston collect- 
 ed them. Lady Lucy never looks at them. Marsham 
 does, I suppose sometimes. Do you know Marsham 
 well ?" 
 
 " I made acquaintance with him and Lady Lucy on 
 the Riviera." 
 
 Mr. Bobbie observed her with a shrewd eye. In spite 
 of his inattention of the night before, the interest of Miss 
 Mallory's appearance upon the scene at Tallyn had not 
 been lost upon him, any more than upon other people. 
 The rumor had preceded her arrival that Marsham had 
 been very much " smitten " with her amid the pine woods 
 of Portofino. Marsham's taste was good emphatically 
 good. At the same time it was clear that the lady was 
 no mere facile and commonplace girl. It was Forbes's 
 opinion, based on the scene of the previous evening, that 
 there might be a good deal of wooing to be done. 
 
 "There are so many things I wanted to show you 
 and to talk about!" said Oliver Marsham, confidentially, 
 to Diana, in the hall after breakfast "but this horrid 
 shoot will take up all the day! If the weather is not too 
 bad, I think some of the ladies meant to join us at 
 luncheon. Will you venture?" 
 
 76
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 His tone was earnest; his eyes indorsed it. Diana 
 hoped it might be possible to come. Marsham lingered 
 beside her to the last minute; but presently final orders 
 had to be given to keepers, and country neighbors began 
 to arrive. 
 
 "They do the thing here on an enormous scale," said 
 Bobbie Forbes, lounging and smoking beside Diana; " it's 
 almost the biggest shoot in the county. Amusing, isn't 
 it? in this Radical house. Do you see that man Mc- 
 Ewart?" 
 
 Diana turned her attention upon the young member 
 of Parliament who had arrived the night before plain, 
 sandy-haired, with a long flat-backed head, and a gentle- 
 manly manner. 
 
 " I suspect a good deal's going on here behind the 
 scenes," said Bobbie, dropping his voice. "That man 
 Barton may be a fool to talk, but he's a great power in 
 the House with the other Labor men. And McEwart 
 has been hand and glove with Marsham all this Session. 
 They're trying to force Ferrier's hand. Some Bill the 
 Labor men want and Ferrier won't hear of. A good 
 many people say we shall see Marsham at the head of 
 a Fourth Party of his own very soon. Se soumettre, ou se 
 demettre! well, it may come to that for old Ferrier. 
 But I'll back him to fight his way through." 
 
 "How can Mr. Marsham oppose him?" asked Diana, 
 in wonder, and some indignation with her companion. 
 " He is the Leader of the party, and besides they are 
 such friends!" 
 
 Forbes looked rather amused at her womanish view of 
 things. "Friends? I should rather think so!" 
 
 By this time he and Diana were strolling up and down 
 the winter garden opening out of the hall, which was now 
 
 77
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 full of a merry crowd waiting for the departure of the 
 shooters. Suddenly Forbes paused. 
 
 "Do you see that?" 
 
 Diana's eyes followed his till they perceived Lady 
 Lucy sitting a little way off under a camellia-tree covered 
 with red blossom. Her lap was heaped with the letters 
 ( of the morning. Mr. Ferrier, with a cigarette in his 
 mouth, stood beside her, reading the sheets of a letter 
 which she handed to him as she herself finished them. 
 Every now and then she spoke to him, and he replied. 
 In the little scene, between the slender white-haired 
 woman and the middle-aged man, there was something 
 so intimate, so conjugal even, that Diana involuntarily 
 turned away as though to watch it were an impertinence. 
 
 "Rather touching, isn't it?" said the youth, smiling 
 benevolently. "Of course you know there's a ro- 
 mance, or rather was long ago. My mother knew all 
 about it. Since old Marsham's death, Lady Lucy's 
 never done a thing without Ferrier to advise her. Why 
 she hasn't married him, that's the puzzle. But she's a 
 curious woman, is Lady Lucy. Looks so soft, but " 
 He pursed up his lips with an important air. 
 
 "Anyhow, she depends a lot on Ferrier. He's con- 
 stantly here whenever he can be spared from London and 
 Parliament. He got Oliver into Parliament his first 
 seat I mean for Manchester. The Ferriers are very big 
 people up there, and old Ferrier's recommendation of 
 him just put him in straight no trouble about it! Oh! 
 and before that when he was at Eton and Oxford too 
 Ferrier looked after him like a father. Used to have 
 him up for exeats and talk to the Head and keep his 
 mother straight like an old brick, Ferrier's a splendid 
 Chap!" 
 
 78
 
 The Testing of Diana Mai lory 
 
 Diana warmly agreed. 
 
 "Perhaps you know," pursued the chatterbox, 
 " that this place is all hers Lady Lucy's. She can leave 
 it and her money exactly as she pleases. It is to be 
 hoped she won't leave much of it to Mrs. Fotheringham. 
 Isn't that a woman! Ah! you don't know her yet. 
 Hullo! there's Marsham after me." 
 
 For Marsham was beckoning from the hall. They 
 returned hurriedly. 
 
 "Who made Oliver that waistcoat?" said Lady Niton, 
 putting on her spectacles. 
 
 " I did," said Alicia Drake, as she came up, with her 
 arm round the younger of Lady Niton's nieces. " Isn't 
 it becoming?" 
 
 "Hum!" said Lady Niton, in a gruff tone, "young 
 ladies can always find new ways of wasting their time." 
 
 Marsham approached Diana. 
 
 "We're just off," he said, smiling. "The clouds are 
 lifting. You'll come?" 
 
 " What, to lunch ?" said Lady Niton, just behind. " Of 
 course they will. What else is there for the women to 
 do? Congratulate you on your waistcoat, Oliver." 
 
 "Isn't it superb?" he said, drawing himself up with 
 mock majesty, so as to show it off. "I am Alicia's 
 debtor for life." 
 
 Yet a careful ear might have detected something a 
 little hollow in the tone. 
 
 Lady Niton looked at him, and then at Miss Drake, 
 evidently restraining her sharp tongue for once, though 
 with difficulty. Marsham lingered a moment making 
 some last arrangements for the day with his sister. 
 Diana noticed that he towered over the men among 
 whom he stood; and she felt herself suddenly delighting 
 
 79
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 in his height, in his voice which was remarkably refined 
 and agreeable, in his whole capable and masterful pres- 
 ence. Bobbie Forbes standing beside him was dwarfed 
 to insignificance, and he seemed to be conscious of it, 
 for he rose on his toes a little, involuntarily copying 
 Marsham's attitude, and looking up at him. 
 
 As the shooters departed, Forbes bringing up the rear, 
 Lady Niton laid her wrinkled hand on his arm. 
 
 "Never mind, Bobbie, never mind!" she smiled at 
 him confidentially. "We can't all be six foot." 
 
 Bobbie stared at her first fiercely then exploded 
 with laughter, shook off her hand and departed. 
 
 Lady Niton, evidently much pleased with herself, 
 came back to the window where most of the other ladies 
 stood watching the shooters with their line of beaters 
 crossing the lawn toward the park beyond. "Ah!" 
 she said, " I thought Alicia would see the last of 
 them!" 
 
 For Miss Drake, in defiance of wind and spitting rain, 
 was walking over the lawn the centre of a large group, 
 with Marsham beside her. Her white serge dress and the 
 blue shawl she had thrown over her fair head made a 
 brilliant spot in the dark wavering line. 
 
 " Alicia is very picturesque," said Mrs. Fotheringham, 
 turning away. 
 
 "Yes and last summer Oliver seemed to be well 
 aware of it," said Lady Niton, in her ear. 
 
 "Was he? He has always been very good friends 
 with Alicia." 
 
 " He could have done without the waistcoat," said 
 Lady Niton, sharply. 
 
 "Aren't you rather unkind? She began it last sum- 
 mer, and finished it yesterday. Then, of course, she 
 
 80
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 presented it to him. I don't see why that should ex- 
 pose her to remarks." 
 
 "One can't help making remarks about Alicia," said 
 Lady Niton, calmly, " and she can defend herself so well." 
 
 "Poor Alicia!" 
 
 "Confess you wouldn't like Oliver to marry her." 
 
 " Oliver never had any thought of it." 
 
 Lady Niton shook her queer gray head. 
 
 "Oliver paid her a good deal of attention last sum- 
 mer. Alicia must certainly have considered the matter. 
 And she is a young lady not easily baffled." 
 
 "Baffled!" Mrs. Fotheringham laughed. "What can 
 she do?" 
 
 " Well, it's true that Oliver seems to have got another 
 idea in his head. What do you think of that pretty 
 child who came yesterday the Mallory girl?" 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham hesitated, then said, coldly : 
 
 " I don't like discussing these things. Oliver has 
 plenty of time before him." 
 
 "If he is turning his thoughts in that quarter," 
 persisted Lady Niton, " I give him my blessing. Well 
 bred, handsome, and well off what's your objection?" 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham laughed impatiently. " Really, 
 Lady Niton, I made no objection." 
 
 "You don't like her!" 
 
 " I have only known her twenty-four hours. How 
 can I have formed any opinion about her?" 
 
 " No you don't like her! I suppose you thought she 
 talked stuff last night?" 
 
 " Well, there can be no two opinions about that!" cried 
 Mrs. Fotheringham. " Her father seems to have filled 
 her head with all sorts of false Jingo notions, and I must 
 say I wondered Oliver was so patient with her," 
 
 8?
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Lady Niton glanced at the thin fanatical face of the 
 speaker. 
 
 "Oliver had great difficulty in holding his own. She 
 is no fool, and you'll find it out, Isabel, if you try to 
 argue her down 
 
 "I shouldn't dream of arguing with such a child!" 
 
 " Well, all I know is Ferrier seemed to admire her per- 
 formance." 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham paused a moment, then said, with 
 harsh intensity : 
 
 "Men have not the same sense of responsibility." 
 
 "You mean their brains are befogged by a pretty 
 face?" 
 
 "They don't put non-essentials aside, as we do. A 
 girl like that, in love with what she calls 'glory' and 
 'prestige,' is a dangerous and demoralizing influence. 
 That glorification of the Army is at the root of half our 
 crimes'" 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham's pale skin had flushed till it 
 made one red with her red hair. Lady Niton looked at 
 her with mingled amusement and irritation. She won- 
 dered why men married such women as Isabel Fothering- 
 ham. Certainly Ned Fotheringham himself deceased 
 some three years before this date had paid heavily for 
 his mistake; especially through the endless disputes 
 which had arisen between his children and his second wife 
 partly on questions of religion, partly on this matter of 
 the Army. Mrs. Fotheringham was an agnostic ; her step- 
 sons, the children of a devout mother, were churchmen. 
 Influenced, moreover, by a small coterie, in which, to the 
 dismay of her elderly husband, she had passed most 
 of her early married years, she detested the Army as 
 a brutal influence on the national life. Her youngest 
 
 82
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 step-son, however, had insisted on becoming a soldier. 
 She broke with him, and with his brothers who supported 
 him. Now a childless widow, without ties and moderate- 
 ly rich, she was free to devote herself to her ideas. In 
 former days she would have been a religious bigot of the 
 first water; the bigotry was still there; only the subjects 
 of it were changed. 
 
 Lady Niton delighted in attacking her; yet was not 
 without a certain respect for her. Old sceptic that she 
 was, ideals of any sort imposed upon her. How people 
 came by them, she herself could never imagine. 
 
 On this particular morning, however, Mrs. Fothering- 
 ham did not allow herself as long a wrangle as usual 
 with her old adversary. She went off, carrying an arm- 
 ful of letters with large enclosures, and Lady Niton 
 understood that for the rest of the morning she would be 
 as much absorbed by her correspondence mostly on 
 public questions as the Leader of the Opposition him- 
 self, to whom the library was sacredly given up. 
 
 "When that woman takes a dislike," she thought to 
 herself, "it sticks! She has taken a dislike to the Mai- 
 lory girl. Well, if Oliver wants her, let him fight for her. 
 I hope she won't drop into his mouth! Mallory! Mai- 
 lory! I wonder where she comes from, and who her 
 people are." 
 
 Meanwhile Diana was sitting among her letters, which 
 mainly concerned the last details of the Beechcote 
 furnishing. She and Mrs. Colwood were now "Muriel" 
 and " Diana" to each other, and Mrs. Colwood had been 
 admitted to a practical share in Diana's small anxieties. 
 
 Suddenly Diana, who had just opened a hitherto 
 unread letter, exclaimed : 
 
 83
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Oh, but haw delightful!" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood looked up; Diana's aspect was one of 
 sparkling pleasure and surprise. 
 
 " One of my Barbadoes' cousins is here in London 
 actually in London and I knew nothing of her coming. 
 She writes to me. Of course she must come to Beech- 
 cote she must come at once!" 
 
 She sprang up, and went to a writing-table near, to 
 look for a telegraph form. She wrote a message with 
 eagerness, despatched it, and then explained as coherent- 
 ly as her evident emotion and excitement would allow. 
 
 QThey are my only relations in the world that I 
 know of that papa ever spoke to me about. Mamma's 
 sister married Mr. Merton. He was a planter in Bar- 
 badoes. He died about three years ago, but his widow 
 and daughters have lived on there. They were very poor 
 and couldn't afford to come home. Fanny is the eld- 
 est I think she must be about twenty." 
 
 Diana paced up and down, with her hands behind 
 her, wondering when her telegram would reach her 
 cousin, who was staying at a London boarding-house, 
 when she might be expected at Beechcote, how long she 
 could be persuaded to stay speculations, in fact, in- 
 numerable. Her agitation was pathetic in Mrs. Col- 
 wood's eyes. It testified to the girl's secret sense of 
 forlornness, to her natural hunger for the ties and re- 
 lationships other girls possessed in such abundance. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood inquired if it was long since she had 
 had news of her cousins. 
 
 " Oh, some years!" said Diana, vaguely. " I remember 
 a letter coming before we went to the East and papa 
 reading it. I know" she hesitated " I know he didn't 
 like Mr. Merton." 
 
 84
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 She stood still a moment, thinking. The lights and 
 shadows of reviving memory crossed her face, and 
 presently her thought emerged, with very little hint to her 
 companion of the course it had been taking out of sight. 
 
 " Papa always thought it a horrid life for them 
 Aunt Merton and the girls especially after they gave up 
 their estate and came to live in the town. But how 
 could they help it? They must have been very poor. 
 Fanny" she took up the letter "Fanny says she has 
 come home to learn music and French that she may 
 earn money by teaching when she goes back. She doesn't 
 write very well, does she?" 
 
 She held out the sheet. 
 
 The handwriting, indeed, was remarkably illiterate, 
 and Mrs. Colwood could only say that probably a girl of 
 Miss Merton's circumstances had had few advantages. 
 
 "But then, you see, we'll give her advantages!" cried 
 Diana, throwing herself down at Mrs. Colwood' s feet, and 
 beginning to plan aloud. "You know if she will only 
 stay with us, we can easily have people down from 
 London for lessons. And she can have the green bed- 
 room over the dining-room can't she ? and the libra- 
 ry to practise in. It would be absurd that she should 
 stay in London, at a horrid boarding-house, when there's 
 Beechcote, wouldn't it?" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood agreed that Beechcote would probably 
 be quite convenient for Miss Merton's plans. If she felt 
 a little pang at the thought that her pleasant tete-a-tete 
 with her new charge was to be so soon interrupted, and 
 for an indefinite period, by a young lady with the hand- 
 writing of a scullery-maid, she kept it entirely hidden. 
 
 Diana talked herself into the most rose-colored plans 
 for Fanny Merton's benefit so voluminous, indeed, that 
 
 85
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Mrs. Colwood had to leave her in the middle of them 
 that she might go up-stairs and mend a rent in her 
 walking-dress. Diana was left alone in the drawing- 
 room, still smiling and dreaming. In her impulsive 
 generosity she saw herself as the earthly providence of 
 her cousin, sharing with a dear kinswoman her own 
 unjustly plentiful well-being. 
 
 Then she took up the letter again. It ran thus: 
 
 " MY DEAR DIANA, You mustn't think it cheeky my calling you 
 that, but I am your real cousin, and mother told me to write 
 to you. I hope too you won't be ashamed of us though we are 
 poor. Everybody knows us in Barbadoes, though of course 
 that's not London. I am the eldest of the family, and I got 
 very tired of living all in a pie, and so I've come home to Eng- 
 land to better myself. A year ago I was engaged to be married, 
 but the young man behaved badly. A good riddance, all my 
 friends told me but it wasn't a pleasant experience. Any- 
 way now I want to earn some money, and see the world a little. 
 I have got rather a good voice, and I am considered handsome 
 at least smart-looking. If you are not too grand to invite me 
 to your place, I should like to come and see you, but of course 
 you must do as you please. I got your address from the bank 
 Uncle Mallory used to send us checks on. I can tell you we 
 have missed those checks pretty badly this last year. I hope 
 you have now got over your great sorrow. This boarding- 
 house is horribly poky but cheap, which is the great thing. I 
 arrived the night before last, 
 "And I am 
 
 " Your affectionate cousin 
 
 "FANNY MERTON." 
 
 No, it really was not an attractive letter. On the 
 second reading, Diana pushed it away from her, rather 
 hastily. Then she reminded herself again, elaborately, 
 of the Mertons' disadvantages in life, painting them in 
 imagination as black as possible. And before she had 
 gone far with this process all doubt and distaste were 
 
 86
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 once more swept away by the rush of yearning, of an 
 interest she could not subdue, in this being of her own 
 flesh and blood, the child of her mother's sister. She sat 
 with flushed cheeks, absorbed in a stream of thoughts 
 and reminiscence. 
 
 " You look as though you had had good news," said 
 Sir James Chide, as he paused beside her on his way 
 through the drawing-room. He was not a sportsman; 
 nor was Mr. Ferrier. 
 
 His eyes rested upon her with such a kind interest, his 
 manner showed so plainly yet again that he desired to 
 be her friend, that Diana responded at once. 
 
 " I have found a cousin!" she said, gayly, and told the 
 story of her expected visitor. 
 
 Outwardly perfunctorily Sir James's aspect while 
 she was speaking answered to hers. If she was pleased, 
 he was pleased too. He congratulated her; he entered 
 into her schemes for Miss Merton's amusement. Really, 
 all the time, the man's aspect was singularly grave, 
 he listened carefully to every word; he observed the 
 speaker. 
 
 "The young lady's mother is your aunt?" 
 
 " She was my mother's sister." 
 
 " And they have been long in Barbadoes?" 
 
 " I think they migrated there just about the same 
 time we went abroad after my mother's death." 
 
 Sir James said little. He encouraged her to talk on; 
 he listened to the phrases of memory or expectation 
 which revealed her history her solitary bringing-up 
 her reserved and scholarly father the singular close- 
 ness, and yet as it seemed strangeness of her relation to 
 him. It appeared, for instance, that it was only an 
 accident, some years before, which had revealed to Diana 
 
 87
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 the very existence of these cousins. Her father had never 
 spoken of them spontaneously. 
 
 " I hope she will be everything that is charming and 
 delightful," he said at last as he rose. " And remember 
 I am to come and see you!" 
 
 He stooped his gray head, and gently touched her 
 hand with an old man's freedom. 
 
 Diana warmly renewed her invitation. 
 
 "There is a house near you that I often go to Sir 
 William Felton's. I am to be there in a few weeks. 
 Perhaps I shall even be able to make acquaintance with 
 Miss Fanny!" 
 
 He walked away from her. 
 
 Diana could not see the instant change of counte- 
 nance which accompanied the movement. Urbanity, 
 gentleness, kind indulgence vanished. Sir James looked 
 anxious and disturbed; and he seemed to be talking to 
 himself. 
 
 The rest of the morning passed heavily. Diana wrote 
 some letters, and devoutly hoped the rain would stop. In 
 the intervals of her letter- writing, or her study of the 
 clouds, she tried to make friends with Miss Drake and 
 Mrs. Fotheringham. But neither effort came to good. 
 Alicia, so expansive, so theatrical, so much the centre of 
 the situation, when she chose, could be equally prickly, 
 monosyllabic, and repellent when it suited her to be 
 so. Diana talked timidly of dress, of London, and the 
 Season. They were the subjects on which it seemed 
 most natural to approach Miss Drake; Diana's attitude 
 was inquiring and propitiatory. But Alicia could find 
 none but careless or scanty replies till Madeleine Varley 
 came up. Then Miss Drake's tongue was loosened. To 
 her, as to an equal and intimate, she displayed her expert 
 
 88
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 knowledge of shops and modistes, of "people" and their 
 stories. Diana sat snubbed and silent, a little provincial 
 outsider, for whom "seasons" are not made. Nor was it 
 any better with Mrs. Fotheringham. At twelve o'clock 
 that lady brought the London papers into the drawing- 
 room. Further information had been received from the 
 Afghan frontier. The English loss in the engagement 
 already reported was greater than had been at first sup- 
 posed; and Diana found the name of an officer she had 
 known in India among the dead. As she pondered the 
 telegram, the tears in her eyes, she heard Mrs. Fothering- 
 ham describe the news as "on the whole very satis- 
 factory." The nation required the lesson. Whereupon 
 Diana's tongue was loosed and would not be quieted. 
 She dwelt hotly on the "sniping," the treacheries, the 
 midnight murders which had preceded the expedition. 
 Mrs. Fotheringham listened to her with flashing looks, 
 and suddenly she broke into a denunciation of war, the 
 military spirit, and the ignorant and unscrupulous per- 
 sons at home, especially women, who aid and abet 
 politicians in violence and iniquity, the passion of which 
 soon struck Diana dumb. Here was no honorable fight 
 of equal minds. She was being punished for her ad- 
 vocacy of the night before, by an older woman of 
 tyrannical temper, toward whom she stood in the re- 
 lation of guest to host. It was in vain to look round for 
 defenders. The only man present was Mr. Barton, who 
 sat listening with ill-concealed smiles to what was going 
 on, without taking part in it. 
 
 Diana extricated herself with as much dignity as she 
 
 could muster, but she was too young to take the matter 
 
 philosophically. She went up-stairs burning with anger, 
 
 the tears of hurt feeling in her eyes. It seemed to her 
 
 7 89
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 that Mrs. Fotheringham's attack implied a personal dis- 
 like; Mr. Marsham's sister had been glad to " take it out 
 of her." To this young cherished creature it was almost 
 her first experience of the kind. 
 
 On the way up-stairs she paused to look wistfully out 
 of a staircase window. Still raining alack ! She thought 
 with longing of the open fields, and the shooters. Was 
 there to be no escape all day from the ugly oppressive 
 house, and some of its inmates? Half shyly, yet with 
 a quickening of the heart, she remembered Marsham's 
 farewell to her of that morning, his look of the night 
 before. Intellectually, she was comparatively mature ; in 
 other respects, as inexperienced and impressionable as 
 any convent girl. 
 
 "I fear luncheon is impossible!" said Lady Lucy's 
 voice. 
 
 Diana looked up and saw her descending the stairs. 
 
 "Such a pity! Oliver will be so disappointed." 
 
 She paused beside her guest an attractive and dis- 
 tinguished figure. On her white hair she wore a lace 
 cap which was tied very precisely under her delicate 
 chin. Her dress, of black satin, was made in a full plain 
 fashion of her own; she had long since ceased to allow 
 her dressmaker any voice in it; and her still beautiful 
 hands flashed with diamonds, not however in any vulgar 
 profusion. Lady Lucy's mother had been of a Quaker 
 family, and though Quakerism in her had been deeply 
 alloyed with other metals, the moral and intellectual 
 self-dependence of Quakerism, its fastidious reserves and 
 discrimination were very strong in her. Discrimination 
 indeed was the note of her being. For every Christian, 
 some Christian precepts are obsolete. For Lady Lucy 
 that which runs "Judge Not!" had never been alive. 
 
 90
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Her emphatic reference to Marsham had brought the 
 ready color to Diana's cheeks. 
 
 "Yes there seems no chance!" she said, shyly, and 
 regretfully, as the rain beat on the window. 
 
 "Oh, dear me, yes!" said a voice behind them. "The 
 glass is going up. It '11 be a fine afternoon and we'll 
 go and meet them at Holme Copse. Sha'n't we, Lady 
 Lucy?" 
 
 Mr. Ferrier appeared, coming up from the library 
 laden with papers. The three stood chatting together on 
 the broad gallery which ran round the hall. The kindness 
 of the two elders was so marked that Diana's spirits 
 returned; she was not to be quite a pariah it seemed! 
 As she walked away toward her room, Mr. Ferrier 's eyes 
 pursued her the slim round figure, the young loveliness 
 of her head and neck. 
 
 "Well! what are you thinking about her?" he said, 
 eagerly, turning to the mistress of the house. 
 
 Lady Lucy smiled. 
 
 " I should prefer it if she didn't talk politics," she said, 
 with the slightest possible stiffness. "But she seems a 
 very charming girl." 
 
 " She talks politics, my dear lady, because living alone 
 with her father and with her books, she has had nothing 
 else to talk about but politics and books. Would you 
 rather she talked scandal or Monte Carlo?" 
 
 The Quaker in Lady Lucy laughed. 
 
 " Of course if she married Oliver, she would subordinate 
 her opinions to his." 
 
 "Would she!" said Mr. Ferrier " I'm not so sure!" 
 
 Lady Lucy replied that if not, it would be calamitous. 
 In which she spoke sincerely. For although now the 
 ruler, and, if the truth were known, the somewhat
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 despotic ruler of Tallyn, in her husband's lifetime she 
 had known very well how to obey. 
 
 "I have asked various people about the Mallorys," 
 she resumed. " But nobody seems to be able to tell me 
 anything." 
 
 " I trace her to Sir Thomas of that ilk. Why not ? 
 It is a Welsh name!" 
 
 " I have no idea who her mother was," said Lady Lucy, 
 musing. " Her father was very refined quite a gentle- 
 man." 
 
 " She bears, I think, very respectable witness to her 
 mother," laughed Ferrier. "Good stock on both sides; 
 she carries it in her face." 
 
 "That's all I ask," said Lady Lucy, quietly. 
 
 "But that you do ask!" Her companion looked at 
 her with an eye half affectionate, half ironic. " Most 
 exclusive of women! I sometimes wish I might unveil 
 your real opinions to the Radical fellows who come here." 
 
 Lady Lucy colored faintly. 
 
 "That has nothing to do with politics." 
 
 " Hasn't it ? I can't imagine anything that has more 
 to do with them." 
 
 " I was thinking of character honorable tradition 
 not blood." 
 
 Ferrier shook his head. 
 
 " Won't do. Barton wouldn't pass you ' A man's a 
 man for a' that' and a woman too." 
 
 "Then I am a Tory!" said Lady Lucy, with a smile 
 that shot pleasantly through her gray eyes. 
 
 "At last you confess it!" cried Ferrier, as he carried 
 off his papers. But his gayety soon departed. He stood 
 awhile at the window in his room, looking out upon the 
 sodden park a rather gray and sombre figure. Over his 
 
 92
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 ugly impressiveness a veil of weariness had dropped. 
 Politics and the strife of parties, the devices of enemies 
 and the dissatisfaction of friends his soul was tired of 
 them. And the emergence of this possible love-affair 
 for the moment, ardent and deep as were the man's 
 affections and sympathies, toward this Marsham house- 
 hold, it did but increase his sense of moral fatigue, [if. 
 the flutter in the blood and the long companionship of 
 equal love if these were the only things of real value in 
 life how had his been worth living? "7
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE last covert had been shot, and as Marsham and 
 his party, followed by scattered groups of beaters, 
 turned homeward over the few fields that separated them 
 from the park, figures appeared coming toward them in 
 the rosy dusk Mr. Ferrier and Diana in front, with most 
 of the other guests of the house in their train. There 
 was a merry fraternization between the two parties a 
 characteristic English scene, in a characteristic setting: 
 the men in their tweed shooting-suits, some with their 
 guns over their shoulders, for the most part young and 
 tall, clean-limbed and clear-eyed, the well-to-do English- 
 man at his most English moment, and brimming with 
 the joy of life ; the girls dressed in the same tweed stuffs, 
 and with the same skilled and expensive simplicity, but 
 wearing, some of them, over their cloth caps, bright 
 veils, white or green or blue, which were tied under their 
 chins, and framed faces aglow with exercise and health. 
 Marsham's eyes flew to Diana, who was in black, with 
 a white veil. Some of the natural curls on her temples, 
 which reminded him of a Vandyck picture, had been a 
 little blown by the wind across her beautiful brow; he 
 liked the touch of wildness that they gave; and he was 
 charmed anew by the contrast between her frank young 
 strength, and the wistful look, so full of relation to all 
 about it, as though seeking to understand and be one 
 with it. He perceived too her childish pleasure in each 
 
 94
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 fresh incident and experience of the English winter, 
 which proved to her anew that she had come home ; and 
 he flattered himself, as he went straight to her side, that 
 his coming had at least no dimming effect on the radi- 
 ance that had been there before. 
 
 "I believe you are not pining for the Mediterranean!" 
 he said, laughing, as they walked on together. 
 
 In a smiling silence she drew in a great breath of the 
 frosty air while her eyes ranged along the chalk down, on 
 the western edge of which they were walking, and then 
 over the plain at their feet, the smoke wreaths that hung 
 above the villages, the western sky filled stormily with 
 the purples and grays and crimsons of the sunset, the 
 woods that climbed the down, or ran in a dark rampart 
 along its crest. 
 
 "No one can ever love it as much as I do!" she 
 said at last " because I have been an exile. That will 
 be my advantage always." 
 
 "Your compensation perhaps." 
 
 "Mrs. Colwood puts it that way. Only I don't like 
 having my grievance taken away." 
 
 " Against whom ?" 
 
 " Ah! not against papa!" she said, hurriedly " against 
 Fate!" 
 
 " If you dislike being deprived of a grievance so do I. 
 You have returned me my Rossetti." 
 
 She laughed merrily. 
 
 " You made sure I should lose or keep it?" 
 
 "It is the first book that anybody has returned to 
 me for years. I was quite resigned." 
 
 "To a damaging estimate of my character? Thank 
 you very much!" 
 
 "I wonder" he said, in another tone "what sort 
 
 95
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 of estimate you have of my character false, or 
 true?" 
 
 "Well, there have been a great many surprises!" said 
 Diana, raising her eyebrows. 
 
 "In the matter of my character?" 
 
 "Not altogether." 
 
 " My surroundings ? You mean I talked Radicalism 
 or, as you would call it, Socialism to you at Portofino, 
 and here you find me in the character of a sporting 
 Squire?" 
 
 "I hear" she said, deliberately looking about her 
 "that this is the finest shoot in the county." 
 
 " It is. There is no denying it. But, in the first place, 
 it's my mother's shoot, not mine the estate is hers, not 
 mine and she wishes old customs to be kept up. In the 
 next well, of course, the truth is that I like it abomi- 
 nably!" 
 
 He had thrust his cap into his pocket, and was walk- 
 ing bareheaded. In the glow of the evening air his 
 strong manhood seemed to gain an added force and 
 vitality. He moved beside her, magnified and haloed, 
 as it were, by the dusk and the sunset. Yet his effect 
 upon her was no mere physical effect of good looks and 
 a fine stature. It was rather the effect of a personality 
 which strangely fitted with and evoked her own of that 
 congruity, indeed, from which all else springs. 
 
 She laughed at his confession. 
 
 " I hear also that you are the best shot in the neigh- 
 borhood." 
 
 "Who has been talking to you about me?" he asked, 
 with a slight knitting of the brows. 
 
 "Mr. Ferrier a little." 
 
 He gave an impatient sigh, so disproportionate to the 
 
 96
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 tone of their conversation, that Diana looked at him in 
 sudden surprise. 
 
 " Haven't you often wondered how it is that the very 
 people who know you best know you least?" 
 
 The question was impetuously delivered. Diana re- 
 called Mr. Forbes's remarks as to dissensions behind the 
 scenes. She stepped cautiously. 
 
 "I thought Mr. Ferrier knew everything!" 
 
 " I wish he knew something about his party and the 
 House of Commons!" cried Marsham, as though a passion 
 within leaped to the surface. 
 
 The startled eyes beside him beguiled him further. 
 
 " I didn't mean to say anything indiscreet or dis- 
 loyal," he said, with a smile, recovering himself. " It is 
 often the greatest men who cling to the old world when 
 the new is clamoring. But the new means to be heard 
 all the same." 
 
 Diana's color flashed. 
 
 " I would rather be in that old world with Mr. Ferrier 
 than in the new with Mr. Barton!" 
 
 " What is the use of talking of preferences ? The world 
 is what it is and will be what it will be. Barton is our 
 master Ferrier 's and mine. The. point is to come to 
 terms, and make the best of it." 
 
 " No! the point is to hold the gate! and die on the 
 threshold, if need be." 
 
 'They had come to a stile. Marsham had crossed it, 
 and Diana mounted. Her young form showed sharply 
 against the west; he looked into her eyes, divided between 
 laughter and feeling; she gave him her hand. The man's 
 pulses leaped anew. He was naturally of a cool and 
 self-possessed temperament \the life of the brain much 
 stronger in him than the life of the senses. | But at that 
 
 97
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 moment he recognized as perhaps, for the first time, 
 the night before that Nature and youth had him at last 
 in grip. At the same time the remembrance of a walk 
 over the same ground that he had taken in the autumn 
 with Alicia Drake flashed, unwelcomed, into his mind. 
 It stirred a half-uneasy, half-laughing compunction. He 
 could not flatter himself yet that his cousin had for- 
 gotten it. 
 
 "What gate? and what threshold?" he asked Diana, 
 as they moved on. " If you mean the gate of power it 
 is too late. Democracy is in the citadel and has run 
 up its own flag. Or to take another metaphor the 
 Whirlwind is in possession the only question is who 
 shall ride it!" 
 
 Diana declared that the Socialists would ride it to the 
 abyss with England on the crupper. 
 
 " Magnificent!" said Marsham, "but merely rhetorical. 
 Besides all that we ask, is that Ferrier should ride it. 
 Let him only try the beast and he will find it tame 
 enough." 
 
 "And if he won't?" 
 
 "Ah, if he won't " said Marsham, uncertainly, and 
 paused. In the growing darkness she could no longer 
 see his face plainly. But presently he resumed, more 
 earnestly and simply. 
 
 "Don't misunderstand me! Ferrier is our chief my 
 chief, above all and one does not even discuss whether 
 one is loyal to him. The party owes him an enormous 
 debt. As for myself He drew a long breath, which 
 was again a sigh. 
 
 Then with a change of manner, and in a lighter tone: 
 "I seem to have given myself away to an enemy!" 
 
 "Poor enemy!" 
 
 98
 
 THE MAN S PULSES LEAPED ANEW
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 He looked at her, half laughing, half anxious. 
 
 "Tell me! last night you thought me intolerant 
 overbearing?" 
 
 "I disliked being beaten," said Diana, candidly; "es- 
 pecially as it was only my ignorance that was beaten 
 not my cause." 
 
 "Shall we begin again?" 
 
 Through his gayety, however, a male satisfaction in 
 victory pierced very plainly. Diana winced a little. 
 
 "No, no! I must go back to Captain Roughsedge 
 first and get some new arguments!" 
 
 "Roughsedge!" he said, in surprise. "Roughsedge? 
 He never carried an argument through in his life!" 
 
 Diana defended her new friend to ears unsympathetic. 
 Her defence, indeed, evoked from him a series of the same 
 impatient, sarcastic remarks on the subject of the neigh- 
 bors as had scandalized her the day before. She fired 
 up, and they were soon in the midst of another battle- 
 royal, partly on the merits of particular persons and 
 partly on a more general theme the advantage or dis- 
 advantage of an optimist view of your fellow-creat- 
 ures. 
 
 Marsham was, before long, hard put to it in argument, 
 and very delicately and discreetly convicted of arrogance 
 or worse. They were entering the woods of the park 
 when he suddenly stopped and said: 
 
 " Do you know that you have had a jolly good re- 
 venge pressed down and running over?" 
 
 Diana smiled, and said nothing. She had delighted in 
 the encounter; so, in spite of castigation, had he. There 
 surged up in him a happy excited consciousness of 
 quickened life and hurrying hours. He looked with 
 distaste at the nearness of the house; and at the group 
 
 99
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 of figures which had paused in front of them, waiting for 
 them, on the farther edge of the broad lawn. 
 
 " You have convicted me of an odious, exclusive, 
 bullying temper or you think you have and all you 
 will allow me in the way of victory is that I got the best 
 of it because Captain Roughsedge wasn't there!" 
 
 "Not at all. I respect your critical faculty!" 
 
 " You wish to hear me gush like Mrs. Minchin. It is 
 simply astounding the number of people you like!" 
 
 Diana's laugh broke into a sigh. 
 
 " Perhaps it's like a hungry boy in a goody-shop. He 
 wants to eat them all." 
 
 "Were you so very solitary as a child?" he asked her, 
 gently, in a changed tone, which was itself an act of 
 homage, almost a caress. 
 
 "Yes I was very solitary," she said, after a pause. 
 " And I am really gregarious dreadfully fond of people ! 
 and curious about them. And I think, oddly enough, 
 papa was too." 
 
 A question rose naturally to his lips, but was checked 
 unspoken. He well remembered Mr. Mallory at Porto- 
 fino; a pleasant courteous man, evidently by nature a 
 man of the world, interested in affairs and in literature, 
 with all the signs on him of the English governing class. 
 It was certainly curious that he should have spent all 
 those years in exile with his child, in a remote villa on 
 the Italian coast. Health, Marsham supposed, or finance 
 the two chief motives of life. For himself, the thought 
 ' of Diana's childhood between the pine woods and the sea 
 gave him pleasure; it added another to the poetical and 
 romantic ideas which she suggested. There came back 
 on him the plash of the waves beneath the Portofino 
 headland, the murmur of the pines, the fragrance of the 
 
 100
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 underwood. He felt the kindred between all these, and 
 her maidenly energy, her unspoiled be.auty. 
 
 "One moment!" he said, as they began to cross the 
 lawn. " Has my sister attacked you yet?" 
 
 The smile with which the words were spoken could be 
 heard though not seen. Diana laughed, a little awkwardly. 
 
 " I am afraid Mrs. Fotheringham thinks me a child of 
 blood and thunder! I am so sorry!" 
 
 " If she presses you too hard, call me in. Isabel and 
 I understand each other." 
 
 Diana murmured something polite. 
 
 Mr. Frobisher meanwhile came to meet them with a 
 remark upon the beauty of the evening, and Alicia Drake 
 followed. 
 
 " I expect you found it a horrid long way," she said to 
 Diana. Diana disclaimed fatigue. 
 
 " You came so slowly, we thought you must be tired." 
 
 Something in the drawling manner and the slightly 
 insolent expression made the words sting. Diana hurried 
 on to Marion Vincent's side. That lady was leaning on 
 a stick, and for the first time Diana saw that she was 
 slightly lame. She looked up with a pleasant smile and 
 greeting ; but before they could move on across the ample 
 drive, Mr. Frobisher overtook them. 
 
 " Won't you take my arm?" he said, in a low voice. 
 
 Miss Vincent slipped her hand inside his arm, and 
 rested on him. He supported her with what seemed to 
 Diana a tender carefulness, his head bent to hers, while 
 he talked and she replied. 
 
 Diana followed, her girl's heart kindling. 
 
 "Surely! surely! they are in love? engaged?" 
 
 But no one else appeared to take any notice or made 
 any remark. 
 
 101
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Long did the memory of the evening which followed 
 live warm in the heart of Diana. It was to her an evening 
 of triumph triumph innocent, harmless, and complete. 
 Her charm, her personality had by now captured the 
 whole party, save for an opposition of three and the 
 three realized that they had for the moment no chance of 
 influencing the popular voice. The rugged face of Mr. 
 Barton stiffened as she approached; it seemed to him 
 that the night before he had been snubbed by a chit, and 
 he was not the man to forget it easily. Alicia Drake was 
 a little pale and a little silent during the evening, till, 
 late in its course, she succeeded in carrying off a group 
 of young men who had come for the shoot and were 
 staying the night, and in establishing a noisy court among 
 them. Mrs. Fotheringham disapproved, by now, of al- 
 most everything that concerned Miss Mallory : of her taste 
 in music or in books , of the touch of effusion in her man- 
 ner, which was of course " affected " or " aristocratic " ; of 
 the enthusiasms she did not possess, no less than of those 
 she did. On the sacred subject of the suffrage, for in- 
 stance, which with Mrs. Fotheringham was a matter for 
 propaganda everywhere and at all times, Diana was but 
 a cracked cymbal, when struck she gave back either no 
 sound at all, or a wavering one. Her beautiful eyes 
 were blank or hostile ; she would escape like a fawn from 
 the hunter. As for other politics, no one but Mrs. Foth- 
 eringham dreamed of introducing them. She, however, 
 would have discovered many ways of dragging them 
 in, and of setting down Diana; but here her brother 
 was on the watch, and time after time she found herself 
 checked or warded off. 
 
 Diana, indeed, was well defended. The more ill-hu- 
 mored Mrs. Fotheringham grew, the more Lady Niton 
 
 IO2
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 enjoyed the evening and her own " Nitonisms. " It was 
 she who after dinner suggested the clearing of the hall 
 .and an impromptu dance on the ground that "girls 
 must waltz for their living." And when Diana proved 
 to be one of those in whom dancing is a natural and 
 shining gift, so that even the gilded youths of the party, 
 who were perhaps inclined to fight shy of Miss Mallory 
 as "a girl who talked clever," even they came crowding 
 about her, like flies about a milk-pail it was Lady Niton 
 who drew Isabel Fotheringham's attention to it loudly 
 and repeatedly. It was she also who, at a pause in 
 the dancing and at a hint from Mrs. Colwood, insisted 
 on making Diana sing, to the grand piano which had 
 been pushed into a corner of the hall. And when the 
 singing, helped by the looks and personality of the singer, 
 had added to the girl's success, Lady Niton sat fanning 
 herself in reflected triumph, appealing to the spectators 
 on all sides for applause. The topics that Diana fled 
 from, Lady Niton took up ; and when Mrs. Fotheringham, 
 bewildered by an avalanche of words, would say " Give 
 me time, please, Lady Niton I must think!" Lady 
 Niton would reply, coolly " Not unless you're accus- 
 tomed to it"; while she finally capped her misdeeds by 
 insisting that it was no good to say Mr. Barton had a 
 warm heart if he were without that much more useful 
 possession a narrow mind. 
 
 Thus buttressed and befriended on almost all sides, 
 Diana drank her cup of pleasure. Once in an interval 
 between two dances, as she passed on Oliver Marsham's 
 arm, close to Lady Lucy, that lady put up her frail old 
 hand, and gently touched Diana's. "Do not overtire 
 yourself, my dear!" she said, with effusion; and Oliver, 
 looking down, knew very well what his mother's rare 
 
 103
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 effusion meant, if Diana did not. On several occasions 
 Mr. Ferrier sought her out, with every mark of flattering 
 attention, while it often seemed to Diana as if the 
 protecting kindness of Sir James Chide was never far 
 away. In her white ingenue's dress she was an embodi- 
 ment of youth, simplicity, and joy, such as perhaps our 
 grandmothers knew more commonly than we, in our 
 more hurried and complex day. And at the same time 
 there floated round her something more than youth 
 something more thrilling and challenging than mere 
 girlish delight an effluence, a passion, a " swell of soul," 
 which made this dawn of her life more bewitching even 
 for its promise than for its performance. 
 
 For Marsham, too, the hours flew. He was carried 
 away, enchanted; he had eyes for no one, time for no 
 one but Diana; and before the end of the evening the 
 gossip among the Tallyn guests ran fast and free. When 
 at last the dance broke up, many a curious eye watched 
 the parting between Marsham and Diana; and in their 
 bedroom on the top floor Lady Lucy's two nieces sat up 
 till the small hours discussing, first, the situation was 
 Oliver really caught at last ? and then, Alicia's refusal 
 to discuss it. She had said bluntly that she was dog- 
 tired and shut her door upon them. 
 
 / On a hint from his mother, Marsham went to say 
 good-night to her in her room. She threw her arms 
 round his neck, whispering: "Dear Oliver! dear Oli- 
 ver! I just wished you to know if it is as I think 
 that you had my blessing." 
 
 He drew back, a little shrinking and reluctant yet 
 still flushed, as it were, with the last rays Diana's sun 
 had shed upon him. 
 
 104
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Things mustn't be hurried, mother." 
 
 "No no they sha'n't. But you know how I have 
 wished to see you happy how ambitious I have been 
 for you!" 
 
 " Yes, mother, I know. You have been always very 
 good to me." He had recovered his composure, and 
 stood holding her hand and smiling at her. 
 
 "What a charming creature, Oliver! It is a pity, of 
 course, her father has indoctrinated her with those 
 opinions, but " 
 
 "Opinions!" he said, scornfully "what do they mat- 
 ter!" But he could not discuss Diana. His blood was 
 still too hot within him. 
 
 "Of course of course!" said Lady Lucy, soothingly. 
 "She is so young she will develop. But what a wife, 
 Oliver, she will make how she might help a man on 
 with her talents and her beauty and her refinement. 
 She has such dignity, too, for her years." 
 
 He made no reply, except to repeat : 
 
 " Don't hurry it, mother don't hurry it." 
 
 "No no" she said, laughing "I am not such a 
 fool. There will be many natural opportunities of 
 meeting." 
 
 " There are some difficulties with the Vavasours. They 
 have been disagreeable about the gardens. Ferrier and I 
 have promised to go over and advise her." 
 
 "Good!" said Lady Lucy, delighted that the Vava- 
 sours had been disagreeable. "Good-night, my son, 
 good-night!" 
 
 A minute later Oliver stood meditating in his own 
 
 room, where he had just donned his smoking- jacket. 
 
 By one of the natural ironies of life, at a moment when 
 
 he was more in love than he had ever been yet, he was, 
 
 a 105
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 nevertheless, thinking eagerly of prospects and of money. 
 Owing to his peculiar relation to his mother, and his fa- 
 ther's estate, marriage would be to him no mere satisfac- 
 tion of a personal passion. It would be a vital incident 
 in a politician's career, to whom larger means and greater 
 independence were now urgently necessary. To marry 
 with his mother's full approval would at last bring about 
 that provision for himself which his father's will had 
 most unjustly postponed. He was monstrously depend- 
 ent upon her. It had been one of the chief checks on a 
 strong and concentrated ambition. But Lady Lucy had 
 long made him understand that to marry according to 
 her wishes would mean emancipation: a much larger in- 
 come in the present, and the final settlement of her will 
 in his favor. It was amazing how she had taken to 
 Diana! Diana had only to accept him, and his future 
 was secured. 
 
 But though thoughts of this kind passed in tumultuous 
 procession through the grooves of consciousness, they 
 were soon expelled by others. Marsham was no mere 
 interested schemer. Diana should help him to his career; 
 but above all and before all she was the adorable brown- 
 eyed creature, whose looks had just been shining upon 
 him, whose soft hand had just been lingering in his! 
 As he stood alone and spellbound in the dark, yielding 
 himself to the surging waves of feeling which broke 
 over his mind, the thought, the dream, of holding Diana 
 Mallory in his arms of her head against his breast 
 came upon him with a sudden and stinging delight. 
 
 Yet the delight was under control the control of a 
 keen and practical intelligence. There rose in him a 
 sharp sense of the unfathomed depths and possibilities in 
 such a nature as Diana's. Once or twice that evening, 
 
 106
 
 The Testing off Diana Mallory 
 
 through all her sweet forthcomingness, when he had 
 forced the note a little, she had looked at him in sudden 
 surprise or shrinking. No! nothing premature! It 
 seemed to him, as it had seemed to Bobbie Forbes, that 
 she could only be won by the slow and gradual conquest 
 of a rich personality. He set himself to the task. 
 
 Down - stairs Mr. Ferrier and Sir James Chide were 
 sitting together in a remote corner of the hall. Mr. 
 Ferrier, in great good-humor with the state of things, 
 was discussing Oliver's chances, confidentially, with his 
 old friend. Sir James sat smoking in silence. He lis- 
 tened to Ferrier's praises of Miss Mallory, to his gen- 
 erous appreciation of Marsham's future, to his specu- 
 lations as to what Lady Lucy would do for her son, 
 upon his marriage, or as to the part which a creature so 
 brilliant and so winning as Diana might be expected to 
 play in London and in political life. 
 
 f Sir James said little or nothing. He knew Lady 
 Lucy well, and had known her long. Presently he rose 
 abruptly and went up-stairs to bed. 
 
 "Ought I to speak?" he asked himself, in an agony of 
 doubt. " Perhaps a word to Ferrier ? 
 
 No! impossible! impossible! Yet, as he mounted 
 the stairs, over the house which had just seen the tri- 
 umph of Diana, over that radiant figure itself, the sec- 
 ond sight of the great lawyer perceived the brooding of 
 a cloud of fate; nor could he do anything to avert or 
 soften its downfall.! 
 
 Meanwhile Diana's golden hour had found an unex- 
 pected epilogue. After her good-night to Marsham she 
 was walking along the gallery corridor going toward her 
 
 107
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 room, when she perceived Miss Vincent in front of her 
 moving slowly and, as it seemed, with difficulty. A 
 sudden impulse made Diana fly after her. 
 
 "Do let me help you!" she said, shyly. 
 
 Marion Vincent smiled, and put her hand in the girl's 
 arm. 
 
 " How do people manage to live at all in these big 
 houses, and with dinner-parties every night!" she said, 
 laughing. " After a day in the East End I am never half 
 so tired." 
 
 She was indeed so pale that Diana was rather fright- 
 ened, and remembering that in the afternoon she had 
 seen Miss Vincent descend from an upper floor, she of- 
 fered a rest in her own room, which was close by, before 
 the evidently lame woman attempted further stairs. 
 
 Marion Vincent hesitated a moment, then accepted. 
 Diana hurried up a chair to the fire, installed her there, 
 and herself sat on the floor watching her guest with some 
 anxiety. 
 
 Yet, as she did so, she felt a certain antagonism. The 
 face, of which the eyes were now closed, was nobly grave. 
 The expression of its deeply marked lines appealed to 
 her heart. But why this singularity this eccentricity ? 
 Miss Vincent wore the same dress of dark woollen stuff, 
 garnished with white frills, in which she had appeared 
 the night before, and her morning attire, as Mr. Frobisher 
 had foretold, had consisted of a precisely similar garment, 
 adorned with a straight collar instead of frills. Surely 
 a piece of acting ! of unnecessary self-assertion ! 
 
 Yet all through the day and the evening Diana had 
 been conscious of this woman's presence, in a strange 
 penetrating way, even when they had had least to do 
 with each other. In the intervals of her own joyous 
 
 1 08
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 progress she had been often aware of Miss Vincent sit- 
 ting apart, sometimes with Mr. Frobisher, who was read- 
 ing or talking to her, sometimes with Lady Lucy, and 
 during the dance with John Barton. Barton might 
 have been the Jeremiah or the Ezekiel of the occasion. 
 He sat astride upon a chair, in his respectable work- 
 man's clothes, his eyes under their shaggy brows, his 
 weather-beaten features and compressed lips express- 
 ing an ill-concealed contempt for the scene before him. 
 It was rumored that he had wished to depart before din- 
 ner, having concluded his consultation with Mr. Ferrier, 
 but that Mrs. Fotheringham had persuaded him to 
 remain for the night. His presence seemed to make 
 dancing a misdemeanor, and the rich house, with its 
 services and appurtenances, an organized crime. But 
 if his personality was the storm - point of the scene, 
 charged with potential lightning, Marion Vincent's was 
 the still small voice, without threat or bitterness, which 
 every now and then spoke to a quick imagination like 
 Diana's its message from a world of poverty and pain. 
 And sometimes Diana had been startled by the percep- 
 tion that the message seemed to be specially for her. 
 Miss Vincent's eyes followed her; whenever Diana passed 
 near her, she smiled she admired. But always, as it 
 seemed to Diana, with a meaning behind the smile. 
 Yet what that meaning might be the girl could not tell. 
 
 At last, as she watched her, Marion Vincent looked up. 
 
 " Mr. Barton would talk to me just now about the 
 history of his own life. I suppose it was the dance and the 
 supper excited him. He began to testify! Sometimes 
 when he does that he is magnificent. He said some fine 
 things to-night. But I am run down and couldn't 
 stand it," 
 
 109
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Diana asked if Mr. Barton had himself gone through 
 a great struggle with poverty. 
 
 "The usual struggle. No more than thousands of 
 others. Only in him it is vocal he can reflect upon it. 
 You had an easy triumph over him last night," she 
 added, with a smile, turning to her companion. 
 
 "Who wouldn't have?" cried Diana. "What out- 
 rageous things he said!" 
 
 " He doesn't know much about India or the Colonies. 
 He hasn't travelled; he reads very little. He showed 
 badly. But on his own subjects he is good enough. 
 I have known him impress or convert the most unlikely 
 people by nothing but a bare sincerity. Just now 
 while the servants were handing champagne he and I 
 were standing a little way off under the gallery. His 
 eyes are weak, and he can't bear the glare of all these 
 lights. Suddenly he told me the story of his father's 
 death." 
 
 She paused, and drew her hand across her eyes. Diana 
 saw that they were wet. But although startled, the girl 
 held herself a little aloof and erect, as though ready at a 
 moment's notice to defend herself against a softening 
 which might involve a treachery to glorious and sacred 
 things. 
 
 "It so chanced" Miss Vincent resumed "that it 
 had a bearing on experiences of my own just now." 
 
 " You are living in the East End?" 
 
 " At present. I am trying to find out the causes of a 
 great wave of poverty and unemployment in a particular 
 district." She named it. " It is hard work and not 
 particularly good for the nerves." 
 
 She smiled, but at the same moment she turned ex- 
 tremely white, and as she fell back in her chair, Diana 
 
 no
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 saw her clinch her hand as though in a strong effort for 
 physical self-control. 
 
 Diana sprang up. 
 
 "Let me get you some water!" 
 
 " Don't go. Don't tell anybody. Just open that win- 
 dow." Diana obeyed, and the northwest wind, sweep- 
 ing in, seemed to revive her pale companion almost 
 at once. 
 
 "I am very sorry!" said Miss Vincent, after a few 
 minutes, in her natural voice. "Now I am all right." 
 She drank some water, and looked up. 
 
 " Shall I tell you the story he told me ? It is very 
 short, and it might change your view of him." 
 
 "If you feel able if you are strong enough," said 
 Diana, uncomfortably, wondering why it should matter 
 to Miss Vincent or anybody else what view she might 
 happen to take of Mr. Barton. 
 
 " He said he remembered his father (who was a house- 
 painter a very decent and hard-working man) having 
 been out of work for eight weeks. He used to go out 
 looking for work every day and there was the usual 
 story, of course, of pawning or selling all their possessions 
 odd jobs increasing starvation and so on. Mean- 
 while, his only pleasure he was ten was to go with his 
 sister after school to look at two shops in the East India 
 Dock Road one a draper's with a ' Christmas Bazaar ' 
 the other a confectioner's. He declares it made him 
 not more starved, but less, to look at the goodies and the 
 cakes; they imagined eating them; but they were both 
 too sickly, he thinks, to be really hungry. As for the 
 bazaar, with its dolls and toys, and its Father Christmas, 
 and bright lights, they both thought it paradise. They 
 used to flatten their noses against the glass ; sometimes a 
 
 in
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 shopman drove them away; but they came back and 
 back. At last the iron shutters would come down 
 slowly. Then he and his sister would stoop and stoop 
 to get a last look. Presently there would be only a 
 foot of bliss left; then they both sank down flat on their 
 stomachs on the pavement, and so stayed greedily 
 till all was dark, and paradise had been swallowed up. 
 Well, one night, the show had been specially gorgeous; 
 they took hands afterward, and ran home. Their father 
 had just come in. Mr. Barton can remember his stagger- 
 ing into the room. I'll give it in his words. ' Mother, 
 have you got anything in the house?' 'Nothing, Tom.' 
 And mother began to cry. ' Not a bit of bread, mother ?' 
 'I gave the last bit to the children for their teas.' 
 Father said nothing, but he lay down on the bed. Then 
 he called me. 'Johnnie,' he said, 'I've got work for 
 next week but I sha'n't never go to it it's too late,' 
 and then he asked me to hold his hand, and turned his 
 face on the pillow. When my mother came to look, he 
 was dead. ' Starvation and exhaustion ' the doctor 
 said." 
 
 Marion Vincent paused. 
 
 " It's just like any other story of the kind isn't it?" 
 Her smile turned on Diana. "The charitable societies 
 and missions send them out by scores in their appeals. 
 But somehow as he told it just now, down-stairs, in that 
 glaring hall, with the champagne going round it seemed 
 intolerable." 
 
 "And you mean also" said Diana, slowly "that a 
 man with that history can't know or care very much 
 about the Empire?" 
 
 "Our minds are all picture-books," said the woman 
 beside her, in a low, dreamy voice : " it depends upon 
 
 112
 
 The Testing of! Diana Mallorg 
 
 what the pictures are. To you the words 'England' 
 and the 'Empire' represent one set of pictures all 
 bright and magnificent like the Christmas Bazaar. To 
 John Barton and me" she smiled "they represent 
 another. We too have seen the lights, and the candles, 
 and the toys; we have admired them, as you have; but 
 we know the reality is not there. The reality is in the 
 dark streets, where men tramp, looking for work; it is in 
 the rooms where their wives and children live stifled and 
 hungry the rooms where our working folk die with- 
 out having lived." 
 
 Her eyes, above her pale cheeks, had opened to their 
 fullest extent the eyes of a seer. They held Diana. 
 So did the voice, which was the voice of one in whom 
 tragic passion and emotion are forever wearing away 
 the physical frame, as the sea waves break down a 
 crumbling shore. 
 
 Suddenly Diana bent over her, and took her hands. 
 
 " I wonder why you thought me worth talking to like 
 this?" she said, impetuously. 
 
 " I liked you!" said Marion Vincent, simply. " I liked 
 you as you talked last night. Only I wanted to add some 
 more pictures to your picture-book. Your set the 
 popular one is called The Glories of England. There 
 is another I recommend it to you: The Shames of 
 England." 
 
 "You think poverty a disgrace?" murmured Diana, 
 held by the glowing fanatical look of the speaker. 
 
 "Our poverty is a disgrace the life of our poor is 
 a disgrace. What does the Empire matter what do 
 Afghan campaigns matter while London is rotten? 
 However" (she smiled again, and caressed Diana's 
 hand), "will you make friends with me?" 
 
 "3
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "Is it worth while for you?" said Diana, laughing. 
 " I shall always prefer my picture-book to yours, I am 
 afraid. And I am not poor and I don't give all my 
 money away." 
 
 Miss Vincent surveyed her gayly. 
 
 "Well, I come here," (she looked significantly round 
 the luxurious room) , " and I am very good friends with 
 the Marshams. Oliver Marsham is one of the persons 
 from whom I hope most." 
 
 "Not in pulling down wealth and property!" cried 
 Diana. 
 
 " Why not ? Every revolution has its Philippe Egal- 
 it. Oh, it will come slowly it will come slowly," said 
 the other, quietly. "And of course there will be trag- 
 edy there always is in everything. But not, I hope, 
 for you never for you!" And once more her hand 
 dropped softly on Diana's. 
 
 " You were happy to-night ? you enjoyed the dance ?" 
 
 The question, so put, with such a look, from another 
 mouth, would have been an impertinence. Diana shrank, 
 but could not resent it. Yet, against her will, she flush- 
 ed deeply. 
 
 "Yes. It was delightful. I did not expect to enjoy 
 it so much, but " 
 
 " But you did! That's well. That's good!" 
 
 Marion Vincent rose feebly. And as she stood, lean- 
 ing on the chair, she touched the folds of Diana's white 
 dress. 
 
 " When shall I see you again ? and that dress ?" 
 
 " I shall be in London in May," said Diana, eagerly 
 " May I come then ? You must tell me where." 
 
 " Ah, you won't come to Bethnal Green in that dress. 
 What a pity!" 
 
 114
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Diana helped her to her room, where they shook hands 
 and parted. Then Diana came back to her own quarters. 
 She had put out the electric light for Miss Vincent's sake. 
 The room was lit only by the fire. In the full-length 
 mirror of the toilet-table Diana saw her own white re- 
 flection, and the ivy leaves in her hair. The absence of 
 her mourning was first a pain ; then the joy of the' evening 
 surged up again. Oh, was it wrong, was it wrong to be 
 happy in this world " where men sit and hear each other 
 groan"? She clasped her hands to her soft breast, as 
 though defending the warmth, the hope that were spring- 
 ing there, against any dark protesting force that might 
 threaten to take them from her.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "T TENRY," said Mrs. Roughsedge to her husband, 
 
 11 " I think it would do you good to walk to Beech- 
 cote." 
 
 " No, my dear, no ! I have many proofs to get through 
 before dinner. Take Hugh. Only 
 
 Dr. Roughsedge, smiling, held up a beckoning finger. 
 His wife approached. 
 
 "Don't let him fall in love with that young woman. 
 It's no good." 
 
 "Well, she must marry somebody, Henry." 
 
 "Big fishes mate with big fishes minnows with 
 minnows." 
 
 " Don't run down your own son, sir. Who, pray, is 
 too good for him?" 
 
 "The world is divided into wise men, fools, and 
 mothers. The characters of the first two are mingled 
 disproportionately in the last," said Dr. Roughsedge, 
 patiently enduring the kiss his wife inflicted on him. 
 " Don't kiss me, Patricia don't tread on my proofs go 
 away and tell Jane not to forget my tea because you 
 have gone out." 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge departed, and the doctor, who was 
 devoted to her, sank at once into that disorderly welter of 
 proofs and smoke which represented to him the best of 
 the day. The morning he reserved for hard work, and 
 during the course of it he smoked but one pipe. A 
 
 116
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 quotation from Fuller which was often on his lips 
 expressed his point of view: "Spill not the morning, 
 which is the quintessence of the day, in recreation. For 
 sleep itself is a recreation. And to open the morning 
 thereto is to add sauce to sauce." 
 
 But in the afternoon he gave himself to all the de- 
 lightful bye- tasks : the works of supererogation, the ex- 
 cursions into side paths, the niggling with proofs, the 
 toying with style, the potterings and polishings, the ru- 
 minations, and re writings and refinements which make 
 the joy of the man of letters. For five-and-twenty 
 years he had been a busy Cambridge coach, tied year in 
 and year out to the same strictness of hours, the same 
 monotony of subjects, the same patient drumming on 
 thick heads and dull brains. Now that was all over. A 
 brother had left him a little money; he had saved the rest. 
 At sixty he had begun to live. He was editing a series 
 of reprints for the Cambridge University Press, and what 
 mortal man could want more than a good wife and son, 
 a cottage to live in, a fair cook, unlimited pipes, no debts, 
 and the best of English literature to browse in? The 
 rural afternoon, especially, when he smoked and grub- 
 bed and divagated as he pleased, was alone enough to 
 make the five-and-twenty years of " swink" worth while. 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge stayed to give very particular orders 
 to the house-parlormaid about the doctor's tea, to open 
 a window in the tiny drawing-room, and to put up in 
 brown paper a pair of bed-socks that she had just finished 
 knitting for an old man in one of the parish-houses. 
 Then she joined her son, who was already waiting for 
 her impatiently in the garden. 
 
 Hugh Roughsedge had only just returned from a 
 month's stay in London, made necessary by those new 
 
 117
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Army examinations which his soul detested. By dint 
 of strenuous coaching he had come off moderately 
 victorious, and had now returned home for a week's 
 extra leave before rejoining his regiment. One of the 
 first questions on his tongue, as his mother instantly 
 noticed, had been a question as to Miss Mallory. Was 
 she still at Beechcote? Had his mother seen anything 
 of her? 
 
 Yes, she was still at Beechcote. Mrs. Roughsedge, 
 however, had seen her but seldom and slightly since her 
 son's departure for London. If she had made one or two 
 observations from a distance, with respect to the young 
 lady, she withheld them. And like the discerning mother 
 that she was, at the very first opportunity she proposed 
 a call at Beechcote. 
 
 On their way thither, this February afternoon, they 
 talked in a desultory way about some new War-Office 
 reforms, which, as usual, the entire Army believed to be 
 merely intended wilfully and deliberately for its de- 
 struction; about a recent gambling scandal in the regi- 
 ment, or the peculiarities of Hugh's commanding officer. 
 Meanwhile he held his peace on the subject of some letters 
 he had received that morning. There was to be an ex- 
 pedition in Nigeria. Officers were wanted; and he had 
 volunteered. The result of his application was not yet 
 known. He had no intention whatever of upsetting his 
 parents till it was known. 
 
 " I wonder how Miss Mallory liked Tallyn," said Mrs. 
 Roughsedge, briskly. 
 
 She had already expressed the same wonder once or 
 twice. But as neither she nor her son had any materials 
 for deciding the point the remark hardly promoted con- 
 versation. She added to it another of more effect. 
 
 118
 
 The Testing o Diana Mallory 
 
 "The Miss Bertrams have already made up their 
 minds that she is to marry Oliver Marsham." 
 
 "The deuce!" cried the startled Roughsedge. "Beg 
 your pardon, mother, but how can those old cats possibly 
 know?" 
 
 "They can't know," said Mrs. Roughsedge, placidly. 
 "But as soon as you get a young woman like that into 
 the neighborhood, of course everybody begins to specu- 
 late." 
 
 "They mumble any fresh person, like a dog with a 
 bone," said Roughsedge, indignantly. 
 
 They were passing across the broad village street. 
 On either hand were old timbered cottages, sun-mellowed 
 and rain-beaten ; a thatched roof showing here and there ; 
 or a bit of mean new building, breaking the time-worn 
 line. To their left, keeping watch over the graves which 
 encircled it, rose the fourteenth-century church; amid 
 the trees around it rooks were cawing and wheeling; 
 and close beneath it huddled other cottages, ivy-grown, 
 about the village well. Afternoon school was just over, 
 and the children were skipping and running about the 
 streets. Through the cottage doors could be seen oc- 
 casionally the gleam of a fire or a white cloth spread 
 for tea. For the womenfolk, at least, tea was the great 
 meal of the day in Beechcote. So that what with the 
 flickering of the fires, and the sunset light on the win- 
 dows, the skipping children, the dogs, the tea-tables, and 
 the rooks, Beechcote wore a cheerful and idyllic air. But 
 Mrs. Roughsedge knew too much about these cottages. 
 In this one to the left a girl had just borne her second 
 illegitimate child; in that one farther on were two 
 mentally deficient children, the offspring of feeble-mind- 
 ed parents; in the next, an old woman, the victim of 
 
 119
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 pernicious anaemia, was moaning her life away; in the 
 last to the right the mother of five small children had 
 just died in her sixth confinement. Mrs. Roughsedge 
 gave a long sigh as she looked at it. The tragedy was 
 but forty-eight hours old ; she had sat up with the mother 
 through her dying hours. 
 
 "Oh, my dear!" said Mrs. Roughsedge, suddenly 
 "here comes the Vicar. Do you know, it's so unlucky 
 and so strange ! but he has certainly taken a dislike to 
 Miss Mallory I believe it was because he had hoped 
 some Christian Socialist friends of his would have taken 
 Beechcote, and he was disappointed to find it let to 
 some one with what he calls "silly Tory notions" and 
 no particular ideas about Church matters. Now there's 
 a regular fuss something about the Book Club. I 
 don't understand 
 
 The Vicar advanced toward them. He came along 
 at a great pace, his lean figure closely sheathed in his 
 long clerical coat, his face a little frowning and set. 
 
 At the sight of Mrs. Roughsedge he drew up, and 
 greeted the mother and son. 
 
 "May I have a few words with you?" he asked Mrs. 
 Roughsedge, as he turned back with them toward the 
 Beechcote lane. " I don't know whether you are ac- 
 quainted, Mrs. Roughsedge, with what has just hap- 
 pened in the Book Club, to which we both belong?" 
 
 The Book Club was a village institution of some 
 antiquity. It embraced some ten families, who drew up 
 their Mudie lists in common and sent the books from 
 house to house. The Vicar and Dr. Roughsedge had 
 been till now mainly responsible for these lists so far, at 
 least, as "serious books" were concerned, the ladies 
 being allowed the chief voice in the novels. 
 
 120
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge, a little fluttered, asked for informa- 
 tion. 
 
 "Miss Mallory has recommended two books which, in 
 my opinion, should not be circulated among us," said 
 the Vicar. " I have protested in vain. Miss Mallory 
 maintains her recommendation. I propose, therefore, to 
 withdraw from the Club." 
 
 "Are they improper?" cried Mrs. Roughsedge, much 
 distressed. Captain Roughsedge threw an angry look 
 first at his mother and then at the Vicar. 
 
 " Not in the usual sense," said the Vicar, stiffly "but 
 highly improper for the reading of Christian people. 
 One is by a Unitarian, and the other reproduces some 
 of the worst speculations of an infidel German theology. 
 I pointed out the nature of the books to Miss Mallory. 
 She replied that they were both by authors whom her 
 father liked. I regretted it. Then she fired up, refused 
 to withdraw the names, and offered to resign. Miss 
 Mallory's subscription to the Club is, however, much 
 larger than mine. / shall therefore resign protesting, of 
 course, against the reason which induces me to take this 
 course." 
 
 "What's wrong with the books?" asked Hugh Rough- 
 sedge. 
 
 The Vicar drew himself up. 
 
 " I have given my reasons." 
 
 " Why, you see that kind of thing in every newspaper," 
 said Roughsedge, bluntly. 
 
 " All the more reason why I should endeavor to keep 
 my parish free from it," was the Vicar's resolute reply. 
 " However, there is no more to be said. I wished Mrs. 
 Roughsedge to understand what had happened that is 
 all." 
 
 9 121
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 He paused, and offered a limp hand in good-bye. 
 
 " Let me speak to Miss Mallory," said Mrs. Roughsedge, 
 soothingly. 
 
 The Vicar shook his head. 
 
 "She is a young lady of strong will." And with a 
 hasty nod of farewell to the Captain, whose hostility he 
 divined, he walked away. 
 
 "And what about obstinate and pig-headed parsons!" 
 said Roughsedge, hotly, addressing his remark, however, 
 safely to the Vicar's back, and to his mother. "Who 
 makes him a judge of what we shall read! I shall make 
 a point of asking for both the books!" 
 
 "Oh, my dear Hugh!" cried his mother, in rather 
 troubled protest. Then she happily reflected that if he 
 asked for them, he was not in the least likely to read 
 them. "I hope Miss Mallory is not really an unbe- 
 liever." 
 
 " Mother! Of course, what that poker in a wideawake 
 did was to say something uncivil about her father, and 
 she wasn't going to stand that. Quite right, too." 
 
 " She did come to church on Christmas Day," said 
 Mrs. Roughsedge, reflecting. " But, then, a great many 
 people do that who don't believe anything. Anyway, 
 she has always been quite charming to your father 
 and me. And I think, besides, the Vicar might have 
 been satisfied with your father's opinion he made no 
 complaint about the books. Oh, now the Miss Bertrams 
 are going to stop us! They'll of course know all about 
 it!" 
 
 If Captain Roughsedge growled ugly words into his 
 mustache, his mother was able to pretend not to hear 
 them, in the gentle excitement of shaking hands with the 
 Miss Bertrams. These middle-aged ladies, the daughters 
 
 122
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 of a deceased doctor from the neighboring county town 
 of Dunscombe, were, if possible, more plainly dressed 
 than usual, and their manners more forbidding. 
 
 " You will have heard of this disagreeable incident 
 which has occurred," said Miss Maria to Mrs. Roughsedge, 
 with a pinched mouth. " My sister and I shall, of course, 
 remove our names from the Club." 
 
 " I say don't your subscribers order the books they 
 like?" asked Roughsedge, half wroth and half laughing, 
 surveying the lady with his hand on his side. 
 
 "There is a very clear understanding among us," said 
 Miss Maria, sharply, " as to the character of the books 
 to be ordered. No member of the Club has yet trans- 
 gressed it." 
 
 "There must be give and take, mustn't there?" said 
 Miss Elizabeth, in a deprecatory voice. She was the 
 more amiable and the weaker of the two sisters. " We 
 should never order books that would be offensive to Miss 
 Mallory." 
 
 " But if you haven't read the books ?" 
 
 "The Vicar's word is quite enough," said Miss Maria, 
 with her most determined air. 
 
 They all moved on together, Captain Roughsedge 
 smoothing or tugging at his mustache with a restless 
 hand. 
 
 But Miss Bertram, presently, dropping a little behind, 
 drew Mrs. Roughsedge with her. 
 
 "There are all sorts of changes at the house," she 
 said, confidentially. " The laundry maids are allowed to 
 go out every evening, if they like and Miss Mallory 
 makes no attempt to influence the servants to come to 
 church. The Vicar says the seats' for the Beechcote 
 servants have never been so empty." 
 
 123
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Dear, dear!" murmured Mrs. Roughsedge. 
 
 "And money is improperly given away. Several 
 people whom the Vicar thinks most unfit objects of 
 charity have been assisted. And in a conversation with 
 her last week Miss Mallory expressed herself in a very sad 
 way about foreign missions. Her father's idea, again, no 
 doubt but it is all very distressing. The Vicar doubts " 
 Miss Maria spoke warily, bringing her face very close to 
 the gray curls " whether she has ever been confirmed." 
 
 This final stroke, however, fell flat. Mrs. Roughsedge 
 showed no emotion. "Most of my aunts," she said, 
 stoutly, "were never confirmed, and they were good 
 Christians and communicants all their lives." 
 
 Miss Maria's expression showed that this reference 
 to a preceding barbaric age of the Church had no rele- 
 vance to the existing order of things. 
 
 "Of course," she added, hastily, "I do not wish to 
 make myself troublesome or conspicuous in any way. I 
 merely mention these things as explaining why the Vicar 
 felt bound to make a stand. The Church feeling in this 
 parish has been so strong it would, indeed, be a pity if 
 anything occurred to weaken it." 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge gave a doubtful assent. As to the 
 Church feeling, she was not so clear as Miss Bertram. 
 One of her chief friends was a secularist cobbler who 
 lived under the very shadow of the church. The Miss 
 Bertrams shuddered at his conversation. Mrs. Rough- 
 sedge found him racy company, and he presented to 
 her aspects of village life and opinion with which the 
 Miss Bertrams were not at all acquainted. 
 
 As the mother and son approached the old house in the 
 sunset light, its aspect of mellow and intimate congruity 
 
 124
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 with the woods and fields about it had never been more 
 winning. The red, gray, and orange of its. old brick- 
 work played into the brown and purples of its engirdling 
 trees, into the lilacs and golds and crimsons of the west- 
 ern sky behind it, into the cool and quiet tones of the 
 meadows from which it rose. A spirit of beauty had been 
 at work fusing man's perishable and passing work with 
 Nature's eternal masterpiece; so that the old house had 
 in it something immortal, and the light which played 
 upon it something gently personal, relative, and fleet- 
 ing. Winter was still dominant; a northeast wind 
 blew. But on the grass under the spreading oaks which 
 sheltered the eastern front a few snow-drops were out. 
 And Diana was gathering them. 
 
 She came toward her visitors with alacrity. "Oh! 
 what a long time since you have been to see me!" 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge explained that she had been enter- 
 taining some relations, and Hugh had been in London. 
 She hoped that Miss Mallory had enjoyed her stay at 
 Tallyn. It certainly seemed to both mother and son that 
 the ingenuous young face colored a little as its owner 
 replied "Thank you it was very amusing" and then 
 added, with a little hesitation " Mr. Marsham has been 
 kindly advising me since, about the gardens and the 
 Vavasours. They were to keep up the gardens, you know 
 and now they practically leave it to me which isn't 
 fair." 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge secretly wondered whether this state- 
 ment was meant to account for the frequent presence of 
 Oliver Marsham at Beechcote. She had herself met him 
 in the lane riding away from Beechcote no less than three 
 times during the past fortnight. 
 
 "Please come in to tea!" said Diana; "I am just ex- 
 
 125
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 pecting my cousin Miss Merton. Mrs. Colwood and I 
 are so excited! we have never had a visitor here before. 
 I came out to try and find some snow-drops for her room. 
 There is really nothing in the greenhouses and I can't 
 make the house look nice." 
 
 Certainly as they entered and passed through the 
 panelled hall to the drawing-room Hugh Roughsedge 
 saw no need for apology. Amid the warm dimness of the 
 house he was aware of a few starry flowers, a few gleam- 
 ing and beautiful stuffs, the white and black of an en- 
 graving, or the blurred golds and reds of an old Italian 
 picture, humble school-work perhaps, collected at small 
 cost by Diana's father, yet still breathing the magic of 
 the Enchanted Land. The house was refined, pleading, 
 eager like its mistress. ^ It made no display but it 
 admitted no vulgarity. ' " These things are not here for 
 mere decoration's sake," it seemed to say. Dear kind 
 hands have touched them; dear silent voices have 
 spoken of them. Love them a little, you also! and 
 be at home.'* 
 
 Not that Hugh Roughsedge made any such conscious 
 analysis of his impressions. Yet the house appealed to 
 him strangely. He thought Miss Mallory's taste marvel- 
 lous; and it is one of the superiorities in women to which 
 men submit most readily. 
 
 The drawing-room had especially a festive air. Mrs. 
 Colwood was keeping tea-cakes hot, and building up a 
 blazing fire with logs of beech-wood. When she had 
 seated her guests, Diana put the snow-drops she had 
 gathered into an empty vase, and looked round her 
 happily, as though now she had put the last touch to all 
 her preparations. She talked readily of her cousin's 
 coming to Mrs. Roughsedge; and she inquired minutely 
 
 126
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 of Hugh when the next meet was to be, that she might 
 take her guest to see it. 
 
 "Fanny will be just as new to it all as I!" she said. 
 " That's so nice, isn't it ?" Then she offered Mrs. Rough- 
 sedge cake, and looked at her askance with a hanging 
 head. "Have you heard about the Vicar?" 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge admitted it. 
 
 "I did lose my temper," said Diana, repentantly. 
 "But really! papa used to tell me it was a sign of 
 weakness to say violent things you couldn't prove. 
 Wasn't it Lord Shaftesbury that said" some book he 
 didn't like was "vomited out of the jaws of hell"? 
 Well, the Vicar said things very like that. He did in- 
 deed!" 
 
 "Oh no, my dear, no!" cried Mrs. Roughsedge, dis- 
 turbed by the quotation, even, of such a remark. Hugh 
 Roughsedge grinned. Diana, however, insisted. 
 
 " Of course, I would have given them up. Only I just 
 happened to say that papa always read everything he 
 could by those two men and then" she flushed 
 " Well, I don't exactly remember what Mr. Lavery said. 
 But I know that when he'd said it I wouldn't have given 
 up either of those books for the world!" 
 
 " I hope, Miss Mallory, you won't think of giving them 
 up," said Hugh, with vigor. "It will be an excellent 
 thing for Lavery." 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge, as the habitual peacemaker of the 
 village, said hastily that Dr. Roughsedge should talk to 
 the Vicar. Of course, he must not be allowed to do any- 
 thing so foolish as to withdraw from the Club, or the 
 Miss Bertrams either." 
 
 "Oh! my goodness," cried Diana, hiding her face 
 and then raising it, crimson. "The Miss Bertrams, too! 
 
 137
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Why, it's only six weeks since I first came to this place, 
 and now I'm setting it by the ears!" 
 
 Her aspect of mingled mirth and dismay had in it 
 something so childish and disarming that Mrs. Rough- 
 sedge could only wish the Vicar had been there to see. 
 His heretical parishioner fell into meditation. 
 
 "What can I do? If I could only be sure that he 
 would never say things like that to me again 
 
 " But he will!" said Captain Roughsedge. " Don't give 
 in, Miss Mallory." 
 
 "Ah!" said Mrs. Roughsedge, as the door opened, 
 " shall we ask Mr. Marsham ?" 
 
 Diana turned with a startled movement. It was 
 evident that Marsham was not expected. But Mrs. 
 Roughsedge also inferred from a shrewd observation of 
 her hostess that he was not unwelcome. He had, in fact, 
 looked in on' his way home from hunting to give a 
 message from his mother; that, at least, was the pretext. 
 Hugh Roughsedge, reading him with a hostile eye, said 
 to himself that if it hadn't been Lady Lucy it would have 
 been something else. As it happened, he was quite as 
 well aware as his mother that Marsham's visits to Beech- 
 cote of late had been far more frequent than mere neigh- 
 borliness required. 
 
 Marsham was in hunting dress, and made his usual 
 handsome and energetic impression. Diana treated him 
 with great self-possession, asking after Mr. Ferrier, who 
 had just returned to Tallyn for the last fortnight before 
 the opening of Parliament, and betraying to the Rough- 
 sedges that she was already on intimate terms with Lady 
 Lucy, who was lending her patterns for her embroidery, 
 driving over once or twice a week, and advising her about 
 various household affairs. Mrs. Roughsedge, who had 
 
 128
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 been Diana's first protector, saw herself supplanted not 
 without a little natural chagrin. 
 
 The controversy of the moment was submitted to 
 Marsham, who decided hotly against the Vicar, and 
 implored Diana to stand firm. But somehow his inter- 
 vention only hastened the compunction that had already 
 begun to work in her. She followed the Roughsedges to 
 the door when they departed. 
 
 "What must I do?" she said, sheepishly, to Mrs. 
 Roughsedge. "Write to him?" 
 
 "The Vicar? Oh, dear Miss Mallory, the doctor will 
 settle it. You would change the books?" 
 
 "Mother!" cried Hugh Roughsedge, indignantly, 
 "we're all bullied you know we are and now you 
 want Miss Mallory bullied too." 
 
 "'Who would be free, themselves must strike the 
 blow,' " laughed Marsham, in the background, as he stood 
 toying with his tea beside Mrs. Colwood. 
 
 Diana shook her head. 
 
 " I can't be friends with him," she said, naively, " for a 
 long long time. But I'll rewrite my list. And must I 
 go and call on the Miss Bertrams to-morrow?" 
 
 Her mock and smiling submission, as she stood, 
 slender and lovely, amid the shadows of the hall, seemed 
 to Hugh Roughsedge, as he looked back upon her, the 
 prettiest piece of acting. Then she turned, and he knew 
 that she was going back to Marsham. At the same 
 moment he saw Mrs. Colwood's little figure disappearing 
 up the main stairway. Frowning and silent, he followed 
 his mother out of the house. 
 
 Diana looked round rather wistfully for Mrs. Colwood 
 as she re-entered the room; but that lady had many 
 letters to write. 
 
 129
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Marsham noticed Mrs. Colwood's retreat with a thrill 
 of pleasure. Yet even now he had no immediate declara- 
 tion in his mind. The course that he had marked out for 
 himself had been exactly followed. There had been no 
 "hurrying it." Only in these weeks before Parliament, 
 while matters of great moment to his own political future 
 were going forward, and his participation in them was 
 not a whit less cool and keen than it had always been, he 
 had still found abundant time for the wooing of Diana. 
 He had assumed a kind of guardian's attitude in the 
 matter of her relations to the Vavasours who in business 
 affairs had proved both greedy and muddle-headed; he 
 had flattered her woman's vanity by the insight he had 
 freely allowed her into the possibilities and the difficulties 
 of his own Parliamentary position, and of his relations 
 to Ferrier; and he had kept alive a kind of perpetual 
 interest and flutter in her mind concerning him, by the 
 challenge he was perpetually offering to the opinions and 
 ideas in which she had been brought up while yet com- 
 bining it with a respect toward her father's memory, 
 so courteous, and, in truth, sincere, that she was alter- 
 nately roused and subdued. 
 
 On this February evening, it seemed to his exultant 
 sense, as Diana sat chatting to him beside the fire, that 
 his power with her had substantially advanced, that by a 
 hundred subtle signs quite involuntary on her part 
 she let him understand that his personality was pressing 
 upon hers, penetrating her will, transforming her gay 
 and fearless composure. 
 
 For instance, he had been lending her books repre- 
 senting his own political and social opinions. To her 
 they were anathema. Her father's soul in her regarded 
 them as forces of the pit, rising in ugly clamor to drag 
 
 130
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 down England from her ancient place. But to hate and 
 shudder at them from afar had been comparatively easy. 
 To battle with them at close quarters, as presented by 
 this able and courteous antagonist, who passed so easily 
 and without presumption from the opponent into the 
 teacher, was a more teasing matter. She had many small 
 successes and side- victories, but they soon ceased to 
 satisfy her, in presence of the knowledge and ability of a 
 man who had been ten years in Parliament, and had made 
 for himself she began to understand a considerable 
 position there. She was hotly loyal to her own faiths; 
 but she was conscious of what often seemed to her a 
 dangerous and demoralizing interest in his! A demor- 
 alizing pleasure, too, in listening in sometimes laying 
 aside the watchful, hostile air, in showing herself sweet, 
 yielding, receptive. 
 
 These melting moods, indeed, were rare. But no one 
 watching the two on this February evening could have 
 failed to see in Diana signs of happiness, of a joyous and 
 growing dependence, of something that refused to know 
 itself, that masqueraded now as this feeling, now as that, 
 yet was all the time stealing upon the sources of life, 
 bewitching blood and brain. Marsham lamented that in 
 ten days he and his mother must be in town for the 
 Parliamentary season. Diana clearly endeavored to 
 show nothing more than a polite regret. But in the half- 
 laughing, half-forlorn requests she made to him for ad- 
 vice in certain practical matters which must be decided 
 in his absence she betrayed herself ; and Marsham found 
 it amazingly sweet that she should do so. He said 
 eagerly that he and Lady Lucy must certainly come 
 down to Tallyn every alternate Sunday, so that the 
 various small matters he had made Diana intrust to him
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 the finding of a new gardener; negotiations with the 
 Vavasours, connected with the cutting of certain trees 
 or the repairs of a ruinous gable of the house should 
 still be carried forward with all possible care and speed. 
 Whereupon Diana inquired how such things could pos- 
 sibly engage the time and thought of a politician in 
 the full stream of Parliament. 
 
 "They will be much more interesting to me," said 
 Marsham, in a low steady voice, " than anything I shall 
 be doing in Parliament." 
 
 Diana rose, in sudden vague terror as though with 
 the roar in her ears of rapids ahead murmured some 
 stammering thanks, walked across the room, lowered a 
 lamp which was flaming, and recovered all her smiling 
 self-possession. But she talked no more of her own af- 
 fairs. She asked him, instead, for news of Miss Vincent. 
 
 Marsham answered, with difficulty. If there had been 
 sudden alarm in her, there had been a sudden tumult of 
 the blood in him. He had almost lost his hold upon 
 himself; the great words had been almost spoken. 
 
 But when the conversation had been once more guided 
 into normal channels, he felt that he had escaped a risk. 
 No, no, not yet! One false step one check and he 
 might still find himself groping in the dark. Better let 
 himself be missed a little ! than move too soon. As to 
 Roughsedge he had kept his eyes open. There was 
 nothing there. 
 
 So he gave what news of Marion Vincent he had to 
 give. She was still in Bethnal Green working at her 
 inquiry, often very ill, but quite indomitable. As soon 
 as Parliament began she had promised to do some 
 secretarial work for Marsham on two or three mornings 
 a week. 
 
 132
 
 The Testing o* Diana Mallory 
 
 "I saw her last week," said Marsham. "She always 
 asks after you." 
 
 "I am so glad! I fell in love with her. Surely" 
 Diana hesitated "surely some day she will marry 
 Mr. Frobisher?" 
 
 Marsham shook his head. 
 
 " I think she feels herself too frail." 
 
 Diana remembered that little scene of intimacy of 
 tenderness and Marsham's words stirred about her, as 
 it were, winds of sadness and renunciation. She shivered 
 under them a little, feeling, almost guiltily, the glow of 
 her own life, the passion of her own hopes. 
 
 Marsham watched her as she sat on the other side of 
 the fire, her beautiful head a little bent and pensive, the 
 firelight playing on the oval of her cheek. How glad he 
 was that he had not spoken! that the barrier between 
 them still held. A man may find heaven or hell on the 
 other side of it. But merely to have crossed it makes 
 life the poorer. One more of the great, the irrevocable 
 moments spent and done yielded to devouring time. 
 He hugged the thought that it was still before him. The 
 very timidity and anxiety he felt were delightful to him; 
 he had never felt them before. And once more involun- 
 tarily, disagreeably he thought of Alicia Drake, and of 
 the passages between them in the preceding summer. 
 
 Alicia was still at Tallyn, and her presence was, in 
 truth, a constant embarrassment to him. Lady Lucy, on 
 the contrary, had a strong sense of family duty toward 
 her young cousin, and liked to have her for long visits at 
 Tallyn or in London. Marsham believed his mother 
 knew nothing of the old flirtation between them. Alicia, 
 indeed, rarely showed any special interest in him now. 
 He admitted her general discretion. Yet occasionally 
 
 133
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 she would put in a claim, a light word, now mocking, 
 now caressing, which betrayed the old intimacy, and 
 Marsham would wince under it. It was like a creeping 
 touch in the dark. He had known what it was to feel 
 both compunction and a kind of fear with regard to 
 Alicia. But, normally, he told himself that both feelings 
 were ridiculous. He had done nothing to compromise 
 either himself or her. He had certainly flirted with 
 Alicia; but he could not honestly feel that the chief part 
 in the matter had been his. 
 
 These thoughts passed in a flash. The clock struck, 
 and regretfully he got up to take his leave. Diana rose, 
 too, with a kindling face. 
 
 "My cousin will be here directly!" she said, joyously. 
 
 "Shall I find her installed when I come next time?" 
 
 " I mean to keep her as long as long as ever I Can!" 
 
 Marsham held her hand close and warm a moment, 
 felt her look waver a second beneath his, and then, with 
 a quick and resolute step, he went his way. 
 
 He was just putting on his coat in the outer hall 
 when there was a sound of approaching wheels. A 
 carriage stopped at the door, to which the butler hurried. 
 As he opened it Marsham saw in the light of the porch 
 lamp the face of a girl peering out of the carriage window. 
 It was a little awkward. His own horse was held by 
 a groom on the other side of the carriage. There was 
 nothing to do but to wait till the young lady had passed. 
 He drew to one side. 
 
 Miss Merton descended. There was just time for 
 Marsham to notice an extravagant hat, smothered in 
 ostrich feathers, a large-featured, rather handsome face, 
 framed in a tangled mass of black hair, a pair of sharp 
 eyes that seemed to take in hungrily all they Saw the
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 old hall, the butler, and himself, as he stood in the 
 shadow. He heard the new guest speak to the butler 
 about her luggage. Then the door of the inner hall 
 opened, and he caught Diana's hurrying feet, and her 
 cry 
 
 "Fanny!" 
 
 He passed the lady and escaped. As he rode away 
 into, the darkness of the lanes he was conscious of 
 an impression which had for the moment checked the 
 happy flutter of blood and pulse. Was that the long- 
 expected cousin? Poor Diana! A common - looking, 
 vulgar young woman with a most unpleasant voice and JL- 
 accent. An unpleasant manner, too, to the servants 
 half arrogant, half familiar. What a hat! and what a 
 fringe! worthy of some young "lidy" in the Old Kent 
 Road ! The thought of Diana sitting at table with such 
 a person on equal terms pricked him with annoyance; . 
 for he had all his mother's fastidiousness, though it 
 showed itself in different forms. He blamed Mrs. Col- 
 wood Diana ought to have been more cautiously guid- 
 ed. The thought of all the tender preparation made for 
 the girl was both amusing and repellent. 
 
 Miss Merton, he understood, was Diana's cousin on 
 the mother's side the daughter of her mother's sister. 
 A swarm of questions suddenly arose in his mind 
 questions not hitherto entertained. Had there been, in 
 fact, a mesalliance some disagreeable story which ac- 
 counted, perhaps, for the self-banishment of Mr. Mallory ? 
 the seclusion in which Diana had been brought up ? 
 The idea was most unwelcome, but the sight of Fanny 
 Merton had inevitably provoked it. And it led on to a 
 good many other ideas and speculations of a mingled 
 sort connected, now with Diana, now with recollections, 
 
 J 35
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 pleasant and unpleasant, of the eight or ten years which 
 had preceded his first sight of her. 
 
 For Oliver Marsham was now thirty-six, and he had 
 not reached that age without at least one serious attempt 
 quite apart from any passages with Alicia Drake to 
 provide himself with a wife. Some two years before this 
 date he had proposed to a pretty girl of great family and 
 no money, with whom he supposed himself ardently in 
 love. She, after some hesitation, had refused him, and 
 Marsham had had some reason to believe that in spite of 
 his mother's great fortune and his own expectations, his 
 provenance had not been regarded as sufficiently aris- 
 tocratic by the girl's fond parents. Perhaps had he 
 and not Lady Lucy been the owner of Tallyn and its 
 18,000 a year, things might have been different. As 
 it was, Marsham had felt the affront, as a strong and self- 
 confident man was likely to feel it ; and it was perhaps in 
 reaction from it that he had allowed himself those pas- 
 sages with Alicia Drake which had, at least, soothed his 
 self-love. 
 
 In this affair Marsham had acted on one of the con- 
 victions with which he had entered public life that there 
 is no greater help to a politician than a distinguished, 
 clever, and, if possible, beautiful wife. Distinction, 
 Radical though he was, had once seemed to him a 
 matter of family and "connection." But after the 
 failure of his first attempt, "family," in the ordinary 
 sense, had ceased to attract him. Personal breeding, 
 intelligence, and charm these, after all, are what the 
 politician who is already provided with money, wants to 
 secure in his wife; without, of course, any obvious dis- 
 qualification in the way of family history. Diana, as he 
 had first met her among the woods at Portofino, side by 
 
 136
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 side with her dignified and gentlemanly father, had made 
 upon him precisely that impression of personal distinc- 
 tion of which he was in search upon his mother also. 
 
 The appearance and the accent, however, of the 
 cousin had struck him with surprise; nor was it till he 
 was nearing Tallyn that he succeeded in shaking off the 
 impression. Absurd! Everybody has some relations 
 that require to be masked like the stables, or the back 
 door in a skilful arrangement of life. Diana, his beau- 
 tiful, unapproachable Diana, would soon, no doubt, be 
 relieved of this young lady, with whom she could have 
 no possible interests in common. And, perhaps, on one 
 of his week-end visits to Tallyn and Beechcote, he might 
 get a few minutes' conversation with Mrs. Colwood which 
 would throw some light on the new guest. 
 
 Diana meanwhile, assisted by Mrs. Colwood, was 
 hovering about her cousin. She and Miss Merton had 
 kissed each other in the hall, and then Diana, seized 
 with a sudden shyness, led her guest into the drawing- 
 room and stood there speechless, a little; holding her by 
 both hands and gazing at her; mastered by feeling and 
 excitement. 
 
 "Well, you have got a queer old place!" said Fanny 
 Merton, withdrawing herself. She turned and looked 
 about her, at the room, the flowers, the wide hearth, with 
 its blazing logs, at Mrs. Colwood, and finally at Diana. 
 
 "We are so fond of it already!" said Diana. "Come 
 and get warm." She settled her guest in a chair by the 
 fire, and took a stool beside her. " Did you like Devon- 
 shire?" 
 
 The girl made a little face. 
 
 "It was awfully quiet. Oh, my friends, of course, 
 " 137
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 made a lot of fuss over me and that kind of thing. But 
 I wouldn't live there, not if you paid me." 
 
 "We're very quiet here," said Diana, timidly. She 
 was examining the face beside her, with it's bright crude 
 color, its bold eyes, and sulky mouth, slightly underhung. 
 
 " Oh, well, you've got some good families about, I guess. 
 I saw one or two awfully smart carriages waiting at the 
 station." 
 
 "There are a good many nice people," murmured 
 Diana. "But there is not much going on." 
 
 " I expect you could invite a good many here if you 
 wanted," said the girl, once more looking round her. 
 "Whatever made you take this place?" 
 
 " I like old things so much," laughed Diana. " Don't 
 you?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know. I think there's more style about 
 a new house. You can have electric light and all that 
 sort of thing." 
 
 Diana admitted it, and changed the subject. " Had 
 the journey been cold?" 
 
 Freezing, said Miss Merton. But a young man had 
 lent her his fur coat to put over her knees, which had 
 improved matters. She laughed rather consciously. 
 
 " He lives near here. I told him I was sure you'd ask 
 him to something, if he called." 
 
 "Who was he?" 
 
 With much rattling of the bangles on her wrists, 
 Fanny produced a card from her hand-bag. Diana looked 
 at it in dismay. It was the card of a young solicitor 
 whom she had once met at a local tea-party, and decided 
 to avoid thenceforward. 
 
 She said nothing, however, and plunged into inquiries 
 as to her aunt and cousins. 
 
 138
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Oh! they're all right. Mother's worried out of her 
 life about money; but, then, we've always been that poor 
 you couldn't skin a cent off us, so that's nothing new." 
 
 Diana murmured sympathy. She knew vagtiely that 
 her father had done a good deal to subsidize these rela- 
 tions. She could only suppose that in his ignorance he 
 had not done enough. 
 
 Meanwhile Fanny Merton had fixed her eyes upon 
 Diana with a curious hostile look, almost a stare, which 
 had entered them as she spoke of the family poverty, and 
 persisted as they travelled from Diana's face and figure to 
 the pretty and spacious room beyond. She examined 
 everything, in a swift keen scrutiny, and then as the 
 pouncing glance came back to her cousin, the girl sud- 
 denly exclaimed: 
 
 "Goodness! but you are like Aunt Sparling!" 
 
 Diana flushed crimson. She drew back and said, 
 hurriedly, to Mrs. Colwood: 
 
 " Muriel, would you see if they have taken the luggage 
 up-stairs?" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood went at once. 
 
 Fanny Merton had herself changed color, and looked 
 a little embarrassed. She did not repeat her remark^ but 
 began to take her furs off, to smooth her hair deliberately, 
 and settle her bracelets. Diana came nearer to her &s 
 soon as they were alone. 
 
 "Do you really think I am like mamma?" she said, 
 tremulously, all her eyes fixed upon her cousin. 
 
 "Well, of course I never saw her!" said Miss Merton, 
 looking down at the fire. " How could I ? But mother 
 has a picture of her, and you're as like as two peas." 
 
 " I never saw any picture of mamma," said Diana; " I 
 don't know at all what she was like." 
 
 139
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "Ah, well " said Miss Merton, still looking down. 
 Then she stopped, and said no more. She took out her 
 handkerchief, and began to rub a spot of mud off her 
 dress. It seemed to Diana that her manner was a little 
 strange, and rather rude. But she had made up her 
 mind there would be peculiarities in Fanny, and she did 
 not mean to be repelled by them. 
 
 "Shall I take you to your room?" she said. "You 
 must be tired, and we shall be dining directly." 
 
 Miss Merton allowed herself to be led up-stairs, look- 
 ing curiously round her at every step. 
 
 "I say, you must be well off!" she burst out, as they 
 came to the head of the stairs, " or you'd never be able to 
 run a place like this!" 
 
 "Papa left me all his money," said Diana, coloring 
 again. " I hope he wouldn't have thought it extrav- 
 agant." 
 
 She passed on in front of her guest, holding a candle. 
 Fanny Merton followed. At Diana's statement as to her 
 father's money the girl's face had suddenly resumed its 
 sly hostility. And as Diana walked before her, Miss 
 Merton again examined the house, the furniture, the 
 pictures; but this time, and unknown to Diana, with 
 the air of one half jealous and half contemptuous of 
 all she saw.
 
 Part II
 
 The soberest saints are more stiff-necked 
 Than the hottest-headed of the wicked."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 I SHALL soon be back," said Diana "very soon. 
 I'll just take this book to Dr. Roughsedge. You 
 don't mind?" 
 
 The question was addressed in a deprecatory tone 
 to Mrs. Colwood, who stood beside her at the Beechcote 
 front door. 
 
 Muriel Colwood smiled, and drew the furs closer round 
 the girl's slim throat. 
 
 " I shall mind very much if you don't stay out a full 
 hour and get a good walk." 
 
 Diana ran off, followed by her dog. There was some- 
 thing in the manner both of the dog and its mistress that 
 seemed to show impetuous escape and relief. 
 
 "She looks tired out!" said the little companion to 
 herself, as she turned to enter the hall. " How on earth 
 is she going to get through six weeks of it? or six 
 months!" 
 
 The house as she walked back through it made upon 
 her the odd impression of having suddenly lost some of 
 its charm. The peculiar sentiment as of a warmly 
 human, yet delicately ordered life, which it had breathed 
 out so freely only twenty-four hours before, seemed to 
 her quick feeling to have been somehow obscured or 
 dissipated. All its defects, old or new the patches 
 in the panelling, the darkness of the passages stood 
 out. 
 
 143
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 And "all along of Eliza!" All because of Miss Fanny 
 Merton ! Mrs. Colwood recalled the morning Miss Mer- 
 ton's late arrival at the breakfast- table, and the discov- 
 ery from her talk that she was accustomed to breakfast 
 in bed, waited upon by her younger sisters; her conver- 
 sation at breakfast, partly about the prices of clothes 
 and eatables, partly in boasting reminiscence of her win- 
 nings at cards, or in sweepstakes on the "run," on board 
 the steamer. Diana had then devoted herself to the dis- 
 play of the house, and her maid had helped Miss Merton 
 to unpack. The process had been diversified by raids 
 made by Miss Fanny on Diana's own wardrobe, which she 
 had inspected from end to end, to an accompaniment of 
 critical remark. According to her, there was very little 
 that was really "shick" in it, and Diana should change 
 her dressmaker. The number of her own dresses was 
 large; and as to their colors and make, Mrs. Colwood, 
 who had helped to put away some of them, could only 
 suppose that tropical surroundings made tropical tastes. 
 At the same time the contrast between Miss Fanny's 
 wardrobe, and what she herself reported, in every tone 
 of grievance and disgust, of the family poverty, was 
 surprising, though no doubt a great deal of the finery 
 had been as cheaply bought as possible. 
 
 By luncheon-time Diana had shown some symptoms 
 of fatigue, perhaps Mrs. Colwood hoped! of revolt. 
 She had been already sharply questioned as to the num- 
 ber of servants she kept and the wages they received, 
 as to the people in the neighborhood who gave parties, 
 and the ages and incomes of such young or unmarried 
 men as might be met with at these parties. Miss Merton 
 had boasted already of two love-affairs one the un- 
 successful engagement in Barbadoes, the other "a 
 
 144
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 near thing" which had enlivened the voyage to Eng- 
 land; and she had extracted a promise from Diana to 
 ask the young solicitor she had met with in the train 
 Mr. Fred Birch to lunch, without delay. Meanwhile 
 she had not of her own initiative said one word of 
 those educational objects, in pursuit of which she was 
 supposed to have come to England. Diana had pro- 
 posed to her the names of certain teachers both of music 
 and languages names which she had obtained with much 
 trouble. Miss Fanny had replied, rather carelessly, that 
 she would think about it. 
 
 It was at this that the eager 'sweetness of Diana's 
 manner to her cousin had shown its first cooling. And 
 Mrs. Colwood had curiously observed that at the first 
 sign of shrinking on her part, Miss Fanny's demeanor 
 had instantly changed. It had become sugared and 
 flattering to a degree. Everything in the house was 
 "sweet"; the old silver used at table, with the Mallory 
 crest, was praised extravagantly; the cooking no less. 
 Yet still Diana's tired silence had grown; and the watch- 
 ing eyes of this amazing young woman had been, in Mrs. 
 Colwood' s belief, now insolently and now anxiously, 
 aware of it. 
 
 Insolence! that really, if one came to think of it, 
 had been the note of Miss Merton's whole behavior from 
 the beginning an ill-concealed, hardly restrained in- 
 solence, toward the girl, two years older than herself, 
 who had received her with such tender effusion, and was, 
 moreover, in a position to help her so materially. What 
 could it what did it mean? 
 
 Mrs. Colwood stood at the foot of the stairs a moment, 
 lost in a trance of wonderment. Her heart was really 
 sore for Diana's disappointment, for the look in her face, 
 
 145
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 as she left the house. How on earth could the visit be 
 shortened and the young lady removed ? 
 
 The striking of three o'clock reminded Muriel Colwood 
 that she was to take the new-comer out for an hour. 
 They had taken coffee in the morning-room up-stairs, 
 Diana's own sitting-room, where she wrote her letters 
 and followed out the lines of reading her father had laid 
 down for her. Mrs. Colwood returned thither; found 
 Miss Merton, as it seemed to her, in the act of examining 
 the letters in Diana's blotting-book ; and hastily proposed 
 to her to take a turn in the garden. 
 
 Fanny Merton hesitated, looked at Mrs. Colwood a 
 moment dubiously, and finally walked up to her. 
 
 "Oh, I don't care about going out, it's so cold and 
 nasty. And, besides, I I want to talk to you." 
 
 "Miss Mallory thought you might like to see the old 
 gardens," said Mrs. Colwood. " But if you would rather 
 not venture out, I'm afraid I must go and write some 
 letters." 
 
 " Why, you were writing letters all the morning ! My 
 fingers would drop off if I was to go on at it like that. 
 Do you like being a companion ? I should think it was 
 rather beastly if you ask me. At home they did talk 
 about it for me. But I said: ' No, thank you! My own 
 mistress, if you please!'" 
 
 The speaker sat down by the fire, raised her skirt of 
 purple cloth, -and stretched a pair of shapely feet to the 
 warmth. Her look was good-humored and lazy. 
 
 " I am very happy here," said Mrs. Colwood, quietly. 
 "Miss Mallory is so charming and so kind." 
 
 Miss Fanny cleared her throat, poked the fire with the 
 tip of her shoe, fidgeted with her dress, and finally said 
 abruptly : 
 
 146
 
 The Testing oil Diana Mallory 
 
 "I say have all the people about here called?" 
 
 The tone was so low and furtive that Mrs. Col wood, 
 who had been putting away some embroidery silks which 
 had been left on the table by Diana, turned in some 
 astonishment. She found the girl's eyes fixed upon her 
 eager and hungry. 
 
 "Miss Mallory has had a great many visitors" she 
 tried to pitch her words in the lightest possible tone " I 
 am afraid it will take her a long time to return all her 
 calls." 
 
 "Well, I'm glad it's all right about that! anyway. 
 As mamma said, you never know. People are so queer 
 about these things, aren't they? As if it was Diana's 
 fault!" 
 
 Through all her wrath, Muriel Colwood was conscious 
 of a sudden pang of alarm which was, in truth, the 
 reawakening of something already vaguely felt or sur- 
 mised. She looked rather sternly at her companion. 
 
 " I really don't know what you mean, Miss Merton. 
 And I never discuss Miss Mallory's affairs. Perhaps you 
 will kindly allow me to go to my letters." 
 
 She was moving away when the girl beside her laugh- 
 ed again rather angrily and Mrs. Colwood paused, 
 touched again by instinctive fear. 
 
 " Oh, of course if I'm not to say a word about it I'm 
 not that's all! Well, now, look here Diana needn't 
 suppose that I've come all this way just for fun. I had 
 to say that about lessons, and that kind of thing I didn't 
 want to set her against me but I've . . . Well! why 
 should I be ashamed, I should like to know ?" she broke 
 out, shrilly, sitting erect, her face flushing deeply, her 
 eyes on fire. " If some one owes you something why 
 shouldn't you come and get it ? Diana owes my mother 
 
 147
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 money! a. lot of money! and we can't afford to lose 
 it. Mother's awfully sweet about Diana she said, ' Oh 
 no, it's unkind' but I say it's unkind to us, not to 
 speak, when we all want money so bad and there are 
 the boys to bring up and 
 
 "Miss Merton I'm very sorry but really I cannot 
 let you talk to me of Miss Mallory's private affairs. It 
 would neither be right nor honorable. You must see 
 that. She will be in by tea-time herself. Please ! 
 
 Muriel's tone was gentle; but her attitude was resolu- 
 tion itself. Fanny Merton stared at the frail slim creat- 
 ure in her deep widow's black ; her color rose. 
 
 "Oh, very well. Do as you like! I'm agreeable! 
 Only I thought perhaps as you and Diana seem to be 
 such tremendous friends you'd like to talk it over with 
 me first. I don't know how much Diana knows; and I 
 thought perhaps you'd give me a hint. Of course, she'll 
 know all there was in the papers. But my mother claims 
 a deal more than the trust money jewels, and that kind 
 of thing. And Uncle Mallory treated us shamefully 
 about them shamefully! That's why I'm come over. 
 I made mother let me! Oh, she's so soft, is mother, she'd 
 let anybody off. But I said, ' Diana's rich, and she ought 
 to make it up to us! If nobody else '11 ask her, I will!' ' 
 
 The girl had grown pale, but it was a pallor of de- 
 termination and of passion. Mrs. Colwood had listened 
 to the torrent of words, held against her will, first by 
 astonishment, then by something else. If it should be 
 her duty to listen ? for the sake of this young life, which 
 in these few weeks had so won upon her heart? 
 
 She retraced a few steps. 
 
 "Miss Merton, I do not understand what you have 
 been saying. If you have any claim upon Miss Mallory, 
 
 148
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 you know well that she is the soul of honor and gen- 
 erosity. Her one desire is to give everybody more than 
 their due. She is too generous I often have to protect 
 her. But, as I have said before, it is not for me to dis- 
 cuss any claim you may have upon her." 
 
 Fanny Merton was silent for a minute staring at her 
 companion. Then she said, abruptly: 
 
 "Does she ever talk to you about Aunt Sparling?" 
 
 "Her mother?" 
 
 The girl nodded. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood hesitated then said, unwillingly : " No. 
 She has mentioned her once or twice. One can see how 
 she missed her as a child how she misses her still." 
 
 "Well, I don't know what call she has to miss her!" 
 cried Fanny Merton, in a note of angry scorn. " A pre- 
 cious good thing she died when she did for everybody." 
 
 Mrs. Colwood felt her hands trembling. In the grow- 
 ing darkness of the winter afternoon it seemed to her 
 startled imagination as though this black-eyed black- 
 browed girl, with her scowling passionate face, were 
 entering into possession of the house and of Diana an 
 evil and invading power. She tried to choose her words 
 carefully. 
 
 " Miss Mallory has never talked to me of her parents. 
 And, if you will excuse me, Miss Merton if there is any- 
 thing sad or tragic in their history, I would rather 
 hear it from Miss Mallory than from you!" 
 
 " Anything sad ? anything sad ? Well, upon my 
 word!" 
 
 The girl breathed fast. So, involuntarily, did Mrs. 
 Colwood. 
 
 "You don't mean to say" the speaker threw her 
 body forward, and brought her face close to Mrs. Col- 
 
 149
 
 ^he Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 wood "you are not going to tell me that you don't 
 know about Diana's mother?" 
 
 She laid her hand upon Muriel's dress. 
 
 ''Why should I know? Please, Miss Merton!" and 
 with a resolute movement Mrs. Colwood tried to with- 
 draw her dress. 
 
 " Why, everybody knows ! everybody ! everybody ! 
 Ask anybody in the world about Juliet Sparling and 
 you'll see. In the saloon, coming over, J heard people 
 talk about her all one night they didn't know who / 
 was and of course I didn't telj. And there was a book 
 in the ship's library Fqmons Trials or some name 
 of that sort with the whole thing in it. You don't 
 know about Diana's mother ?" 
 
 The fierce, incredulous emphasis on the last word, 
 for a moment, withered all reply on Mrs. Colwood's lips. 
 She walked, to the door mechanically, to see that it was 
 fast shut. Then she returned. She sat down beside 
 Diana's guest, and it might have been seen that she had 
 silenced fear and dismissed hesitation. "After all," 
 she said, with quiet command, " I think I will ask you, 
 Miss Merton, to explain, what you mean?" 
 
 The February afternoon darkened round the old house. 
 There was a light powdering of snow on grass and trees. 
 Yet still there were breathings and bird-notes in the 
 air, and tones of color in the distance, which obscurely 
 prophesied the spring. Through the wood behind the 
 house the snow-drops were rising, in a white invading 
 host, over the ground covered with the red-brown deposit 
 of innumerable autumns. Above their glittering white, 
 rose an undergrowth of laurels and box, through which 
 again shot up the magnificent trunks gray and smooth 
 
 150
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 and round of the great beeches, which held and peopled 
 the country-side, heirs of its ancestral forest. Any one 
 standing in the wood could see, through the leafless trees, 
 the dusky blues and rich violets of the encircling hill 
 hung there, like the tapestry of some vast hall; or hear 
 from time to time the loud wings of the wood-pigeons 
 as they clattered through the topmost boughs. 
 
 Diana was still in the village. She had been spend- 
 ing her hour of escape mostly with the Roughsedges. 
 The old doctor among his books was now sufficiently at 
 his ease with her to pet her, teach her, and, when neces- 
 sary, laugh at her. And Mrs. Roughsedge, however she 
 might feel herself eclipsed by Lady Lucy, was, in truth, 
 much more fit to minister to such ruffled feelings as 
 Diana was now conscious of than that delicate and 
 dignified lady. Diana's disillusion about her cousin was, 
 so far, no very lofty matter. It hurt; but on her run to 
 the village the natural common-sense Mrs. Colwood had 
 detected had wrestled stoutly with her wounded feelings. 
 Better take it with a laugh! To laugh, however, one 
 must be distracted; and Mrs. Roughsedge, bubbling over 
 with gossip and good-humor, was distraction personified. 
 Stern Justice, in the person of Lord M.'s gamekeeper, had 
 that morning brought back Diana's two dogs in leash, a 
 pair of abject and convicted villains, from the delirium of 
 a night's hunting. The son of Miss Bertram's coachman 
 had only just missed an appointment under the District 
 Council by one place on the list of candidates. A " Red 
 Van" bursting with Socialist literature had that morning 
 taken up its place on the village green; and Diana's poor 
 housemaid, in payment for a lifetime's neglect, must now 
 lose every tooth in her head, according to the verdict of 
 the local dentist, an excellent young man, in Mrs. Rough-
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 sedge's opinon, but ready to give you almost too much 
 pulling out for your money. On all these topics she over- 
 flowed with much fun and unfailing good-humor. So 
 that after half an hour spent with Mrs. Roughsedge and 
 Hugh in the little drawing-room at the White Cottage, 
 Diana's aspect was very different from what it had been 
 when she arrived. 
 
 Hugh, however, had noticed her pallor and depression. 
 He was obstinately certain that Oliver Marsham was not 
 the man to make such a girl happy. Between the rich 
 Radical member and the young officer poor, slow of 
 speech and wits, and passionately devoted to the old- 
 fashioned ideals and traditions in which he had been 
 brought up there was a natural antagonism. But 
 Roughsedge 's contempt for his brilliant and successful 
 neighbor on the ground of selfish ambitions and un- 
 patriotic trucklings was, in truth, much more active 
 than anything Marsham had ever shown or felt 
 toward himself. For in the young soldier there slept 
 potentialities of feeling and of action, of which neither 
 he nor others were as yet aware. 
 
 Nevertheless, he faced the facts. He remembered the 
 look with which Diana had returned to the Beechcote 
 drawing-room, where Marsham awaited her, the day 
 before and told himself not to be a fool. 
 
 Meanwhile he had found an opportunity in which to 
 tell her, unheard by his parents, that he was practically 
 certain of his Nigerian appointment, and must that night 
 break it to his father and mother. And Diana had 
 listened like a sister, all sympathy and kind looks, prom- 
 ising in the young man's ear, as he said good-bye at the 
 garden gate, that she would come again next day to 
 cheer his mother up. 
 
 152
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 He stood looking after her as she walked away; his 
 hands in his pockets, a flush on his handsome face. 
 How her coming had glorified and transformed the place! 
 No womanish nonsense, too, about this going of his! 
 though she knew well that it meant fighting. Only a 
 kindling of the eyes a few questions as practical as they 
 were eager and then that fluttering of the soft breath 
 which he had noticed as she bent over his mother. 
 
 But she was not for him! Thus it is that women 
 the noblest and the dearest throw themselves away. 
 She, with all the right and proper feelings of an English- 
 woman, to mate with this plausible Radical and Little 
 Englander! Hugh kicked the stones of the gravel 
 savagely to right and left as he walked back to the 
 house in a black temper with his poverty and Diana's 
 foolishness. 
 
 But was she really in love ? " Why then so pale, fond 
 lover?" He found a kind of angry comfort in the re- 
 membrance of her drooping looks. They were no credit 
 to Mar sham, anyway. 
 
 Meanwhile Diana walked home, lingering by the way 
 in two or three cottages. She was shyly beginning to 
 make friends with the people. An old road-mender kept 
 her listening while he told her how a Tallyn keeper had 
 peppered him in the eye, ten years before, as he was 
 crossing Barrow Common at dusk. One eye had been 
 taken out, and the other was almost useless; there he 
 sat, blind, and cheerfully telling the tale "Muster 
 Marsham Muster Henry Marsham had been verra 
 kind ten shillin' a week, and an odd job now and then. 
 I do suffer terr'ble, miss, at times but ther's noa good 
 in grumblin' is there?" 
 
 Next door, in a straggling line of cottages, she found 
 " 153
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 a gentle, chattering widow whose husband had been 
 drowned in the brew-house at Beechcote twenty years 
 before, drowned in the big vat! before any one had 
 heard a cry or a sound. The widow was proud of so 
 exceptional a tragedy ; eager to tell the tale. How had 
 she lived since ? Oh, a bit here and a bit there. And, of 
 late, half a crown from the parish. 
 
 Last of all, in a cottage midway between the village 
 and Beechcote, she paused to see a jolly middle-aged 
 woman, with a humorous eye and a stream of conversa- 
 tion held prisoner by an incurable disease. She was 
 absolutely alone in the world. Nobody knew what she 
 had to live on. But she could always find a crust for 
 some one more destitute than herself, and she ranked 
 high among the wits of the village. To Diana she talked 
 of her predecessors the Vavasours whose feudal pres- 
 ence seemed to be still brooding over the village. With 
 little chuckles of laughter, she gave instance after instance 
 of the tyranny with which they had lorded it over the 
 country-side in early Victorian days: how the " Madam 
 Vavasour" of those days had pulled the feathers from the 
 village-girls' hats, and turned a family who had offended 
 her, with all their belongings, out into the village street. 
 But when Diana rejoiced that such days were done, the 
 old woman gave a tolerant: "Noa noa! They were 
 none so bad were t' Vavasours. Only they war no 
 good at heirin." 
 
 "Airing?" said Diana, mystified. 
 
 " Heirin," repeated Betty Dyson, emphatically. " Theer 
 was old Squire Henry wi' noabody to follow 'im an' 
 Mr. Edward noa better and now thissun, wi nobbut 
 lasses. Noa they war noa good at heirin moor's t' 
 pity." Then she looked slyly at her companion: "An'
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 yo', miss? yo'll be gettin' married one o' these days, I'll 
 uphowd yer." 
 
 Diana colored and laughed. 
 
 "Ay," said the old woman, laughing too, with the 
 merriment of a girl. " Sweethearts is noa good but you 
 mun ha' a sweetheart!" 
 
 Diana fled, pursued by Betty's raillery, and then by 
 the thought of this lonely laughing woman, often tor- 
 mented by pain, standing on the brink of ugly death, and 
 yet turning back to look with this merry indulgent eye 
 upon the past; and on this dingy old world, in which she 
 had played so ragged and limping a part. * Yet clearly she 
 would play it again if she could so sweet is mere life ! 
 and so hard to silence in the breast! 
 
 Diana walked quickly through the woods, the prey of 
 one of those vague storms of feeling which test and 
 stretch the soul of youth. 
 
 To what horrors had she been listening ? the suffering 
 of the blinded road-mender the grotesque and hideous 
 death of the young laborer in his full strength the 
 griefs of a childless and penniless old woman ? Yet life 
 had somehow engulfed the horrors; and had spread its 
 quiet waves above them, under a pale, late-born sun- 
 shine. The stoicism of the poor rebuked her, as she 
 thought of the sharp impatience and disappointment 
 in which she had parted from Mrs. Colwood. 
 
 She seemed to hear her father's voice. " No shirking, 
 Diana! You asked her you formed absurd and exag- 
 gerated expectations. She is here; and she is not re- 
 sponsible for your expectations. Make the best of her, 
 and do your duty!" 
 
 And eagerly the child's heart answered : " Yes, yes, 
 papa! dear papal"
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 And there, sharp in color and line, it rose on the 
 breast of memory, the beloved face. It set pulses beat- 
 ing in Diana which from her childhood onward had 
 been a life within her life, a pain answering to pain, the 
 child's inevitable response to the father's misery, always 
 discerned, never understood. 
 
 This abiding remembrance of a dumb unmitigable 
 grief beside which she had grown up, of which she had 
 never known the secret, was indeed one of the main 
 factors in Diana's personality. Muriel Colwood had at 
 once perceived it; Marsham had been sometimes puzzled 
 by the signs of it. 
 
 To-day because of Fanny and this toppling of her 
 dreams the dark mood, to which Diana was always 
 liable, had descended heavily upon her. She had no 
 sooner rebuked it by the example of the poor, or the 
 remembrance of her father's long patience than she 
 was torn by questions, vehement, insistent, full of a 
 new anguish. 
 
 Why had her father been so unhappy? What was 
 the meaning of that cloud under which she had grown 
 up? 
 
 She had repeated to Muriel Colwood the stock expla- 
 nations she had been accustomed to give herself of the 
 manner and circumstances of her bringing-up. To-day 
 they seemed to her own mind, for the first time, utterly 
 insufficient. In a sudden crash and confusion of feeling 
 it was as though she were tearing open the heart of the 
 past, passionately probing and searching. 
 
 Certain looks and phrases of Fanny Merton were really 
 working in her memory. They were so light yet so 
 ugly. They suggested something, but so vaguely that 
 Diana could find no words for it : a note of desecration, 
 
 156
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 of cheapening a breath of dishonor. It was as though 
 a mourner, shut in for years with sacred memories, be- 
 came suddenly aware that all the time, in a sordid world 
 outside, these very memories had been the sport of an 
 unkind and insolent chatter that besmirched them. 
 
 Her mother! 
 
 In the silence of the wood the girl's slender figure 
 stiffened itself against an attacking thought. In her 
 inmost mind she knew well that it was from her mother 
 and her mother's death that all the strangeness of 
 the past descended. But yet the death and grief she 
 remembered had never presented themselves to her as 
 they appear to other bereaved ones. Why had nobody 
 ever spoken to her of her mother in her childhood and 
 youth? neither father, nor nurses, nor her old French 
 governess ? Why had she no picture no relics no let- 
 ters? In the box of " Sparling Papers" there was noth- 
 ing that related to Mrs. Sparling; that she knew, for her 
 father had abruptly told her so not long before his death. 
 They were old family records which he could not bear 
 to destroy the honorable records of an upright race, 
 which some day, he thought, "might be a pleasure to 
 her." 
 
 Often during the last six months of his life, it seemed 
 to her now, in this intensity of memory, that he had been 
 on the point of breaking the silence of a lifetime. She 
 recalled moments and looks of agonized effort and yearn- 
 ing. But he died of a growth in the throat ; and for weeks 
 before the end speech was forbidden them, on account of 
 the constant danger of hemorrhage. So that Diana had 
 always felt herself starved of those last words and mes- 
 sages which make the treasure of bereaved love. Often 
 and often the cry of her loneliness to her dead father had
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 been the bitter cry of Andromache to Hector : "I had 
 from thee, in dying, no memorable word on which I 
 might ever think in the year of mourning while I wept 
 for thee." 
 
 Had there been a quarrel between her father and 
 mother ? or something worse ? at which Diana's igno- 
 rance of life, imposed upon her by her upbringing, could 
 only glance in shuddering? She knew her mother had 
 died at twenty-six; and that in the two years before her 
 death Mr. Mallory had been much away, travelling and 
 exploring in Asia Minor. The young wife must have 
 been often alone. Diana, with a sudden catching of the 
 breath, envisaged possibilities of which no rational being 
 of full age who reads a newspaper can be unaware. 
 
 Then, with an inward passion of denial, she shook 
 the whole nightmare from her. Outrage! treason! to 
 those helpless memories of which she was now the only 
 guardian. In these easy, forgetting days, when the old 
 passions and endurances look to us either affected or 
 eccentric, such a life, such an exile as her father's, may 
 seem strange even so she accused herself to that 
 father's child. But that is because we are mean souls 
 beside those who begot us. We cannot feel as they; and 
 our constancy, compared to theirs, ie fickleness. 
 
 So, in spirit, she knelt again beside her dead, em- 
 bracing their cold feet and asking pardon. 
 
 The tears clouded her eyes; she wandered blindly on 
 through the wood till she was conscious of sudden light 
 and space. She had come to a clearing, where several 
 huge beeches had been torn up by a storm some years 
 before. Their place had been filled by a tangle of many 
 saplings, and in their midst rose an elder-bush, already 
 showing leaf, amid the bare winterly wood. The last 
 
 158
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 western light caught the twinkling leaf buds, and made 
 of the tree a Burning Bush, first herald of the spring. 
 
 The sight of it unloosed some swell of passion in Diana; 
 she found herself smiling amid her tears, and saying 
 incoherent things that only the wood caught. 
 
 To-day was the meeting of Parliament. She pictured 
 the scene. Marsham was there, full of projects and 
 ambitions. Innocently, exultantly, she reminded her- 
 self how much she knew of them. If he could not have 
 her sympathy, he must have her antagonism. But no 
 chilling exclusions and reserves! Rather, a generous 
 confidence on his side; and a gradual, a child-like melting 
 and kindling on hers. In politics she would never agree 
 with him never! she would fight him with all her 
 breath and strength. But not with the methods of Mrs. 
 Fotheringham. No! what have politics to do with 
 with 
 
 She dropped her face in her hands, laughing to herself, 
 the delicious tremors of first love running through her. 
 Would she hear from him ? She understood she was to 
 be written to, though she had never asked it. But ought 
 she to allow it? Was it convenable? She knew that 
 girls now did what they liked threw all the old rules 
 overboard. But proudly she stood by the old rules; 
 she would do nothing "fast" or forward. Yet she was 
 an orphan standing alone; surely for her there might 
 be more freedom than for others? 
 
 She hurried home. With the rush of new happiness 
 had come back the old pity, the old yearning. It wasn't, 
 wasn't Fanny's fault! She Diana had always under- 
 stood that Mr. Merton was a vulgar, grasping man of 
 no breeding who had somehow entrapped " your aunt 
 Bertha who was very foolish and very young" into a 
 
 159
 
 \ 
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 most undesirable marriage. As for Mrs. Merton Aunt 
 Bertha Fanny had with her many photographs, among 
 them several of her mother. A weak, heavy face, rather 
 pretty still. Diana had sought her own mother in it, 
 with a passionate yet shrinking curiosity, only to pro- 
 voke a rather curt reply from Fanny, in answer to a 
 question she had, with difficulty, brought herself to 
 put: 
 
 " Not a bit ! There wasn't a scrap of likeness between 
 mother and Aunt Sparling." 
 
 The evening passed off better than the morning had 
 done. Eyes more acute in her own interests than Diana's 
 might have perceived a change in Fanny Merton, after 
 her long conversation with Mrs. Colwood. A certain 
 excitement, a certain triumph, perhaps an occasional 
 relenting and compunction: all these might have been 
 observed or guessed. She made herself quite amiable: 
 showed more photographs, talked still more frankly of 
 her card-winnings on the steamer, and of the flirtation 
 which had beguiled the voyage; bespoke the immediate 
 services of Diana's maid for a dress that must be done 
 up; and expressed a desire for another and a bigger 
 wardrobe in her room. Gradually a tone of possession, 
 almost of command, crept in. Diana, astonished and 
 amused, made no resistance. These, she supposed, were 
 West -Indian manners. The Colonies are like healthy 
 children that submit in their youth, and then grow up 
 and order the household about. What matter! 
 
 Meanwhile Mrs. Colwood looked a little pale, and con- 
 fessed to a headache. Diana was pleased, however, to 
 see that she and Fanny were getting on better than had 
 seemed to be probable in the morning. Fanny wished 
 
 1 60
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 nay, was resolved to be entertained and amused. Mrs. 
 Colwood threw herself with new zest into the various 
 plans Diana had made for her cousin. There was to 
 be a luncheon-party, an afternoon tea, and so forth. 
 Only Diana, pricked by a new mistrust, said nothing in 
 public about an engagement she had (to spend a Saturday- 
 to-Monday with Lady Lucy at Tallyn three weeks later) , 
 though she and Muriel made anxious plans as to what 
 could be done to amuse Fanny during the two days. 
 
 Diana was alone in her room at night when Mrs. 
 Colwood knocked. Would Diana give her some laven- 
 der-water ? her headache was still severe. Diana flew 
 to minister to her; but, once admitted, Muriel said no 
 more of her headache. Rather she began to soothe and 
 caress Diana. Was she in better spirits ? Let her only 
 intrust the entertaining of Fanny Merton to her friend 
 and companion Mrs. Colwood would see to it. Diana 
 laughed, and silenced her with a kiss. 
 
 Presently they were sitting by the fire, Muriel Colwood 
 in a large arm-chair, a frail, fair creature, with her large 
 dark-circled eyes, and her thin hands and arms; Diana 
 kneeling beside her. 
 
 " I had no idea what a poison poverty could be!" said 
 Muriel, abruptly, with her gaze on the fire. 
 
 " My cousin ?" Diana looked up startled. " Was that 
 what she was saying to you?" 
 
 Muriel nodded assent. Her look so anxious and 
 tender held, enveloped her companion. 
 
 "Are they in debt?" said Diana, slowly. 
 
 "Terribly. They seem to be going to break up their 
 home." 
 
 "Did she tell you all about it?" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood hesitated. 
 
 161
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "A great deal more than I wanted to know!" she said, 
 at last, as though the words broke from her. 
 
 Diana thought a little. 
 
 " I wonder whether that was what she came home 
 for?" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood moved uneasily. 
 
 " I suppose if you are in those straits you don't really 
 think of anything else though you may wish to." 
 
 " Did she tell you how much they want?" said Diana, 
 quickly. 
 
 " She named a thousand pounds!" 
 
 Muriel might have been describing her own embarrass- 
 ments, so scarlet had she become. 
 
 "A thousand pounds!" cried Diana, in amazement. 
 " But then why why does she have so many frocks 
 and play cards for money and bet on races?" 
 
 She threw her arms round Mrs. Colwood's knees im- 
 petuously. 
 
 Muriel's small hand smoothed back the girl's hair, 
 timidly yet eagerly. 
 
 " I suppose that's the way they've been brought up." 
 
 "A thousand pounds! And does she expect me to 
 provide it?" 
 
 "I am afraid she hopes it." 
 
 "But I haven't got it!" cried Diana, sitting down on 
 the floor. " I've spent more than I ought on this place; 
 I'm overdrawn; I ought to be economical for a long 
 time. You know, Muriel, I'm not really rich." 
 
 Mrs. Colwood colored deeper than ever. But ap- 
 parently she could think of nothing to say. Her eyes 
 were riveted on her companion. 
 
 "No, I'm not rich," resumed Diana, with a frown, 
 drawing circles on the ground with her finger. " Perhaps 
 
 162
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 I oughtn't to have taken this house. I dare say it was 
 horrid of me. But I couldn't have known could I? 
 that Fanny would be coming and want a thousand 
 pounds?" 
 
 She looked up expecting sympathy perhaps a little 
 indignation. Mrs. Colwood only said: 
 
 " I suppose she would not have come over if things 
 had not been very bad." 
 
 " Why didn't she give me some warning ?" cried Diana 
 "instead of talking about French lessons! But am I 
 bound do you think I am bound ? to give the MertOns 
 a thousand pounds? I know papa got tired of giving 
 them money. I wonder if it's right!" 
 
 She frowned. Her voice was a little stern. Her eyes 
 flashed. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood again touched her hair with a hand that 
 trembled. 
 
 "They are your only relations, aren't they?" she said, 
 pleadingly. 
 
 " Yes," said Diana, still with the same roused look. 
 
 "Perhaps it would set them on their feet altogether." 
 
 The girl gave a puzzled laugh. 
 
 "Did she Muriel, did she ask you to tell me?" 
 
 " I think she wanted me to break it to you," said Mrs. 
 Colwood, after a moment. " And I thought it it might 
 save you pain." 
 
 "Just like you!" Diana stooped to kiss her hand. 
 "That's what your headache meant! Well, but now 
 ought I ought I to do it?" 
 
 She clasped her hands round her knees and swayed 
 backward and forward pondering with a rather som- 
 bre brow. Mrs. Colwood' s expression was hidden in 
 the darkness of the big chair.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " Always supposing I can do it," resumed Diana. 
 " And I certainly couldn't do it at once ; I haven't got it. 
 I should have to sell something, or borrow from the bank. 
 No, I must think I must think over it," she added 
 more resolutely, as though her way cleared. 
 
 "Of course," said Mrs. Colwood, faintly. Then she 
 raised herself. " Let me tell her so let me save you the 
 conversation." 
 
 "You dear! but why should you!" said Diana, in 
 amazement. 
 
 " Let me." 
 
 "If you like! But I can't have Fanny making you 
 look like this. Please, please go to bed." 
 
 An hour later Mrs. Colwood, in her room, was still 
 up and dressed, hanging motionless, and deep in thought, 
 over the dying fire. And before she went to sleep fat 
 in the small hours her pillow was wet with crying.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 I THOUGHT I'd perhaps better let you know I'm 
 well, I'm going to have a talk with Diana this 
 morning!" 
 
 The voice was determined. Muriel Colwood startled 
 and dismayed surveyed the speaker. She had been 
 waylaid on the threshold of her room. The morning was 
 half-way through. Visitors, including Mr. Fred Birch, 
 were expected to lunch, and Miss Merton, who had been 
 lately invisible, had already, she saw, changed her dress. 
 At breakfast, it seemed to Mrs. Colwood, she had been 
 barely presentable : untidy hair, a dress with various 
 hooks missing, and ruffles much in need of washing. 
 Muriel could only suppose that the carelessness of her 
 attire was meant to mark the completeness of her con- 
 quest of Beechcote. But now her gown of scarlet 
 velveteen, her arms bare to the elbow, her frizzled and 
 curled hair, the powder which gave a bluish white to her 
 complexion, the bangles and beads which adorned her, 
 showed her armed to the last pin for the encounters of 
 the luncheon-table. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood, however, after a first dazzled look at 
 what she wore, thought only of what she said. She 
 hurriedly drew the girl into her own room, and shut the 
 door. When, after some conversation, Fanny emerged, 
 Mrs. Colwood was left in a state of agitation that was 
 partly fear, partly helpless indignation. During the 
 
 165
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 fortnight since Miss Merton's arrival all the energies of 
 the house had been devoted to her amusement. A little 
 whirlwind of dissipation had blown through the days. 
 Two meets, a hockey-match, a concert at the neighbor- 
 ing town, a dinner-party and various "drums," besides 
 a luncheon-party and afternoon tea at Beechcote itself 
 in honor of the guest Mrs. Colwood thought the girl 
 might have been content ! But she had examined every- 
 thing presented to her with a very critical eye, and all 
 through it had been plain that she was impatient and 
 dissatisfied; for, inevitably, her social success was not 
 great. Diana, on the other hand, was still a new sen- 
 sation, and something of a queen wherever she went. 
 Her welcoming eyes, her impetuous smile drew a natural 
 homage; and Fanny followed sulkily in her wake, ac- 
 cepted not without surprise as Miss Mallory's kins- 
 woman, but distinguished by no special attentions. 
 
 In any case, she would have rebelled against the situ- 
 ation. Her vanity was amazing, her temper violent. 
 At home she had been treated as a beauty, and had ruled 
 the family with a firm view to her own interests. What 
 in Alicia Drake was disguised by a thousand subleties of 
 class and training was here seen in its crudest form. But 
 there was more besides miserably plain now to this 
 trembling spectator. The resentment of Diana's place in 
 life, as of something robbed, not earned the scarcely 
 concealed claim either to share it or attack it these 
 things were no longer riddles to Muriel Colwood. Rather 
 they were the storm-signs of a coming tempest, already 
 darkening above an innocent head. 
 
 What could she do? The little lady gave her days 
 and nights to the question, and saw no way out. Some- 
 times she hoped that Diana's personality had made an 
 
 166
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 impression on this sinister guest; she traced a grudging 
 consciousness in Fanny of her cousin's generosity and 
 charm. But this perception only led to fresh despond- 
 ency. Whenever Fanny softened, it showed itself in a 
 claim to intimacy, as sudden and as violent as her ill- 
 temper. She must be Diana's first and dearest be 
 admitted to all Diana's secrets and friendships. Then 
 on Diana's side, inevitable withdrawal, shrinking, self- 
 defence and on Fanny's a hotter and more acrid 
 jealousy. 
 
 Meanwhile, as Mrs. Colwood knew, Diana had been 
 engaged in correspondence with her solicitors, who had 
 been giving her some prudent and rather stringent advice 
 on the subject of income and expenditure. This morning, 
 so Mrs. Colwood believed, a letter had arrived. 
 
 Presently she stole out of her room to the head of the 
 stairs. There she remained, pale and irresolute, for a 
 little while, listening to the sounds in the house. But 
 the striking of the hall clock, the sighing of a stormy wind 
 round the house, and, occasionally, a sound of talking 
 in the drawing-room, was all she heard. 
 
 Diana had been busy in the hanging of some last 
 pictures in the drawing-room photographs from Italian 
 pictures and monuments. They had belonged to her 
 father, and had been the dear companions of her child- 
 hood. Each, as she handled it, breathed its own mem- 
 ory; of the little villa on the Portofino road, with its green 
 shutters, and rooms closed against the sun; or of the 
 two short visits to Lucca and Florence she had made 
 with her father. 
 
 Among the photographs was one of the "Annuncia- 
 tion" by Donatello, which glorifies the southern wall of 
 
 167
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Santa Croce. Diana had just hung it in a panelled cor- 
 ner, where its silvery brilliance on dark wood made a 
 point of pleasure for the eye. She lingered before it, 
 wondering whether it would please him when he came. 
 Unconsciously her life had slipped into this habit of re- 
 ferring all its pains and pleasures to the unseen friend 
 holding with him that constant dialogue of the heart 
 without which love neither begins nor grows. 
 
 Yet she no longer dreamed of discussing Fanny, and 
 the perplexities Fanny had let loose on Beechcote, with 
 the living Marsham. Money affairs must be kept to 
 one's self; and somehow Fanny's visit had become neither 
 more nor less than a money affair. 
 
 That morning Diana had received a letter from old 
 Mr. Riley, the head of the firm of Riley & Bonner 
 a letter which was almost a lecture. If the case were 
 indeed urgent, said Mr. Riley, if the money must be 
 found, she could, of course, borrow on her securities, and 
 the firm would arrange it for her. But Mr. Riley, 
 excusing himself as her father's old friend, wrote with 
 his own hand to beg her to consider the matter further. 
 Her expenses had lately been many, and some of her 
 property might possibly decline in value during the next 
 few years. A prudent management of her affairs was 
 really essential. Could not the money be gradually 
 saved out of income ? 
 
 Diana colored uncomfortably as she thought of the 
 letter. What did the dear old man suppose she wanted 
 the money for ? It hurt her pride that she must appear 
 in this spendthrift light to eyes so honest and scru- 
 pulous. 
 
 But what could she do? Fanny poured out ugly 
 reports of her mother's financial necessities to Muriel 
 
 168
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Colwood; Mrs. Colwood repeated them to Diana. And 
 the Mertons were Diana's only kinsfolk. The claim of 
 blood pressed her hard. 
 
 Meanwhile, with a shrinking distaste, she had tried to 
 avoid the personal discussion of the matter with Fanny. 
 The task of curbing the girl's impatience, day after day, 
 had fallen to Mrs. Colwood. 
 
 Diana was still standing in a reverie before the " An- 
 nunciation" when the drawing-room door opened. As 
 she looked round her, she drew herself sharply together 
 with the movement of a sudden and instinctive an- 
 tipathy. 
 
 "That's all right," said Fanny Merton, surveying the 
 room with satisfaction, and closing the door behind her. 
 " I thought I'd find you alone." 
 
 Diana remained nervously standing before the picture, 
 awaiting her cousin, her eyes wider than usual, one hand 
 at her throat. 
 
 "Look here," said Fanny, approaching her, "I want 
 to talk to you." 
 
 Diana braced herself. " All right." She threw a look 
 at the clock. " Just give me time to get tidy before 
 lunch." 
 
 "Oh, there's an hour time enough!" 
 
 Diana drew forward an arm-chair for Fanny, and 
 settled herself into the corner of a sofa. Her dog jumped 
 up beside her, and laid his nose on her lap. 
 
 Fanny held herself straight. Her color under the pow- 
 der had heightened a little. The two girls confronted 
 each other, and, vaguely, perhaps, each felt the strange- 
 ness of the situation. Fanny was twenty, Diana twenty- 
 three. They were of an age when girls are generally 
 under the guidance or authority of their elders; com- 
 
 ia 169
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 paratively little accustomed, in the normal family, to 
 discuss affairs or take independent decisions. Yet here 
 they met, alone and untrammelled; as hostess and guest 
 in the first place; as kinswomen, yet comparative stran- 
 gers to each other, and conscious of a secret dislike, each 
 for the other. On the one side, an exultant and partly 
 cruel consciousness of power; on the other, feelings of 
 repugnance and revolt, only held in check by the forces 
 of a tender and scrupulous nature. 
 
 Fanny cleared her throat. 
 
 "Well, of course, Mrs. Colwood's told me all you've 
 been saying to her. And I don't say I'm surprised." 
 
 Diana opened her large eyes. 
 
 "Surprised at what?" 
 
 ' "Surprised well! surprised you didn't see your way 
 all at once, and that kind of thing. I know I'd want to 
 ask*a lot of questions shouldn't I, just! Why, that's 
 what I expected. But, you see, my time in England's 
 getting on. I've nothing to say to my people, and they 
 bother my life out every mail." 
 
 "What did you really come to England for?" said 
 Diana, in a low voice. Her attitude, curled up among the 
 cushions of the sofa, gave her an almost childish air. 
 Fanny, on the other hand, resplendent in her scarlet dress 
 and high coiffure, might have been years older than her 
 cousin. And any stranger watching the face in which 
 the hardness of an " old campaigner" already strove with 
 youth, would have thought her, and not Diana, the 
 mistress of the house. 
 
 At Diana's question, Fanny's eyes flickered a moment. 
 
 " Oh, well, I had lots of things in my mind. But it 
 was the money that mattered most." 
 
 "I see," murmured Diana. 
 170
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Fanny fidgeted a little with one of the three bead neck- 
 laces which adorned her. Then she broke out: 
 
 "Look here, Diana, you've never been poor in your 
 life, so you don't know what it's like being awfully hard 
 up. But ever since father died, mother's had a frightful 
 lot of trouble all of us to keep, and the boys' schooling 
 to pay, and next to nothing to do it on. Father left 
 everything in a dreadful muddle. He never had a bit of 
 sense " 
 
 Diana made a sudden movement. Fanny looked at 
 her astonished, expecting her to speak. Diana, however, 
 said nothing, and the girl resumed: 
 
 /'I mean, in business. He'd got everything into a 
 shocking state, and instead of six hundred a year for 
 us as we'd always been led on to expect well, there 
 wasn't three! Then, you know, Uncle Mallory used to 
 send us money. Well" (she cleared her throat again 
 and looked away from Diana) , " about a year before he 
 died he and father fell out about something so that 
 didn't come in any more. Then we thought perhaps he'd 
 remember us in his will. And that was another disap- 
 pointment. So, you see, really mother didn't know 
 where to turn." 
 
 " I suppose papa thought he had done all he could," 
 said Diana, in a voice which tried to keep quite steady. 
 " He never denied any claim he felt just. I feel I must 
 say that, because you seem to blame papa. But, of 
 course, I am very sorry for Aunt Bertha." 
 
 At the words "claim" and "just" there was a quick 
 change of expression in Fanny's eyes. She broke out 
 angrily: "Well, you really don't know about it, Diana, 
 so it's no good talking. And I'm not going to rake up 
 old things " 
 
 171
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "But if I don't know," said Diana, interrupting, 
 " hadn't you better tell me ? Why did papa and Uncle 
 Merton disagree? And why did you think papa ought 
 to have left you money ?" She bent forward insistently. 
 There was a dignity perhaps also a touch of haughti- 
 ness in her bearing which exasperated the girl beside 
 her. The haughtiness was that of one who protects the 
 dead. But Fanny's mind was not one that perceived 
 the finer shades. 
 
 "Well, I'm not going to say!" said Fanny, with vehe- 
 mence. "But I can tell you, mother has a claim! and 
 Uncle Mallory ought to have left us something!" 
 
 The instant the words were out she regretted them. 
 Diana abandoned her childish attitude. She drew herself 
 together, and sat upright on the edge of the sofa. The 
 color had come flooding back hotly into her cheeks, and 
 the slightly frowning look produced by the effort to see 
 the face before her distinctly gave a peculiar intensity 
 to the eyes. 
 
 "Fanny, please! you must tell me why!" 
 
 The tone, resolute, yet appealing, put Fanny in an 
 evident embarrassment. 
 
 " Well, I can't," she said, after a moment " so it's no 
 good asking me." Then suddenly, she hesitated " or 
 at least " 
 
 "At least what? Please go on." 
 
 Fanny wriggled again, then said, with a burst: 
 
 " Well, my mother was Aunt Sparling's younger sister 
 you know thatdon't you? " 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 " And our grandfather died a year before Aunt Spar- 
 ling. She was mother's trustee. Oh, the money's all 
 right the trust money, I mean," said the girl, hastily. 
 
 172
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "But it was a lot of other things that mother says 
 grandpapa always meant to divide between her and Aunt 
 Sparling and she never had them nor a farthing out 
 of them!" 
 
 "What other things? I don't understand." 
 
 "Jewels! there! jewels and a lot of plate. Mother 
 says she had a right to half the things that belonged to 
 her mother. Grandpapa always told her she should have 
 them. And there wasn't a word about them in the 
 will." 
 
 "7 haven't any diamonds," said Diana, quietly, "or 
 any jewels at all, except a string of pearls papa gave 
 me when I was nineteen, and two or three little things 
 we bought in Florence." 
 
 Fanny Merton grew still redder; she stared aggres- 
 sively at her cousin : 
 
 " Well that was because Aunt Sparling sold all the 
 things!" 
 
 Diana started and recoiled. 
 
 " You mean," she said her breath fluttering " that 
 mamma sold things she had no right to and never gave 
 Aunt Bertha the money!" 
 
 The restrained passion of her look had an odd effect 
 upon her companion. Fanny first wavered under it, 
 then laughed a laugh that was partly perplexity, partly 
 something else, indecipherable. 
 
 "Well, as I wasn't born then, I don't know. You 
 needn't be cross with me, Diana; I didn't mean to say 
 any harm of anybody. But mother says" she laid 
 an obstinate stress on each word " that she remembers 
 quite well grandpapa meant her to have : a diamond 
 necklace; a riviere" (she began to check the items off 
 on her fingers) " there were two, and of course Aunt 
 
 173
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Sparling had the best; two bracelets, one with tur- 
 quoises and one with pearls; a diamond brooch; an 
 opal pendant; a little watch set with diamonds, grand- 
 ma used to wear ; and then a lot of plate ! Mother wrote 
 me out a list I've got it here." 
 
 She opened a beaded bag on her wrist, took out half 
 a sheet of paper, and handed it to Diana. 
 
 Diana looked at it in silence. Even her lips were 
 white, and her fingers shook. 
 
 "Did you ever send this to papa?" she asked, after a 
 minute. 
 
 Fanny fidgeted again. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And what did he say? Have you got his letter?" 
 
 "No; I haven't got his letter." 
 
 "Did he admit that that mamma had done this?" 
 
 Fanny hesitated; but her intelligence, which was of 
 a simple kind, did not suggest to her an ingenious line of 
 reply. 
 
 " Well, I dare say he didn't. But that doesn't make 
 any difference." 
 
 "Was that what he and Uncle Merton quarrelled 
 about?" 
 
 Fanny hesitated again: then broke out : " Father only 
 did what he ought he asked for what was owed 
 mother!" 
 
 " And papa wouldn't give it!" cried Diana, in a strange 
 note of scorn ; " papa, who never could rest if he owed 
 a farthing to anybody who always overpaid everybody 
 whom everybody " 
 
 She rose suddenly with a bitten lip. Her eyes blazed 
 and her cheeks. She walked to the window and stood 
 looking out, in a whirlwind of feeling and memory, hiding 
 
 '74
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 her face as best she could from the girl who sat watching 
 her with an expression half sulky, half insolent. Diana 
 was thinking of moments recalling forgotten fragments 
 of dialogue in the past, which showed her father's opin- 
 ion of his Barbadoes brother-in-law: "A grasping, ill- 
 bred fellow" " neither gratitude, nor delicacy" "has 
 been the evil genius of his wife, and will be the ruin of 
 his children." She did not believe a word of Fanny's 
 story not a word of it! 
 
 She turned impetuously. Then, as her eyes met 
 Fanny's, a shock ran through her the same sudden, in- 
 explicable fear which had seized on Mrs. Colwood, only 
 more sickening, more paralyzing. And it was a fear 
 which ran back to and linked itself with the hour of 
 heart-searching in the wood. What was Fanny thinking 
 of? what was in her mind on her lips? Impulses she 
 could not have defined, terrors to which she could give no 
 name, crept over Diana's will and disabled it. She 
 trembled from head to foot and gave way. 
 
 She walked up to her cousin. 
 
 "Fanny, is there any letter anything of grand- 
 papa's or of my mother's that you could show me?" 
 
 "No! It was a promise, I tell you there was no 
 writing. But my mother could swear to it." 
 
 The girl faced her cousin without flinching. Diana 
 sat down again, white and tremulous, the moment of 
 energy, of resistance, gone. In a wavering voice she 
 began to explain that she had, in fact, been inquiring into 
 her affairs, that the money was not actually at her dis- 
 posal, that to provide it would require an arrangement 
 with her bankers, and the depositing of some securities; 
 but that, before long, it should be available. 
 
 Fanny drew a long breath. She had not expected the 
 
 175
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 surrender. Her eyes sparkled, and she began to stammer 
 thanks. 
 
 "Don't!" said Diana, putting out a hand. "If I owe 
 it you and I take it on your word the money shall be 
 paid that's all. Only only, I wish you had not written 
 to me like that; and I ask that that you will never, 
 please, speak to me about it again!" 
 
 She had risen, and was standing, very tall and rigid, 
 her hands pressing against each other. 
 
 Fanny's face clouded. 
 
 "Very well," she said, as she rose from her seat, 
 " I'm sure I don't want to talk about it. I didn't like the 
 job a bit nor did mother. But if you are poor -and 
 somebody owes you something you can't help trying to 
 get it that's all!" 
 
 Diana said nothing. She went to the writing-table 
 and began to arrange some letters. Fanny looked at 
 her. 
 
 "I say, Diana! perhaps you won't want me to stay 
 here after You seem to have taken against me." 
 
 Diana turned. 
 
 "No," she said, faintly. Then, with a little sob: "I 
 thought of nothing but your coming." 
 
 Fanny flushed. 
 
 " Well, of course you've been very kind to me and all 
 that sort of thing. I wasn't saying you hadn't been. 
 Except Well, no, there's one thing I do think you've 
 been rather nasty about!" 
 
 The girl threw back her head defiantly. 
 
 Diana's pale face questioned her. 
 
 " I was talking to your maid yesterday," said Fanny, 
 slowly, " and she says you're going to stay at some smart 
 place next week, and you've been getting a new dress for 
 
 176
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 it. And you've never said a word to me about it let 
 alone ask me to go with you!" 
 
 Diana looked at her amazed. 
 
 "You mean I'm going to Tallyn!" 
 
 "That's it," said Fanny, reproachfully. "And you 
 know I don't get a lot of fun at home and I might as 
 well be seeing people and going about with you 
 though I do have to play second fiddle. You're rich, of 
 course everybody's nice to you " 
 
 She paused. Diana, struck dumb, could find, for the 
 moment, nothing to say. The red flamed in Fanny's 
 cheeks, and she turned away with a flounce. 
 
 " Oh, well, you'd better say it at once you're ashamed 
 of me! I haven't had your blessed advantages! Do 
 you think I don't know that!" 
 
 In the girl's heightened voice and frowning brow 
 there was a touch of fury, of goaded pride, that touched 
 Diana with a sudden remorse. She ran toward her 
 cousin appealing : 
 
 " I'm very sorry, Fanny. I I don't like to leave you 
 but they are my great friends and Lady Lucy, though 
 she's very kind, is very old-fashioned. One couldn't 
 take the smallest liberty with her. I don't think I could 
 ask to take you when they are quite by themselves 
 and the house is only half mounted. But Mrs. Col wood 
 and I had been thinking of several things that might 
 amuse you and I shall only be two nights away." 
 
 "I don't want any amusing thanks!" said Fanny, 
 walking to the door. 
 
 She closed it behind her. Diana clasped her hands 
 overhead in a gesture of amazement. 
 
 "To quarrel with me about that after the other 
 thing 1" 
 
 177
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 No! not Tallyn! not Tallyn! anywhere, anything, 
 but that! 
 
 Was she proud? snobbish? Her eyes filled with 
 tears, but her will hardened. What was to be gained? 
 Fanny would not like them, nor they her. 
 
 The luncheon-party had been arranged for Mr. Birch, 
 Fanny's train acquaintance. Diana had asked the Rough- 
 sedges, explaining the matter, with a half-deprecating, 
 half -humorous face, to the comfortable ear of Mrs. 
 Roughsedge. Explanation was necessary, for this par- 
 ticular young man was only welcome in those houses of 
 the neighborhood which were not socially dainty. Mrs. 
 Roughsedge understood at once laughed heartily ac- 
 cepted with equal heartiness and then, taking Diana's 
 hand, she said, with a shining of her gray eye: 
 
 " My dear, if you want Henry and me to stand on our 
 
 ; heads we will attempt it with pleasure. You are an 
 
 angel! and angels are not to be worried by solicitors." 
 
 The first part of which remark referred to a certain 
 morning after Hugh's announcement of his appointment 
 to the Nigerian expedition, when Diana had shown the 
 old people a sweet and daughter-like sympathy, which 
 had entirely won whatever portion of their hearts re- 
 mained still to be captured. 
 
 Hugh, meanwhile, was not yet gone, though he was 
 within a fortnight of departure. He was coming to 
 luncheon, with his parents, in order to support Diana. 
 The family had seen Miss Merton some two or three 
 times, and were all strongly of opinion that Diana very 
 much wanted supporting. " Why should one be civil to 
 one's cousin?" Dr. Roughsedge inquired of his wife. 
 " If they are nice, let them stand on their own merits. If 
 
 178
 
 The Testing of Diana Nallory 
 
 not, they are disagreeable people who know a deal too 
 much about you. Miss Diana should have consulted 
 me!" 
 
 The Roughsedges arrived early, and found Diana 
 alone in the drawing-room. Again Captain Roughsedge 
 thought her pale, and was even sure that she had lost 
 flesh. This time it was hardly possible to put these 
 symptoms down to Marsham's account. He chafed un- 
 der the thought that he should be no longer there in case 
 a league, offensive and defensive, had in the end to be 
 made with Mrs. Colwood for the handling of cousins. It 
 was quite clear that Miss Fanny was a vulgar little minx, 
 and that Beechcote would have no peace till it was rid of 
 her. Meanwhile, the indefinable change which had come 
 over his mother's face, during the preceding week, had 
 escaped even the quick eyes of an affectionate son. Alas! 
 for mothers when Lalage appears! 
 
 Mr. Birch arrived to the minute, and when he was 
 engaged in affable conversation with Diana, Fanny, last 
 of the party the door being ceremoniously thrown open 
 by the butler entered, with an air. Mr. Birch sprang 
 effusively to his feet, and there was a noisy greeting be- 
 tween him and his travelling companion. The young 
 man was slim, and effeminately good-looking. His frock- 
 coat and gray trousers were new and immaculate; his 
 small feet were encased in shining patent-leather boots, 
 and his blue eyes gave the impression of having been 
 carefully matched with his tie. He was evidently de- 
 lighted to find himself at Beechcote, and it might have 
 been divined that there was a spice of malice in his 
 pleasure. The Vavasours had always snubbed him; Miss 
 Mallory herself had not been over-polite to him on one 
 or two occasions; but her cousin was a "stunner," and, 
 
 179
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 secure in Fanny's exuberant favor, he made himself quite 
 at home. Placed on Diana's left at table, he gave her 
 much voluble information about her neighbors, mostly 
 ill-natured; he spoke familiarly of "that clever chap 
 Marsham," as of a politician who owed his election for 
 the division entirely to the good offices of Mr. Fred Birch's 
 firm, and described Lady Lucy as " an old dear," though 
 very " frowsty " in her ideas. He was strongly of opinion 
 that Marsham should find an heiress as soon as possible, 
 for there was no saying how " long the old lady would see 
 him out of his money," and everybody knew that at 
 present "she kept him beastly short." "As for me," 
 the speaker wound up, with an engaging and pensive 
 naivetf, "I've talked to him till I'm tired." -I 
 
 At last he was headed away from Tallyn and its 
 owners, only to fall into a rapturous debate with Fanny 
 over a racing bet which seemed to have been offered and 
 taken on the journey which first made them acquainted. 
 Fanny had lost, but the young man gallantly excused 
 her. 
 
 "No no, couldn't think of it! Not till next time. 
 Then my word! I'll come down upon you won't I? 
 Teach you to know your way about eh ?" 
 
 Loud laughter from Fanny, who professed to know 
 her way about already. They exchanged " tips " until 
 at last Mr. Birch, lost in admiration of his companion, 
 pronounced her a "ripper" he had never yet met a 
 lady so well up "why, you know as much as a man!" 
 
 Dr. Roughsedge meanwhile observed the type. The 
 father, an old-fashioned steady-going solicitor, had sent 
 the son to expensive schools, and allowed him two years 
 at Oxford, until the College had politely requested the 
 youth's withdrawal. The business was long established, 
 
 1 80
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 and had been sound. This young man had now been a 
 partner in it for two years, and the same period had 
 seen the rise to eminence of another and hitherto ob- 
 scure firm in the county town. Mr. Fred Birch spoke 
 contemptuously of the rival firm as "smugs"; but the 
 district was beginning to intrust its wills and mortgages 
 to the "smugs" with a sad and increasing alacrity. 
 
 There were, indeed, some secret discomforts in the 
 young man's soul; and while he sported with Fanny he 
 did not forget business. The tenant of Beechcote was, 
 ipso facto, of some social importance, and Diana was re- 
 ported to be rich; the Roughsedges also, though negligible 
 financially, were not without influence in high places; 
 and the doctor was governor of an important grammar- 
 school recently revived and reorganized, wherewith the 
 Birches would have been glad to be officially connected. 
 He therefore made himself agreeable. 
 "You read, sir, a great deal?" he said to the doctor, 
 with a professional change of voice. 
 
 The doctor, who, like most great men, was a trifle 
 greedy, was silently enjoying a dish of oysters delicately 
 rolled in bacon. He looked up at his questioner. 
 
 "A great deal, Mr. Birch." 
 
 "Everything, in fact?" 
 
 " Everything except, of course, what is indispensable." 
 
 Mr. Birch looked puzzled. 
 
 " I heard of you from the Duchess, doctor. She says 
 you are one of the most learned men in England." 
 
 "The Duchess?" The doctor screwed up his eyes 
 and looked round the table. 
 
 Mr. Birch, with complacency, named the wife of a 
 neighboring potentate who owned half the county. 
 
 "Don't know her," said the doctor "don't know 
 
 181
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 her; and excuse the barbarity don't wish to know 
 her." 
 
 "Oh, but so charming!" cried Mr. Birch "and so 
 kind!" 
 
 The doctor shook his head, and declared that great 
 ladies were not to his taste. " Poodles, sir, poodles! ' fed 
 on cream and muffins!' there is no trusting them." 
 
 "Poodles!" said Fanny, in astonishment. "Why are 
 duchesses like poodles?" 
 
 The doctor bowed to her. 
 
 "I give it up, Miss Merton. Ask Sydney Smith." 
 
 Fanny was mystified, and the sulky look appeared. 
 
 "Well, I know I should like to be a duchess. Why 
 shouldn't one want to be a duchess?" 
 
 "Why not indeed?" said the doctor, helping himself 
 to another oyster. " That's why they exist." 
 
 " I suppose you're teasing," said Fanny, rather crossly. 
 
 "I am quite incapable of it," protested the doctor. 
 " Shall we not all agree that duchesses exist for the envy 
 and jealousy of mankind ?" 
 
 "Womankind?" put in Diana. The doctor smiled at 
 her, and finished his oyster. Brave child! Had that 
 odious young woman been behaving in character that 
 morning? He would like to have the dealing with her! 
 As for Diana, her face reminded him of Cowper's rose 
 "just washed by a shower" delicately fresh yet elo- 
 quent of some past storm. Good Heavens! Where was 
 that fellow Marsham? Philandering with politics? 
 when there was this flower for the gathering! 
 
 Luncheon was half - way through when a rattling 
 sound of horses' hoofs outside drew the attention of the 
 table. 
 
 tit
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "Somebody else coming to lunch," said Mr. Birch. 
 " Sorry for 'em, Miss Mallory. We haven't left 'em much. 
 You've done us so uncommon well." 
 
 Diana herself looked in some alarm round the table. 
 
 "Plenty, my dear lady, plenty!" said the doctor, on 
 her other hand. " Cold beef, and bread and cheese what 
 does any mortal want more? Don't disturb yourself." 
 
 Diana wondered who the visitors might be. The butler 
 entered. 
 
 "Sir James Chide, ma'am, and Miss Drake. They 
 have ridden over from Overton Park, and didn't think it 
 was so far. They told me to say they didn't wish to 
 disturb vou at luncheon, and might they have a cup of 
 coffee?" 
 
 Diana excused herself, and hurried out. Mr. Birch 
 explained at length to Mrs. Colwood and Fanny that 
 Overton Park belonged to the Judge, Sir William Felton; 
 that Sir James Chide was often there; and no doubt 
 Miss Drake had been invited for the ball of the night 
 before; awfully smart affair f the coming-out ball of the 
 youngest daughter. 
 
 "Who is Miss Drake?" asked Fanny, thinking en- 
 viously of the ball, to which she had not been invited. 
 Mr. Birch turned to her with confidential jocosity. 
 
 "Lady Lucy Marsham's cousin; and it is generally 
 supposed that she might by now have been something 
 else but for " 
 
 He nodded toward the chair at the head of the table 
 which Diana had left vacant. 
 
 " Whatever do you mean ?" said Fanny. The Marsh- 
 ams to her were, so far, mere shadows. They repre- 
 sented rich people on the horizon whom Diana selfishly 
 wished to keep to herself. 
 
 183
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "I'm telling tales, I declare I am!" said Mr. Birch. 
 " Haven't you seen Mr. Oliver Marsham yet, Miss Mer- 
 ton?" 
 
 "No. I don't know anything about him." 
 
 "Ah!" said Mr. Birch, smiling, and peeling an apple 
 with deliberation. 
 
 Fanny flushed. 
 
 " Is there anything up between him and Diana?" she 
 said in his ear. 
 
 Mr. Birch smiled again. 
 
 " I saw old Mr. Vavasour the other day clients of 
 ours, you understand. A close-fisted old boy, Miss Mer- 
 ton. They imagined they'd get a good deal out of your 
 cousin. But not a bit of it. Oliver Marsham does all 
 her business for her. The Vavasours don't like it, I 
 can tell you." 
 
 " I haven't seen either him or Lady Lucy is that her 
 name? since I came." 
 
 " Let me see. You came about a fortnight ago just 
 when Parliament reassembled. Mr. Marsham is our mem- 
 ber. He and Lady Lucy went up to town the day be- 
 fore Parliament met." 
 
 "And what about Miss Drake?" 
 
 "Ah! poor Miss Drake!" Mr. Birch raised a humor- 
 ous eyebrow. "Those little things will happen, won't 
 they? It was just at Christmas, I understand, that 
 your cousin paid her first visit to Tallyn. A man who 
 was shooting there told me all about it." 
 
 "And Miss Drake was there too?" 
 
 Mr. Birch nodded. 
 
 " And Diana cut her out ?" said Fanny, bending toward 
 him eagerly. 
 
 Mr. Birch smiled again. Voices were heard in the 
 
 184
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 hall, but before the new guests entered, the young man 
 put up a finger to his lips : 
 
 " Don't you quote me, please, Miss Merton. But, I can 
 tell you, your cousin's very high up in the running just 
 now. And Oliver Marsham will have twenty thousand 
 a year some day if he has a penny. Miss Mallory hasn't 
 told you anything hasn't she? Ha ha! Still waters, 
 you know still waters!" 
 
 A few minutes later Sir James Chide was seated be- 
 tween Diana and Fanny Merton, Mr. Birch having 
 obligingly vacated his seat and passed to the other side 
 of the table, where his attempts at conversation were 
 coldly received by Miss Drake. That young lady dazzled 
 the eyes of Fanny, who sat opposite to her. The closely 
 fitting habit and black riding-hat gave to her fine figure 
 and silky wealth of hair the maximum of effect. Fanny 
 perfectly understood that only money and fashion could 
 attain to Miss Drake's costly simplicity. She envied her 
 from the bottom of her heart; she would have given 
 worlds to see the dress in which she had figured at the 
 ball. Miss Drake, no doubt, went to two or three balls 
 a week, and could spend anything she liked upon her 
 clothes. 
 
 Yet Diana had cut her out Diana was to carry off 
 the prize! Twenty thousand a year! Fanny's mind 
 was in a ferment the mind of a raw and envious pro- 
 vincial, trained to small ambitions and hungry desires. 
 Half an. hour before, she had been writing a letter home, 
 in a whirl of delight and self-glorification. The money 
 Diana had promised would set the whole family on its 
 legs, and Fanny had stipulated that after the debts were 
 paid she was to have a clear, cool hundred for her own 
 
 13 185
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 pocket, and no nonsense about it. It was she who had 
 done it all, and if it hadn't been for her, they might all 
 have gone to the workhouse. But now her success was 
 to her as dross. The thought of Diana's future wealth 
 and glory produced in her a feeling which was an acute 
 physical distress. So Diana was to be married ! and to 
 the great parti of the neighborhood! Fanny already 
 saw her in the bridal white, surrounded by glittering 
 bridesmaids; and a churchful of titled people, bowing 
 before her as she passed in state, like poppies under a 
 breeze. 
 
 And Diana had never said a word to her about it to 
 her own cousin! Nasty, close, mean ways! Fanny was 
 not good enough for Tallyn oh no! She was asked to 
 Beechcote when there was nothing going on or next 
 to nothing and one might yawn one's self to sleep with 
 dulness from morning till night. But as soon as she was 
 safely packed off, then there would be fine times, no 
 doubt ; the engagement would be announced ; the presents 
 would begin to come in; the bridesmaids would be chosen. 
 But she would get nothing out of it not she; she would 
 not be asked to be bridesmaid. She was not genteel 
 enough for Diana. 
 
 Diana Diana ! the daughter 
 
 Fanny's whole nature gathered itself as though for 
 a spring upon some prey, at once tempting and exasper- 
 ating. In one short fortnight the inbred and fated an- 
 tagonism between the two natures had developed it- 
 self on Fanny's side to the point of hatred. In the 
 depths of her being she knew that Diana had yearned to 
 love her, and had not been able. That failure was not 
 her crime, but Diana's. 
 
 Fanny looked haughtily round the table. How many 
 
 186
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 of them knew what she knew? Suddenly a name re- 
 curred to her! the name announced by the butler and 
 repeated by Mr. Birch. At the moment she had been 
 thinking of other things; it had roused no sleeping as- 
 sociations. But now the obscure under-self sent it echo- 
 ing through the brain. Fanny caught her breath. The 
 sudden excitement made her head swim. She turned 
 and looked at the white-haired elderly man sitting be- 
 tween her and Diana. 
 
 Sir James Chide! 
 
 (.Memories of the common gossip in her home, of the 
 talk of the people on the steamer, of pages in that volume 
 of Famous Trials she had studied on the voyage with 
 such a close and unsavory curiosity danced through 
 the girl's consciousness. Well, he Iqiew! No good pre- 
 tending there. And he came to see Diana and still 
 Diana knew nothing! Mrs. Colwood must simply be 
 telling lies silly lies! Fanny glanced at her with con- 
 tempt. 
 
 Yet so bewildered was she that when Sir James ad- 
 dressed her, she stared at him in what seemed a fit of 
 shyness. And when she began to talk it was at random, 
 for her mind was in a tumult. But Sir James soon 
 divined her. Vulgarity, conceit, ill-breeding the great 
 lawyer detected them in five minutes' conversation. 
 Nor were they unexpected; for he was well acquainted 
 with Miss Fanny's origins. Yet the perception of them 
 made the situation still more painfully interesting to 
 him, and no less mysterious than before. For he saw 
 no substantial change in it; and he was, in truth, no less 
 perplexed than Fanny. If certain things had happened 
 in consequence of Miss Merton's advent, neither he nor 
 any other guest would be sitting at Diana Mallory's table 
 
 187
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 that day; of that he was morally certain. Therefore, 
 they had not happened. 
 
 He returned with a redoubled tenderness of feeling 
 to his conversation with Diana. He had come to Over- 
 ton for the Sunday, at great professional inconvenience, 
 for nothing in the world but that he must pay this visit 
 to Beechcote; and he had approached the house with 
 dread dread lest he should find a face stricken with the 
 truth. That dread was momentarily lifted, for in those 
 beautiful dark eyes of Diana innocence and ignorance 
 were still written; but none the less he trembled for her; 
 he saw her as he had seen her at Tallyn, a creature 
 doomed, and consecrate to pain. Why, in the name of 
 justice and pity, had her father done this thing? So 
 it is that a man's love, for lack of a little simple courage 
 and common-sense, turns to cruelty. 
 
 Poor, poor child! At first sight he, like the Rough- 
 sedges, had thought her pale and depressed. Then he had 
 given his message. "Marsham has arrived! turned up 
 at Overton a couple of hours ago and told us to say he 
 would follow us here after luncheon. He wired to Lady 
 Felton this morning to ask if she would take him in for 
 the Sunday. Some big political meeting he had for to- 
 night is off. Lady Lucy stays in town and Tallyn is 
 shut up. But Lady Felton was, of course, delighted to 
 get him. He arrived about noon. Civility to his hostess 
 kept him to luncheon then he pursues us!" 
 
 Since then! no lack of sparkle in the eyes or color 
 in the cheek! Yet even so, to Sir James's keen sense, 
 there was an increase, a sharpening, in Diana's person- 
 ality, of the wistful, appealing note, which had been al- 
 ways touching, always perceptible, even through the 
 radiant days of her Tallyn visit. 
 
 188
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Ah, well! like Dr. Roughsedge, only with a far deeper 
 urgency, he, too, 'for want of any better plan, invoked 
 the coming lover. In God's name, let Marsham take the 
 thing into his own hands! stand on his own feet! 
 dissipate a nightmare which ought never to have arisen 
 and gather the girl to his heart. 
 
 Meanwhile Fanny's attention and the surging anger 
 of her thoughts were more and more directed upon the 
 girl with the fair hair opposite. A natural bond of sym- 
 pathy seemed somehow to have arisen between her and 
 this Miss Drake Diana's victim. Alicia Drake, look- 
 ing up, was astonished, time after time, to find herself 
 stared at by the common-looking young woman across 
 the table, who was, she understood, Miss Mallory's 
 cousin. What dress, and what manners! One did not 
 often meet that kind of person in society. She wished 
 Oliver joy of his future relations. 
 
 In the old panelled drawing-room the coffee was cir- 
 culating. Sir James was making friends with Mrs. Col- 
 wood, whose gentle looks and widow's dress appealed to 
 him. Fanny, Miss Drake, and Mr. Birch made a group 
 by the fireplace; Mr. Birch was posing as an authority on 
 the drama; Fanny, her dark eyes fixed upon Alicia, was 
 not paying much attention; and Alicia, with ill-con- 
 cealed impatience, was yawning behind her glove. Hugh 
 Roughsedge was examining the Donatello photograph. 
 
 "Do you like it?" said Diana, standing beside him. 
 She was conscious of having rather neglected him at 
 lunch, and there was a dancing something in her own 
 heart which impelled her to kindness and compunction. 
 Was not the good, inarticulate youth, too, going out into 
 
 189
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 the wilds, his life in his hands, in the typical English way ? 
 The soft look in her eyes which expressed this mingled 
 feeling did not mislead the recipient. < v He had overheard 
 Sir James Chide's message ; he understood her. 
 
 Presently. Mrs. Roughsedge, seeing that it was a sunny 
 day and the garden looked tempting, asked to be allowed 
 to inspect a new greenhouse that Diana was putting 
 up. The door leading out of the drawing-room to 
 the moat and the formal garden was thrown open; 
 cloaks and hats were brought, and the guests streamed 
 out. 
 
 "You are not coming?" said Hugh Roughsedge to 
 Diana. 
 
 At this question he saw a delicate flush, beyond her 
 control, creep over her cheek and throat. 
 
 " I I am expecting Mr. Marsham," she said. " Per- 
 haps I ought to stay." 
 
 Sir James Chide looked at his watch. 
 
 " He should be here any minute. We will overtake 
 you, Captain Roughsedge." 
 
 l <Hugh went off beside Mrs. Colwood. Well, well, it 
 was all plain enough! It was only a fortnight since the 
 Marshams had gone up to town for the Parliamentary 
 season. And here he was, again upon the scene. Im- 
 possible, evidently, to separate them longer. Let them 
 only get engaged, and be done with it! He stalked on 
 beside Mrs. Colwood, tongue-tied and miserable. 
 
 Meanwhile, Sir James lingered with Diana. "~A charm- 
 ing old place!" he said, looking about him. "But Mar- 
 sham tells me the Vavasours have been odious." 
 
 "We have got the better of them! Mr. Marsham 
 helped me." 
 
 " He has an excellent head, has Oliver. This year he 
 190
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 will have special need of it. It will be a critical time for 
 him." 
 
 Diana gave a vague assent. She had, in truth, two 
 recent letters from Marsham in her pocket at that mo- 
 ment, giving a brilliant and minute account of the Par- 
 liamentary situation. But she hid the fact, warm and 
 close, like a brooding bird; only drawing on her com- 
 panion to talk politics, that she might hear Marsham's 
 name sometimes, and realize the situation Marsham had 
 described to her, from another point of view. And all 
 the time her ear listened for the sound of hoofs, and for 
 the front door bell. 
 
 At last! The peal echoed through the old house. 
 Sir James rose, and, instinctively, Diana rose too. Was 
 there a smile humorous and tender in the lawyer's 
 blue eyes? 
 
 " I'll go and finish my cigarette out-of-doors. Such a 
 tempting afternoon!" 
 
 And out he hurried, before Diana could stop him. 
 She remained standing, with soft hurrying breath, look- 
 ing out into the garden. On a lower terrace she saw 
 Fanny and Alicia Drake walking together, and could not 
 help a little laugh of amusement that seemed to come 
 out of a heart of content. Then the door opened, and 
 Marsham was there.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 MARSHAM'S first feeling, as he advanced into the 
 room, and, looking round him, saw that Diana was 
 alone, was one of acute physical pleasure. The old room 
 with its mingling of color, at once dim and rich; the 
 sunlit garden through the casement windows ; the scent of 
 the logs burning on the hearth, and of the hyacinths and 
 narcissus with which the warm air was perfumed; the 
 signs everywhere of a woman's life and charm; all these 
 first impressions leaped upon him, aiding the remembered 
 spell which had recalled him hot-foot and eager from 
 London, to this place, on the very first opportunity. 
 
 And if her surroundings were poetic, how much more 
 so was the girl-figure itself! the slender form, the dark 
 head, and that shrinking joy which spoke in her gesture, 
 in the movement she made toward him across the room. 
 She checked it at once, but not before a certain wildness 
 in it had let loose upon him a rush of delight. 
 
 " Sir James explained ?" he said, as he took her hand. 
 
 " Yes. I had no notion you would be here this week- 
 end." 
 
 "Nor had I till last night. Then an appointment 
 broken down and me void!" 
 
 "You stay over to-morrow?" 
 
 " Of course! But it is absurd that the Feltons should 
 be five miles away!" 
 
 She stammered: 
 
 192
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " It is a charming ride." 
 
 "But too long! One does not want to lose time." 
 
 She was now sitting; and he beside her. Mechanically 
 she had taken up some embroidery to shield her eyes. 
 He examined the reds and blues of the pattern, the white 
 fingers, the bending cheek. Suddenly, like Sir James 
 Chide or Hugh Roughsedge, he was struck with a sense 
 of change. The Dian look which matched her name, the 
 proud gayety and frankness of it, were somehow muffled 
 and softened. And altogether her aspect was a little 
 frail and weary. The perception brought with it an 
 appeal to the protective strength of the man. What were 
 her cares ? Trifling, womanish things ! He would make 
 her confess them; and then conjure them away I 
 
 " You have your cousin with you ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " She will make you a long visit ?" 
 
 "Another week or two, I think." . 
 
 "You are a believer in family traditions? But of 
 course you are!" 
 
 "Why 'of course'?' Her color had sparkled again, 
 but the laugh was not spontaneous. 
 
 "I see that you are in love with even your furthest 
 kinsmen you must be being an Imperialist! Now I 
 am frankly bored by my kinsmen near and far." 
 
 "All the same you ask their help!" 
 
 "Oh yes, in war; pure self-interest on both sides." 
 
 "You have been preaching this in the House of 
 Commons?" 
 
 The teasing had answered. No more veiling of the 
 eyes! 
 
 " No I have made no speeches. Next week, in the 
 Vote of Censure debate, I shall get my chance." 
 
 193
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "To talk Little Englandism? Alack I" 
 
 The tone was soft it ended in a sigh. 
 
 "Does it really trouble you?" 
 
 She was looking down at her work. Her fingers drew 
 the silk out and in a little at random. She shook her 
 head slightly, without reply. 
 
 " I believe it does," he said, gently, still smiling. 
 "Well, when I make my speech, I shall remember 
 that." 
 
 She looked up suddenly. Their eyes met full. On 
 her just parted lips the words she had meant to say re- 
 mained unspoken. Then a murmur of voices from the 
 garden reached them, as though some one approached. 
 Marsham rose. 
 
 "Shall we go into the garden? I ought to speak to 
 Robins. How is he getting on?" 
 
 Robins was the new head gardener, appointed on 
 Marsham's recommendation. 
 
 " Excellently." Diana had also risen. " I will get my 
 hat." 
 
 He opened the door for her. Hang those people out- 
 side ! But for them she would have been already in his 
 arms. 
 
 Left to himself, he walked to and fro, restless and 
 smiling. No more self-repression no more politic de- 
 lay! The great moment of life grasped captured at 
 last! He in his turn understood the Faust-cry " Linger 
 awhile! thou art so fair!" Only let him pierce to the 
 heart of it realize it, covetously, to the full! All the 
 ordinary worldly motives were placated and at rest; 
 due sacrifice had been done to them; they teased no more. 
 Upgathered and rolled away, like storm-winds from the 
 sea, they had left a shining and a festal wave for love to 
 
 194
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 venture on. Let him only yield himself feel the full 
 swell of the divine force ! 
 
 He moved to the window, and looked out. 
 zrBirch! What on earth brought that creature to 
 Beechcote. His astonishment was great, and perhaps 
 in the depths of his mind there emerged the half-amused 
 perception of a feminine softness and tolerance which 
 masculine judgment must correct. She did not know 
 how precious she was ; and that it must not be made too 
 easy for the common world to approach her. All that 
 was picturesque and important, of course, in the lower 
 classes; labor men, Socialists, and the like. But not 
 vulgar half-baked fellows, who meant nothing politically, 
 and must yet be treated like gentlemen. Ah! There 
 were the Roughsedges the Captain not gone yet? Sir 
 James and Mrs. Colwood nice little creature, that com- 
 panion they would find some use for her in the future. 
 And on the lower terrace, Alicia Drake, and that girl? 
 He laughed, amusing himself with the thought of Alicia's 
 plight. Alicia, the arrogant, the fastidious! The odd 
 thing was that she seemed to be absorbed in the con- 
 versation that was going on. He saw her pause at the 
 end of the terrace, look round her, and deliberately lead 
 the way down a long grass path, away from the rest of 
 the party. Was the cousin good company, after all? 
 
 Diana returned. A broad black hat, and sables which 
 had been her father's last gift to her, provided the slight 
 change in surroundings which pleases the eye and sense 
 of a lover. And as a man brought up in wealth, and him- 
 self potentially rich, he found it secretly agreeable that 
 costly things became her. There should be no lack of 
 them in the future. 
 
 They stepped out upon the terrace. At sight of them 
 
 195
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 the Roughsedges approached, while Mr. Fred Birch 
 lagged behind to inspect the sundial. After a few words' 
 conversation, Marsham turned resolutely away. 
 
 "Miss Mallory wants to show me a new gardener." 
 
 The old doctor smiled at his wife. Hugh Roughsedge 
 watched the departing figures. Excellently matched, 
 he must needs admit, in aspect and in height. Was it 
 about to happen? or had it already happened? He 
 braced himself, soldierlike, to the inevitable. 
 
 " You know Mr. Birch," said Diana to her companion, 
 as they descended to the lower terrace, and passed not 
 very far from that gentleman. 
 
 " I just know him," said Marsham, carelessly, and 
 bestowed a nod in the direction of the solicitor. 
 
 "Had he not something to do with your election?" 
 said Diana, astonished. 
 
 " My election ?" cried Marsham. Then he laughed. " I 
 suppose he has been drawing the long bow, as usual. Am I 
 impertinent ? or may I ask, how you came to know him ?" 
 
 He looked at her smiling. Diana colored. 
 
 "My cousin Fanny made acquaintance with him in 
 the train." 
 
 "I see. Here are our two cousins coming to meet 
 us. Will you introduce me?" 
 
 For Fanny and Miss Drake were now returning slowly 
 along the gravel path which led to the kitchen garden. 
 The eyes of both girls were fixed on the pair advancing 
 toward them. Alicia was no longer impassive or haugh- 
 ty. Like her companion, she appeared to have been 
 engaged in an intimate and absorbing conversation. 
 Diana could not help looking at her in a vague surprise 
 as she paused in front of them. But she addressed her- 
 self to her cousin. 
 
 196
 
 The Testing off Diana Mallor^ 
 
 "Fanny, I want to introduce Mr. Marsham to you." 
 
 Fanny Merton held out her hand, staring a little oddly 
 at the gentleman presented to her. Alicia meanwhile 
 was looking at Diana, while she spoke with emphasis 
 to Marsham. 
 
 "Could you order my horse, Oliver? I think we 
 ought to be going back." 
 
 " Would you mind asking Sir James ?" Marsham point- 
 ed to the upper terrace. " I have something to see to in 
 the garden." 
 
 Diana said hurriedly that Mrs. Colwood would send 
 the order to the stables, and that she herself would not 
 be long. Alicia took no notice of this remark. She still 
 looked at Oliver. 
 
 "You'll come back with us, won't you?" 
 
 Marsham flushed. " I have only just arrived," he said, 
 rather sharply. " Please don't wait for me. Shall we go 
 on?" he said, turning to Diana. 
 
 They walked on/ As Diana paused at the iron gate 
 which closed the long walk, she looked round her involun- 
 tarily, and saw that Alicia and Fanny were now standing 
 on the lower terrace, gazing after them. It struck her as 
 strange and rude, and she felt the slight shock she had 
 felt several times already, both in her intercourse with 
 Fanny and in her acquaintance with Miss Drake as of 
 one unceremoniously jostled or repulsed. 
 
 Marsham meanwhile was full of annoyance. That 
 Alicia should still treat him in that domestic, possessive 
 way and in Diana's presence was really intolerable. It 
 must be stopped. 
 
 He paused on the other side of the gate. 
 
 " After all, I am not in a mood to see Robins to-day. 
 Look! the light is going. Will you show me the path 
 
 197
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 on to the hill ? You spoke to me once of a path you were 
 fond of." 
 
 She tried to laugh. 
 
 "You take Robins for granted?" 
 
 " I am quite indifferent to his virtues even his vices! 
 This chance is too precious. I have so much to say 
 to you." 
 
 She led the way in silence. The hand which held up 
 her dress from the mire trembled a little unseen. But 
 her sense of the impending crisis had given her more 
 rather than less dignity. She bore her dark head finely, 
 with that unconscious long - descended instinct of the 
 woman, waiting to be sued. 
 
 They found a path beyond the garden, winding up 
 through a leafless wood. Marsham talked of indifferent 
 things, and she answered him with spirit, feeling it all, so 
 far, a queer piece of acting. Then they emerged on the 
 side of the hill beside a little basin in the chalk, where 
 a gnarled thorn or two, an overhanging beech, and a bed 
 of withered heather, made a kind of intimate, furnished 
 place, which appealed to the passer-by. 
 
 " Here is the sunset," said Marsham, looking round 
 him. " Are you afraid to sit a little ?" 
 
 He took a light overcoat he had been carrying over 
 his arm and spread it on the heather. She protested that 
 it was winter, and coats were for wearing. He took no 
 notice, and she tamely submitted. He placed her regally, 
 with an old thorn for support and canopy; and then he 
 stood a moment beside her gazing westward. 
 
 They looked over undulations of the chalk, bare 
 stubble fields and climbing woods, bathed in the pale 
 gold of a February sunset. The light was pure and 
 wan the resting earth shone through it gently yet 
 
 198
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 austerely; only the great woods darkly massed on the 
 horizon gave an accent of mysterious power to a scene 
 in which Nature otherwise showed herself the tamed and 
 homely servant of men. Below were the trees of Beech- 
 cote, the gray walls, and the windows touched with a 
 last festal gleam. 
 
 Suddenly Marsham dropped down beside her. 
 
 "I see it all with new eyes," he said, passionately. 
 "I have lived in this country from my childhood; and 
 I never saw it before! Diana! " 
 
 He raised her hand, which only faintly resisted; he 
 looked into her eyes. She had grown very pale enchant- 
 ingly pale. There was in her the dim sense of a great 
 fulfilment; the fulfilment of Nature's promise to her; 
 implicit in her woman's lot from the beginning. 
 
 "Diana! " the low voice searched her heart "You 
 know what I have come to say? I meant to have 
 waited a little longer I was afraid ! but I couldn't wait \j 
 it was beyond my strength. Diana! come to me, 
 darling! be my wife!" 
 
 He kissed the hand he held. His eyes beseeched; 
 and into hers, widely fixed upon him, had sprung tears 
 the tears of life's supremest joy. Her lip trembled. 
 
 "I'm not worthy!" she said, in a whisper 'I'm not 
 worthy!" 
 
 "Foolish Diana! Darling, foolish Diana! Give me 
 my answer!" 
 
 And now he held both hands, and his confident smile 
 dazzled her. 
 
 " I " Her voice broke. She tried again, still in a 
 whisper. " I will be everything to you that a woman 
 can." 
 
 At that he put his arm round her, and she let him 
 
 199
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 take that first kiss, in which she gave him her youth, 
 her life all that she had and was. Then she withdrew 
 herself, and he saw her brow contract, and her mouth. 
 
 "I know!" he said, tenderly -"I know! Dear, I 
 think he would have been glad. He and I made friends 
 from the first." 
 
 She plucked at the heather beside her, trying for com- 
 posure. " He would have been so glad of a son so 
 glad" 
 
 And then, by contrast with her own happiness, the 
 piteous memory of her father overcame her; and she 
 cried a little, hiding her eyes against Marsham's shoulder. 
 
 "There!" she said, at last, withdrawing herself, and 
 brushing the tears away. " That's all that's done with 
 except in one's heart. Did did Lady Lucy know?" 
 
 She looked at him timidly. Her aspect had never 
 been more lovely. Tears did not disfigure her, and as 
 compared with his first remembrance of her, there was 
 now a touching significance, an incomparable softness in 
 all she said and did, which gave him a bewildering sense 
 of treasures to come, of joys for the gathering. 
 
 Suddenly involuntarily there flashed through his 
 mind the recollection of his first love-passage with Alicia 
 how she had stung him on, teased, and excited him. 
 He crushed it at once, angrily. 
 
 As to Lady Lucy, he smilingly declared that she had 
 no doubt guessed something was in the wind. 
 
 " I have been ' gey ill to live with ' since we got up to 
 town. And when the stupid meeting I had promised to 
 speak at was put off, my mother thought I had gone off 
 my head from my behavior. 'What are you going to 
 the Feltons' for? You never care a bit about them.' 
 So at last I brought her the map and made her look at it 
 
 200
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 ' Felton Park to Brinton, 3 miles Haylesford, 4 miles 
 Beechcote, 2 miles and \ Beechcote Manor, half a mile 
 total, ten miles.' ' Oliver!' she got so red! ' you are 
 
 going to propose to Miss Mallory!' 'Well, mother! 
 
 and what have you got to say ?' So then she smiled 
 and kissed me and sent you messages which I'll give 
 you when there's time. My mother is a rather formid- 
 able person no one who knew her would ever dream 
 of taking her consent to anything for granted; but this 
 time" his laugh was merry "I didn't even think of 
 asking it!" 
 
 " I shall love her dearly," murmured Diana. 
 
 "Yes, because you won't be afraid of her. Her 
 standards are hardly made for this wicked world. But 
 you'll hold her you'll manage her. If you'd said 'No* 
 to me, she would have felt cheated of a daughter." 
 
 "I'm afraid Mrs. Fotheringham won't like it," said 
 Diana, ruefully, letting herself be gathered again into his 
 arms. 
 
 " My sister ? I don't know what to say about Isabel, 
 dearest unless I parody an old saying. She and I 
 have never agreed except in opinion. We have been on 
 the same side and in hot opposition since our child- 
 hood. No I dare say she will be thorny ! Why did you 
 fight me so well, little rebel ?" 
 
 He looked down into her dark eyes, revelling in their 
 sweetness, and in the bliss of her surrendered beauty. 
 If this was not his first proposal, it was his first true 
 passion of that he was certain. 
 
 She released herself rosy and still thinking of Mrs. 
 Fotheringham. "Oliver!" she laid her hand shyly on 
 his " neither she nor you will want me to stifle what I 
 think to deny what I do really believe ? I dare say a 
 
 14 2OI
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 woman's politics aren't worth much " she laughed and 
 sighed. 
 
 " I say! don't take that line with Isabel!" 
 
 "Well, mine probably aren't worth much but they 
 are mine and papa taught them me and I can't give 
 them up." 
 
 " What '11 you do, darling ? canvass against me ?" He 
 kissed her hand again. 
 
 "No but I can't agree with you!" 
 
 "Of course you can't. Which of us, I wonder, will 
 shake the other ? How do you know that I'm not in a 
 blue fright for my principles?" 
 
 "You'll explain to me? you'll not despise me?" she 
 said, softly, bending toward him; "I'll always, always 
 try and understand." 
 
 Who could resist an attitude so feminine, yet so loyal, 
 at once so old and new ? Marsham felt himself already 
 attacked by the poison of Toryism, and Diana, with a 
 happy start, envisaged horizons that her father never 
 knew, and questions where she had everything to learn. 
 
 Hand in hand, trembling still under the thrill of the 
 moment which had fused their lives, they fell into 
 happy discursive talk : of the Tallyn visit of her 
 thoughts and his of what Lady Lucy and Mr. Ferrier 
 had said, or would say. In the midst of it the fall of 
 temperature, which came with the sunset, touched them, 
 and Marsham sprang up with the peremptoriness of 
 a new relationship, insisting that he must take her home 
 out of the chilly dusk. As they stood lingering in the 
 hollow, unwilling to leave the gnarled thorns, the heather- 
 carpet, and the glow of western light symbols to them 
 henceforth that they too, in their turn, amid the endless 
 generations, had drunk the mystic cup, and shared the 
 
 202
 
 The Testing o* Diana Mallorg 
 
 sacred feast Diana perceived some movement far below, 
 on the open space in front of Beechcote. A little peering 
 through the twilight showed them two horses with their 
 riders leaving the Beechcote door. 
 
 "Oh! your cousin and Sir James!" cried Diana, in 
 distress, " and I haven't said good-bye " 
 
 "You will see them soon again. And I shall carry 
 them the news to-night." 
 
 " Will you ? Shall I allow it ?" 
 
 Marsham laughed; he caught her hand again, slipped 
 it possessively within his left arm, and held it there as 
 they went slowly down the path. Diana could not think 
 with any zest of Alicia and her reception of the news. 
 A succession of trifles had shown her quite clearly that 
 Alicia was not her friend; why, she did not know. She 
 remembered many small advances on her own part. 
 
 But at the mention of Sir James Chide, her face 
 lit up. 
 
 "He has been so kind to me!" she said, looking up 
 into Marsham' s face "so very kind!" 
 
 Her eyes showed a touch of passion; the passion that 
 some natures can throw into gratitude ; whether for little 
 or much. Marsham smiled. 
 
 " He fell in love with you! Yes he is a dear old boy. 
 One can well imagine that he has had a romance!" 
 
 "Has he?" 
 
 "It is always said that he was in love with a woman 
 whom he defended on a charge of murder." 
 
 Diana exclaimed. 
 
 " He had met her when they were both very young, 
 and lost his heart to her. Then she married and he lost 
 sight of her. He accepted a brief in this murder case, 
 ten years later, not knowing her identity, and they met 
 
 203
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 for the first time when he went to see her with her 
 solicitor in prison." 
 
 Diana breathlessly asked for the rest of the story. 
 
 " He defended her magnificently. It was a shocking 
 case. The sentence was commuted, but she died almost 
 immediately. They say Sir James has never got over it." 
 
 Diana pondered ; her eyes dim. 
 
 "How one would like to do something for him I to 
 give him pleasure!" 
 
 Marsham caressed her hand. 
 
 " So you shall, darling. He shall be one of our best 
 friends. But he mustn't make Ferrier jealous." 
 
 Diana smiled happily. She looked forward to all the 
 new ties of kindred or friendship that Marsham was to 
 bring her modestly indeed, yet in the temper of one 
 who feels herself spiritually rich and capable of giving. 
 
 " I shall love all your friends," she said, with a bright 
 look. " I'm glad you have so many!" 
 
 " Does that mean that you've felt rather lonely some- 
 times? Poor darling!" he said, tenderly, "it must have 
 been solitary often at Portofino." 
 
 "Oh no I had papa." Then her truthfulness over- 
 came her. " I don't mean to say I didn't often want 
 friends of my own age girl friends especially." 
 
 " You can't have them now!" he said, passionately, 
 as they paused at a wicket-gate, under a yew-tree. " I 
 want you all all to myself." And in the shadow of 
 the yew he put his arms round her again, and their 
 hearts beat together. 
 
 But our nature moves within its own inexorable 
 limits. In Diana, Marsham's touch, Marsham's embrace 
 awakened that strange mingled happiness, that happiness 
 reared and based on tragedy, which the pure and sensitive 
 
 204
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 feel in the crowning moments of life. Love is tortured 
 by its own intensity; and the thought of death strikes 
 through the experience which means the life of the race. 
 As her lips felt Marsham's kiss, she knew, as generations 
 of women have known before her, that life could give her 
 no more; and she also knew that it was transiency and 
 parting that made it so intolerably sweet. 
 
 " Till death us do part," she said to herself. And in the 
 intensity of her submission to the common lot she saw 
 down the years the end of what had now begun herself 
 lying quiet and blessed, in the last sleep, her dead hand 
 in Marsham's. 
 
 " Why must we go home ?" he said, discontentedly, 
 as he released her. "One turn more! up the avenue! 
 There is light enough yet!" 
 
 She yielded weakly; pacifying her social conscience 
 by the half-penitent remark that Mrs. Colwood would 
 have said good-bye to her guests, and that she she 
 supposed they would soon have to know. 
 
 " Well, as I want you to marry me in six weeks/' said 
 Marsham, joyously, " I suppose they will." 
 
 "Six weeks!" She gasped. "Oh, how unreasonable!" 
 
 "Dearest! A fortnight would do for frocks. And 
 whom have we to consult but ourselves? I know you 
 have no near relations. As for cousins, it doesn't take 
 long to write them a few notes, and ask them to the 
 wedding." 
 
 Diana sighed. 
 
 " My only cousins are the Mertons. They are all in 
 Barbadoes but Fanny." 
 
 Her tone changed a little. In her thoughts, she added, 
 hurriedly: " I sha'n't have any bridesmaids 1" 
 
 205
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Marsham, discreetly, made no reply. Personally, he 
 hoped that Miss Merton's engagements might take her 
 safely back to Barbadoes before the wedding-day. But 
 if not, he and his would no doubt know how to deal with 
 her civilly and firmly as people must learn to deal with 
 their distasteful relations. 
 
 Meanwhile on Diana's mind there had descended a 
 sudden cloud of thought, dimming the ecstasy of her joy. 
 The February day was dying in a yellowish dusk, full of 
 beauty. They were walking along a narrow avenue of 
 tall limes which skirted the Beechcote lands, and took 
 them past the house. Above their heads the trees met 
 in a brown-and-purple tracery of boughs, and on theii 
 right, through the branches, they saw a pale full moon, 
 throning it in a silver sky. The mild air, the move- 
 ments of the birds, the scents from the earth and bushes 
 spoke of spring; and suddenly Diana perceived the gate 
 leading to the wood where that very morning the subtle 
 message of the changing year had come upon her, 
 rending and probing. A longing to tell Marsham all her 
 vague troubles rose in her, held back by a natural shrink- 
 ing. But the longing prevailed, quickened by the loyal 
 sense that she must quickly tell him all she knew about 
 herself and her history, since there was nobody else to 
 tell him. 
 
 " Oliver!" she began, hurriedly " I ought to tell you 
 I don't think you know. My name wasn't Mallory to 
 begin with my father took that name." 
 
 Marsham gave a little start. 
 
 "Dear how surprising! and how interesting! Tell 
 me all you can from the year One." 
 
 He smiled upon her, with a sparkling look that asked 
 for all her history. But secretly he had been conscious of 
 
 ?o6
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 a shock. Lately he had made a few inquiries about the 
 Welsh Mallorys. And the answers had been agreeable; 
 though the old central stock of the name, to which he 
 presumed Diana belonged, was said to be extinct. No 
 doubt so he had reflected it had come to an end in 
 her father. 
 
 "Mallory was the name of my 'father's mother. He 
 took it for various reasons I never quite understood 
 and I know a good deal of property came to him. But 
 his original name my name was Sparling." 
 
 " Sparling!" A pause. " And have you any Sparling 
 relations." 
 
 "No. They all died out I think but I know so 
 little! when I was small. However, I have a box of 
 Sparling papers which I have never examined. Perhaps 
 some day -we might look at them together." 
 
 Her voice shook a little. 
 
 "You have never looked at them?" 
 
 " Never." 
 
 "But why, dearest?" 
 
 " It always seemed to make papa so unhappy any- 
 thing to do with his old name. Oliver!" she turned 
 upon him suddenly, and for the first time she clung to 
 him, hiding her face against his shoulder "Oliver! 
 I don't know what made him unhappy I don't know 
 why he changed his name. Sometimes I think there 
 may have been some terrible thing between him and 
 my mother." 
 
 He put his arm round her, close and tenderly. 
 
 "What makes you think that?" Then he whispered 
 to her " Tell your lover your husband tell him every- 
 thing." 
 
 She shrank in delicious tremor from the great word, 
 
 207
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 and it was a few moments before she could collect her 
 thoughts. Then she said still resting against him in 
 the dark and in a low rapid voice, as though she fol- 
 lowed the visions of an inner sense: 
 
 " She died when I was only four. I just remember 
 it is almost my first recollection of anything seeing her 
 carried up-stairs " 'She broke off. "And oh! it's so 
 strange! " 
 
 "Strange? She was ill?" 
 
 " Yes, but what I seem to remember never explains 
 itself and I did not dare to ask papa. She hadn't been 
 with us for a long time. Papa and I had been alone. 
 Then one day I saw them carrying her up-stairs my 
 father and two nurses I ran out before my nurse could 
 catch me and saw her she was in her hat and cloak. 
 I didn't know her, and when she called me, I ran away. 
 Then afterward they took me in to see her in bed two 
 or three times and I remember once" Diana began to 
 sob herself " seeing her cry. She lay sobbing and my 
 father beside her; he held her hand and I saw him hide 
 his eyes upon it. They never noticed me; I don't know 
 that they saw me. Then they told me she was dead I 
 saw her lying on the bed and my nurse gave me some 
 flowers to put beside her some violets. They were the 
 only flowers. I can see her still, lying there with her 
 hands closed over them." 
 
 She released herself from Marsham, and, with her hand 
 in his, she drew him slowly along the path, while she 
 went on speaking, with an effort indeed, yet with a 
 marvellous sense of deliverance after the silence of 
 years. She described the entire seclusion of their life at 
 Portofino. 
 
 " Papa never spoke to me of mamma, and I never 
 208
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 remember a. picture of her. After his death I saw a 
 closed locket on his breast for the first time. I would 
 not have opened it for the world I just kissed it " 
 Her voice broke again; but after a moment she quietly 
 resumed. " He changed his name I think when I was 
 about nine years old. I remember that somehow it 
 seemed to give him comfort he was more cheerful with 
 tne afterward " 
 
 "And you have no idea what led him to go abroad?" 
 
 She shook her head. Marsham's changed and rapid 
 tone had betrayed some agitation in the mind behind ; but 
 Diana did not notice it. In her story she had come to 
 what, in truth, had been the determining and formative 
 influence on her own life her father's melancholy, and 
 the mystery in which it had been enwrapped; and even 
 the perceptions of love were for the moment blinded as 
 the old tyrannous grief overshadowed her. 
 
 " His life" she said, slowly " seemed for years one 
 long struggle to bear what was really unbearable. 
 Then when I was about nineteen there was a change. 
 He no longer shunned people quite in the same way, and 
 he took me to Egypt and India. We came across old 
 friends of his whom I, of course, had never seen before; 
 and I used to wonder at the way in which they treated 
 him with a kind of reverence as though they would 
 not have touched him roughly for the world. Then 
 directly after we got home to the Riviera his illness 
 began- 1 -" 
 
 She dwelt on the long days of dumbness, and her con- 
 stant sense that he wished in vain to communicate 
 something to her. 
 
 " He wanted something and I could not give it him 
 could not even tell what it was. It was misery! One 
 
 209
 
 The Testing of Diana Malloiy 
 
 day he managed to write: ' If you are in trouble, go to 
 Riley & Bonner ask them.' They were his solicitors, 
 whom he had depended on from his boyhood. But since 
 his death I have never wanted anything from them but 
 a little help in business. They have been very good; 
 but I could not go and question them. If there was 
 anything to know papa had not been able to tell me 
 I did not want anybody else to " 
 
 Her voice dropped. Only half an hour since the 
 flowering of life! What a change in both! She was 
 pacing along slowly, her head thrown back; the oval of 
 her face white among her furs, under the ghostly touch 
 of the moonlight; a suggestion of something austere 
 finely remote in her attitude and movement. His eyes 
 were on the ground, his shoulders bent; she could not 
 see his face. 
 
 "We must try and unravel it together," he said, 
 at last, with an effort. " Can you tell me your mother's 
 name?" 
 
 " It was an old Staffordshire family. But she and 
 papa met in America, and they married there. Her 
 father died not long afterward, I think. And I have 
 never heard of any relations but the one sister, Mrs. 
 Merton. Her name was Wentworth. Oh!" It was an 
 involuntary cry of physical pain. 
 
 "Diana! Did I hurt your hand? my darling!" 
 
 The sudden tightness of his grip had crushed her 
 fingers. She smiled at him, as he kissed them, in hasty 
 remorse. 
 
 "And her Christian name?" he asked, in a low voice. 
 
 "Juliet." 
 
 There was a pause. They had turned back, and were 
 walking toward the house. The air had grown much 
 
 3io
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 colder; frosty stars were twinkling, and a chilly wind 
 was blowing light clouds across the moon. The two 
 figures moved slowly in and out of the bands of light 
 and shadow which crossed the avenue. 
 
 Diana stopped suddenly. 
 
 " If there were something terrible to know 3' she said, 
 trembling " something which would make you ashamed 
 of me! " 
 
 Her tall slenderness bent toward him she held out 
 her hands piteously. Marsham's manhood asserted it- 
 self. He encircled her again with his strong arm, and 
 she hid her face against him. The contact of her soft . 
 body, her fresh cheek, intoxicated him afresh. In the 
 strength of his desire for her, it was as though he were 
 fighting off black vultures of the night, forces of horror 
 that threatened them both. He would not believe what 
 yet he already knew to be true. The thought of his 
 mother clamored at the door of his mind, and he would f 
 not open to it. In a reckless defiance of what had over- 
 taken him, he poured out tender and passionate speech 
 which gradually stilled the girl's tumult of memory and 
 foreboding, and brought back the heaven of their first 
 moment on the hill-side. Her own reserve broke down, 
 and from her murmured words, her sweetness, her in- 
 finite gratitude, Marsham might divine still more fully 
 the richness of that harvest which such a nature promised 
 to a lover. 
 
 "I won't tell any one but Muriel till you have 
 seen Lady Lucy," said Diana, as they approached 
 the house, and found Marsham's horse waiting at the 
 door. 
 
 He acquiesced, and it was arranged that he should 
 
 211
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 go up to town the following day, Sunday see Lady 
 Lucy and return on the Monday. 
 
 Then he rode away, waving his hand through the 
 darkness. 
 
 Marsham's horse carried him swiftly through country 
 roads, where the moon made magic, and peace reigned. 
 But the mind of the rider groped in confusion and de- 
 spair, seeing no way out. 
 
 Only one definite purpose gathered strength to throw 
 himself on the counsel of Sir James Chide. Chide had 
 known from the beginning!
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 MARSHAM reached Felton Hall about six o'clock. 
 The house, a large Georgian erection, belonging to 
 pleasant easy-going people with many friends, was full 
 of guests, and the thought of the large party which he 
 must face at dinner and in the evening had been an addi- 
 tional weight in his burden during the long ride home. 
 
 No means of escaping it, or the gossip with regard 
 to himself, which must, he knew, be raging among the 
 guests! 
 
 That gossip had not troubled him when he had set 
 forth in the early afternoon. Quite the contrary. It 
 had amused him as he rode to Beechcote, full of con- 
 fident hope, to think of announcing his engagement. 
 What reason would there be for delay or concealment? 
 He looked forward to the congratulations of old friends ; 
 the more the better. 
 
 The antithesis between " then" and " now" struck him 
 sharply, as he dismounted. But for that last quarter of 
 an hour with Diana, how jubilantly would he have en- 
 tered the house! Ten minutes with Lady Felton a 
 dear, chattering woman! and all would have been 
 known. He pictured instinctively the joyous flutter in 
 the house the merry dinner perhaps the toasts. 
 
 As it was, he slipped quietly into the house, hoping 
 that his return might pass unnoticed. He was thankful 
 to find no one about the hall and drawing-room desert- 
 
 213
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 ed. The women had gone up to rest before dinner; 
 the men had not long before come back muddy from 
 hunting, and were changing clothes. 
 
 Where was Sir James Chide ? 
 
 He looked into the smoking-room. A solitary figure 
 was sitting by the fire. Sir James had a new novel 
 beside him; but he was not reading, and his cigar lay 
 half smoked on the ash-tray beside him. 
 
 He was gazing into the blaze, his head on his hand, 
 and his quick start and turn as the door of the smoking- 
 room opened showed him to be not merely thoughtful 
 but expectant. 
 
 He sprang up. 
 
 "Is that you, Oliver?" 
 
 He came forward eagerly. He had known Marsham 
 from a child, had watched his career, and formed a very 
 shrewd opinion of his character. But how this supreme 
 moment would turn if, indeed, the supreme moment had 
 arrived Sir James had no idea. 
 
 Marsham closed the door behind him, and in the 
 lamplight the two men looked at each other. Marsham's 
 brow was furrowed, his cheeks pale. His eyes, restless 
 and bright, interrogated his old friend. At the first 
 glance Sir James understood. He thrust his hands into 
 his pockets. 
 
 "You know?" he said, under his breath. 
 
 Marsham nodded. 
 
 " And you have known it all along?" 
 
 " From the first moment, almost, that I set eyes on that 
 poor child. Does she know ? Have you broken it to her ?' ' 
 
 The questions hurried on each other's heels. Mar- 
 sham shook his head, and Sir James, turning away, made 
 a sound that was almost a groan. 
 
 214
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "You have proposed to her?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "And she has accepted you?" 
 
 "Yes." Marsham walked to the mantel-piece, and 
 hung over the fire. 
 
 Sir James watched him for a moment, twisting his 
 mouth. Then he walked up to his companion and laid 
 a hand on his arm. 
 
 "Stick it out, Oliver!" he said, breathing quick. 
 " vStick it out ! You'll have to fight but she's worth it." 
 
 Marsham's hand groped for his. Sir James pressed 
 it, and walked away again, his eyes on the carpet. When 
 he came back, he said, shortly: 
 
 " You know your mother will resist it to the last ?" 
 
 By this, Marsham had collected his forces, and as he 
 turned to the lamplight, Sir James saw a countenance 
 that reassured him. 
 
 " I have no hope of persuading her. It will have to 
 be faced." 
 
 " No, I fear there is no hope. She sees all such things 
 in a false light. Forgive me we must both speak plain- 
 ly. She will shudder at the bare idea of Juliet Sparling's 
 daughter as your wife; she will think it means a serious 
 injury to your career in reality it does nothing of the 
 sort and she will regard it as her duty to assert herself." 
 
 " You and Ferrier must do all you can for me," said 
 Marsham, slowly. 
 
 " We shall do everything we can, but I do not flatter 
 myself it will be of the smallest use. And supposing we 
 make no impression what then?" 
 
 Marsham paused a moment ; then looked up. 
 
 " You know the terms of my father's will ? I am ab- 
 solutely dependent on my mother. The allowance she 
 
 215
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 makes me at present is quite inadequate for a man in 
 Parliament, and she could stop it to-morrow." 
 
 " You might have to give up Parliament?" 
 
 " I should very likely have to give up Parliament." 
 
 Sir James ruminated, and took up his half-smoked 
 cigar for counsel. 
 
 " I can't imagine, Oliver, that your mother would push 
 her opposition to quite that point. But, in any case, you 
 have forgotten Miss Mallory's own fortune." 
 
 "It has never entered into my thoughts!" cried Mar- 
 sham, with an emphasis which Sir James knew to be 
 honest. " But, in any case, I cannot live upon my wife. 
 If I could not find something to do, I should certainly 
 give up politics." 
 
 His tone had become a little dry and bitter, his aspect 
 gray. 
 
 Sir James surveyed him a moment pondering. 
 
 "You will find plenty of ways out, Oliver plenty! 
 The sympathy of all the world will be with you. You 
 have won a beautiful and noble creature. She has been 
 brought up under a more than Greek fate. You will 
 rescue her from it. You will show her how to face it 
 and how to conquer it." 
 
 A tremor swept across Marsham's handsome mouth. 
 But the perplexity and depression in the face remained. 
 
 Sir James had a slight consciousness of rebuff. But 
 it disappeared in his own emotion. He resumed: 
 
 " She ought to be told the story perhaps with some 
 omissions at once. Her mother" he spoke with a 
 slow precision, forcing out the words "was not a bad 
 woman. If you like, I will break it to Miss Mallory. I 
 am probably more intimately acquainted with the story 
 than any one else now living." 
 
 216
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Something in the tone, in the solemnity of the blue 
 eyes, in the carriage of the gray head, touched Marsham 
 to the quick. He laid a hand on his old friend's shoulder 
 affectionately in mute thanks. 
 
 " Diana mentioned her father's solicitors " 
 
 " I know" interrupted Sir James " Riley & Bonner 
 excellent fellows both of them still living. They 
 probably have all the records. And I shouldn't wonder 
 if they have a letter from Sparling. He must have 
 made provision for the occasion that has now arisen." 
 
 "A letter? for Diana?" 
 
 Sir James nodded. " His behavior to her was a piece 
 of moral cowardice, I suppose. I saw a good deal of 
 him during the trial, of course, though it is years now 
 since I lost all trace of him. He was a sensitive, shy 
 fellow, wrapped up in his archaeology, and very ignorant 
 of the world when it all happened. It tore him up by 
 the roots. His life withered in a day." 
 
 Marsham flushed. 
 
 "He had no right to bring her up in this complete 
 ignorance! He could not have done anything more 
 cruel! more fatal! No one knows what the effect may / 
 be upon her." 
 
 And with a sudden rush of passion through the blood, 
 he seemed to hold her once more in his arms, he felt 
 the warmth of her cheek on his; all her fresh and fragrant 
 youth was present to him, the love in her voice, and in 
 her proud eyes. He turned away, threw himself into 
 a chair, and buried his face in his hands. 
 
 Sir James looked down upon him. Instead of sym- 
 pathy, there was a positive lightening in the elder man's 
 face a gleam of satisfaction. 
 
 " Cheer up, old fellow!" he said, in a low voice. " You'll 
 
 is 217
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 bring her through. You stand by her, and you'll reap 
 your reward. By Gad, there are many men who would 
 envy you the chance!" 
 
 Marsham made no reply. Was it his silence that 
 evoked in the mind of Sir James the figure which already 
 held the mind of his companion? the figure of Lady 
 Lucy? He paced up and down, with the image before 
 him the spare form, resolutely erect, the delicate resolu- 
 tion of the face, the prim perfection of the dress, judged 
 by the Quakerish standard of its owner. Lady Lucy 
 almost always wore gloves white or gray. In Sir 
 James's mind the remembrance of them took a symbolic 
 importance. What use in expecting the wearer of them 
 to handle the blood and mire of Juliet Sparling's story 
 with breadth and pity? 
 
 " Look here!" he said, coming to a sudden stop. " Let 
 us decide at once on what is to be done. You said noth- 
 ing to Miss Mallory?" 
 
 "Nothing. But she is already in some trouble and 
 misgiving about the past. She is in the mood to inquire ; 
 she has been, I think, for some time. And, naturally, she 
 wishes to hide nothing from me." 
 
 " She will write to Riley & Bonner," said Sir James, 
 quietly. " She will probably write to-night. They may 
 take steps to acquaint her with her history or they may 
 not. It depends. Meanwhile, who else is likely to know 
 anything about the engagement?" 
 
 "Diana was to tell Mrs. Colwood her companion; 
 no one else." 
 
 "Nice little woman! all right there! But" Sir 
 James gave a slight start "what about the cousin?" 
 
 "Miss Merton? Oh no! There is clearly no sym- 
 pathy between her and Diana. How could there be?" 
 
 218
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Yes but my dear fellow! that girl knows must 
 know everything there is to know! And she dislikes 
 Diana; she is jealous of her; that I saw quite plainly this 
 afternoon. And, moreover, she is probably quite well 
 informed about you and your intentions. She gossiped 
 half through lunch with that ill-bred fellow Birch. I 
 heard your name once or twice. Oh ! and by-the- 
 way!" Sir James turned sharply on his heel "what 
 was she confabulating about with Miss Drake all that 
 time in the garden ? Did they know each other before ?" 
 
 Marsham replied in the negative. But he, too, was 
 disagreeably arrested by the recollection of the two girls 
 walking together, and of the intimacy and animation of 
 their talk. And he could recall what Sir James had not 
 seen the strangeness of Alicia's manner, and the per- 
 emptoriness with which she had endeavored to carry him 
 home with her. Had she after hearing the story 
 tried to interrupt or postpone the crucial scene with 
 Diana ? That seemed to him the probable explanation, 
 and the idea roused in him a hot and impotent anger. 
 What business was it of hers ? 
 
 " H'm!" said Sir James. " You may be sure that Miss 
 Drake is now in the secret. She was very discreet on 
 the way home. But she will take sides; and not, I think, 
 with us. She seems to have a good deal of influence with 
 your mother." 
 
 Marsham reluctantly admitted it. 
 
 "My sister, too, will be hostile. Don't let's forget 
 that." 
 
 Sir James shrugged his .shoulders, with the smile of 
 one who is determined to keep his spirits up. 
 
 " Well, my dear Marsham, you have your battle cut 
 out for you! Don't delay it. Where is Lady Lucy ?" 
 
 219
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "In town." 
 
 " Can't you devise some excuse that will take you back 
 to her early to-morrow morning?" 
 
 Marsham thought over it. Easy enough, if only the 
 engagement were announced! But both agreed that 
 silence was imperative. Whatever chance there might 
 be with Lady Lucy would be entirely destroyed were the 
 matter made public before her son had consulted her. 
 
 "Everybody here is on the tiptoe of expectation," 
 said Sir James. " But that you know; you must face it 
 somehow. Invent a letter from Ferrier some party 
 contretemps anything! I'll help you through. And if 
 you see your mother in the morning, I will turn up in 
 the afternoon." 
 
 The two men paused. They were standing together 
 in conference ; but each was conscious of a background 
 of hurrying thoughts that had so far been hardly ex- 
 pressed at all. 
 
 Marsham suddenly broke out: 
 
 "Sir James! I know you thought there were excuses 
 
 I almost justification for what that poor creature did. 
 I was a boy of fifteen at the time you made your famous 
 speech, and I only know it by report. You spoke, of 
 course, as an advocate but I have heard it said that 
 you expressed your own personal belief. Wherever the 
 case is discussed, there are still as you know two 
 opinions one more merciful than the other. If the 
 line you took was not merely professional; if you per- 
 sonally believed your own case; can you give me some 
 of the arguments you were probably unable to state 
 them all in court that convinced you? Let me have 
 something wherewith to meet my mother. She won't 
 look at this altogether from the worldly point of view, 
 
 220
 
 The Testing o* Diana Mallory 
 
 She will have a standard of her own. Merely to belittle 
 the thing, as long past and forgotten, won't help me. 
 But if I could awaken her pity! if you could give me 
 the wherewithal " 
 
 Sir James turned away. He walked to the window 
 and stood there a minute, his face invisible. When he 
 returned, his pallor betrayed what his steady and digni- 
 fied composure would otherwise have concealed. 
 
 " I can tell you what Mrs. Sparling told me in prison 
 with the accents of a dying woman what I believed 
 then what I believe now. Moreover, I have some com- 
 paratively recent confirmation of this belief. But this 
 is too public!" he looked round the library " we might 
 be disturbed. Come to my room to-night. I shall go 
 up early, on the plea of letters. I always carry with me 
 certain documents. For her child's sake, I will show 
 them to you." 
 
 At the last words the voice of the speaker, rich in 
 every tender and tragic note, no less than in those of 
 irony or invective, wavered for the first time. He stooped 
 abruptly, took up the book he had been reading, and left 
 the room. 
 
 Marsham, too, went up-stairs. As he passed along 
 the main corridor to his room, lost in perplexity and 
 foreboding, he heard the sound of a woman's dress, 
 and, looking up, saw Alicia Drake coming toward 
 him. 
 
 She started at sight of him, and under the bright 
 electric light of the passage he saw her redden. 
 
 "Well, Oliver! you stayed a good while." 
 
 " Not so very long. I have been home nearly an hour. 
 I hope the horses went well!" 
 
 "Excellently. Do you know where Sir James is?" 
 
 221
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 It seemed to him the question was significantly asked. 
 He gave it a cold answer. 
 
 " Not at this moment. He was in the smoking-room 
 a little while ago." 
 
 He passed her abruptly. Alicia Drake pursued her 
 way to the hall. She was carrying some letters to the 
 post-box near the front door. When she arrived there 
 she dropped two of them in at once, and held the other 
 a moment in her hand, looking at it. It was addressed 
 to "Mrs. Fotheringham, Manningham House, Leeds." 
 
 Meanwhile, Diana herself was wrestling with her own 
 fate. 
 
 When Marsham rode away from her, and she had 
 watched his tall figure disappear into the dusk, she turned 
 back toward the house, and saw it and the world round 
 it with new eyes. The moon shone on the old front, 
 mellowing it to a brownish ivory; the shadows of the 
 trees lay clear on the whitened grass ; and in the luminous 
 air colors of sunrise and of moonrise blended, tints of 
 pearl, of gold, and purple. A consecrating beauty lay on 
 all visible things, and spoke to the girl's tender and pas- 
 sionate heart. In the shadow of the trees she stood a 
 moment, her hands clasped on her breast, recalling Mar- 
 sham's words of love and comfort, resting on him, reach- 
 ing out through him to the Power behind the world, 
 which spoke surely through this loveliness of the night, 
 this joy in the soul! 
 
 And yet, her mood, her outlook like Marsham's 
 was no longer what it had been on the hill-side. No 
 ugly light of revelation had broken upon her, as upon 
 him. But the conversation in the lime-walk had sobered 
 the first young exaltation of love ; it had somehow divided 
 
 222
 
 The Testing oil Diana Mallory 
 
 them from the happy lovers of every day; it had also 
 divided them she hardly knew how or why from that 
 moment on the hill when Oliver had spoken of imme- 
 diate announcement and immediate marriage. Nothing 
 was to be said except to Muriel till Lady Lucy knew. 
 She was glad. It made her bliss, in this intervening mo- 
 ment, more fully her own. She thought with yearning of 
 Oliver's interview with his mother. A filial, though a 
 trembling love sprang up in her. And the sense of having 
 come to shelter and to haven seemed to give her strength 
 for what she had never yet dared to face. The past was 
 now to be probed, interrogated. She was firmly resolved 
 to write to Riley & Bonner, to examine any papers there 
 might be ; not because she was afraid that anything might 
 come between her and Oliver; rather because now, with 
 his love to support her, she could bear whatever there 
 might be to bear. 
 
 She stepped into the house. Some one was strumming 
 in the drawing-room with intervals between the strum- 
 mings as though the player stopped to listen for some- 
 thing or some one. Diana shrank into herself. She ran 
 tip-stairs noiselessly to her sitting-room, and opened the 
 door as quietly as possible. 
 
 "Muriel!" 
 
 The voice was almost a whisper. Mrs. Colwood did 
 not hear it. She was bending over the fire, with her back 
 to the door, and a reading-lamp beside her. To her 
 amazement, Diana heard a sob, a sound of stifled grief, 
 which struck a sudden chill through her own excitement. 
 She paused a moment, and repeated her friend's name. 
 Mrs. Colwood started. She hastily rose, turning her face 
 from Diana. 
 
 " Is that you? I thought you were still out." 
 
 223
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Diana crossed the floor, and put her arm round the 
 little gentle woman, whose breath was still shaken by the 
 quiet sobs she was trying desperately to repress. 
 
 "Muriel, dear! what is it?" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood found her voice, and her composure. 
 
 "Nothing! I was foolish it doesn't matter." 
 
 Diana was sure she understood. She was suddenly 
 ashamed to bring her own happiness into this desolate 
 and widowed presence, and the kisses with which, mute- 
 ly, she tried to comfort her friend, were almost a plea to 
 be forgiven. 
 
 But Muriel drew herself away. She looked search- 
 ingly, with recovered self-command, into Diana's face. 
 
 "Has Mr. Marsham gone?" 
 
 "Yes," said Diana, looking at her. 
 
 Then the smile within broke out, flooding eyes and 
 lips. Under the influence of it, Mrs. Colwood' s small 
 tear - stained face passed through a quick instinctive 
 change. She, too, smiled as though she could not help it; 
 then she bent forward and kissed Diana. 
 
 "Is it all right?" 
 
 The peculiar eagerness in the tone struck Diana. She 
 returned the kiss, a little wistfully. 
 
 " Were you so anxious about me ? Wasn't it rather 
 plain?" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood laughed. 
 
 " Sit down there, and tell me all about it." 
 
 She pushed Diana into a chair and sat down at her 
 feet. Diana, with some difficulty, her hand over her 
 eyes, told all that could be told of a moment the heart of 
 which no true lover betrays. Muriel Colwood listened 
 with her face against the girl's dress, sometimes pressing 
 her lips to the hand beside her. 
 
 224
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " Is he going to see Lady Lucy to-morrow ?" she asked, 
 when Diana paused. 
 
 " Yes. He goes up by the first train." 
 
 Both were silent awhile. Diana, in the midst of all 
 the natural flutter of blood and pulse, was conscious of a 
 strong yearning to tell her friend more to say : " And 
 he has brought me comfort and courage as well as love ! 
 I shall dare now to look into the past to take up my 
 father's burden. If it hurts, Oliver will help me." 
 
 But she had been brought up in a school of reticence, 
 and her loyalty to her father and mother sealed her lips. 
 That anxiety, that burden, nobody must share with her 
 but Oliver and perhaps his mother ; his mother, so soon 
 to be hers. 
 
 Muriel Colwood, watching her face, could hardly re- 
 strain herself. But the moment for which her whole 
 being was waiting in a tension scarcely to be borne had 
 not yet come. She chastened and rebuked her own 
 dread. 
 
 They talked a little of the future. Diana, in a blessed 
 fatigue, threw herself back in her chair, and chattered 
 softly, listening now and then for the sounds of the 
 piano in the room below, and evidently relieved when- 
 ever, after a silence, fresh fragments from some comic 
 opera of the day, much belied in the playing, penetrated 
 to the upper floor. Meanwhile, neither of them spoke of 
 Fanny Merton. Diana, with a laugh, repeated Mar- 
 sham's proposal for a six weeks' engagement. That was 
 absurd! But, after all, it could not be very long. She 
 hoped Oliver would be content to keep Beechcote. They 
 could, of course, always spend a good deal of time with 
 Lady Lucy. 
 
 And in mentioning that name she showed not the 
 
 225
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 smallest misgiving, not a trace of uneasiness, while 
 every time it was uttered it pricked the shrinking sense 
 of her companion. Mrs. Colwood had not watched and 
 listened during her Tallyn visit for nothing. 
 
 At last a clock struck down-stairs, and a door opened. 
 Diana sprang up. 
 
 "Time to dress! And I've left Fanny alone all this 
 while!" 
 
 She hurried toward the door; then turned back. 
 
 "Please! I'm not going to tell Fanny just yet. 
 Neither Fanny nor any one till Lady Lucy knows. 
 What happened after we went away? Was Fanny 
 amused?" 
 
 "Very much, I should say." 
 
 " She made friends with Miss Drake?" 
 
 "They were inseparable, till Miss Drake departed." 
 
 Diana laughed. 
 
 "How odd! That I should never have prophesied. 
 And Mr. Birch? I needn't have him to lunch again, 
 need I?" 
 
 "Miss Merton invited him to tea on Saturday." 
 
 Diana reddened. 
 
 "Must I !" she said, impetuously; then stopped her- 
 self, and opened the door. 
 
 ^Outside, Fanny Merton was just mounting the stairs, 
 a candle in her hand. She stopped in astonishment at 
 the sight of Diana. 
 
 "Diana! where have you been all this time?" 
 
 "Only talking to Muriel. We heard you playing; 
 so we thought you weren't dull," said Diana, rather 
 penitently. 
 
 " I was only playing till you came in," was the sharp 
 reply. "When did Mr. Marsham go?" 
 
 226
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Diana by this time was crossing the landing to the 
 door of her room, with Fanny behind her. 
 
 "Oh, quite an hour ago. Hadn't we better dress? 
 Dinner will be ready directly." 
 
 Fanny took no notice. She entered her cousin's room, 
 in Diana's wake. 
 
 "Well?" she said, interrogatively. She leaned her 
 back against the wardrobe, and folded her arms. 
 
 Diana turned. She met Fanny's black eyes, sparkling 
 with excitement. 
 
 " I'll give you my news at dinner," said Diana, flushing 
 against her will. " And I want to know how you liked 
 Miss Drake." 
 
 Fanny's eyes shot fire. 
 
 "That's all very fine! That means, of course, that 
 you're not going to tell me anything!" 
 
 "Fanny!" cried Diana, helplessly. She was held 
 spellbound by the passion, the menace in the girl's look. 
 But the touch of shrinking in her attitude roused brutal 
 Violence in Fanny. 
 
 "Yes, it does!" she said, fiercely. "I understand! 
 don't I! I am not good enough for you, and you'll 
 make me feel it. You're going to make a smart marriage, 
 and you won't care whether you ever set eyes on any of 
 us again. Oh! I know you've given us money or you 
 say you will. If I knew which side my bread was but- 
 tered, I suppose I should hold my tongue. But when 
 you treat me like the dirt under your feet when you tell 
 everything to that woman Mrs. Colwood, who's no rela- 
 tion, and nothing in the world to you and leave me 
 kicking my heels all alone, because I'm not the kind you 
 want, and you wish to goodness I'd never come when 
 you show as plain as you can that I'm a common creat- 
 
 227
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 ure not fit to pick up your gloves! I tell you I just 
 won't stand it. No one would who knew what I 
 know!" 
 
 The last words were flung in Diana's teeth with all 
 the force that wounded pride and envious wrath could 
 give them. Diana tottered a little. Her hand clung to 
 the dressing-table behind her. 
 
 "What do you know?" she said. "Tell me at once 
 what you mean." 
 
 Fanny contemptuously shook her head. She walked 
 to the door, and before Diana could stop her, she had 
 rushed across to her own room and locked herself in. 
 
 There she walked up and down panting. She hardly 
 understood her own rage, and she was quite conscious 
 that, for her own interests, she had acted during the 
 whole afternoon like a fool. First, stung by the pique 
 excited in her by the talk of the luncheon-table, she had 
 let herself be exploited and explored by Alicia Drake. 
 She had not meant to tell her secret, but somehow she had 
 told it, simply to give herself importance with this smart 
 lady, and to feel her power over Diana. Then, it was no 
 sooner told than she was quickly conscious that she had 
 given away an advantage, which from a tactical point of 
 view she had infinitely better have kept; and that the 
 command of the situation might have passed from her to 
 this girl whom Diana had supplanted. Furious with 
 herself, she had tried to swear Miss Drake to silence, only 
 to be politely but rather scornfully put aside. 
 
 Then the party had broken up. Mr. Birch had been 
 offended by the absence of the hostess, and had vouch- 
 safed but a careless good-bye to Miss Merton. The Rough- 
 sedges went off without asking her to visit them; and as 
 for the Captain, he was an odious young man. Since 
 
 228
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 their departure, Mrs. Colwood had neglected her, and 
 now Diana's secret return, her long talk with Mrs. Col- 
 wood, had filled the girl's cup of bitterness. She had 
 secured that day a thousand pounds for her family and 
 herself; and at the end of it, she merely felt that the day 
 had been an abject and intolerable failure! Did the fact 
 that she so felt it bear strange witness to the truth that 
 at the bottom of her anger and her cruelty there was a 
 masked and distorted something which was not wholly 
 vile which was, in fact, the nature's tribute to something 
 nobler than itself ? That Diana shivered at and repulsed 
 her was the hot-iron that burned and seared. And that 
 she richly deserved it and knew it made its smart not 
 a whit the less. 
 
 Fanny did not appear at dinner. Mrs. Colwood and 
 Diana dined alone Diana very white and silent. After 
 dinner, Diana began slowly to climb the shallow old stair- 
 case. Mrs. Colwood followed her. 
 
 "Where are you going?" she said, trying to hold her 
 back. 
 
 Diana looked at her. In the girl's eyes there was a 
 sudden and tragic indignation. 
 
 "Do you all know?" she said, under her breath "all 
 all of you?" And again she began to mount, with a 
 resolute step. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood dared not follow her any farther. Diana 
 went quickly up and along the gallery; she knocked at 
 Fanny's door. After a moment Mrs. Colwood heard it 
 opened, and a parley of voices Fanny's short and sul- 
 len, Diana's very low. Then the door closed, and Mrs. 
 Colwood knew that the cousins were together. 
 
 How the next twenty minutes passed, Mrs. Colwood 
 
 229
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 could never remember. At the end of them she heard 
 steps slowly coming down the stairs, and a cry her own 
 name not in Diana's voice. She ran out into the hall. 
 
 At the top of the stairs, stood Fanny Merton, not 
 daring to move farther. Her eyes were starting out of 
 her head, her face flushed and distorted. 
 
 "You go to her!" She stooped, panting, over the 
 balusters, addressing Mrs. Colwood. "She won't let 
 me touch her." 
 
 Diana descended, groping. At the foot of the stairs 
 she caught at Mrs. Colwood' s hand, went swaying across 
 the hall and into the drawing-room. There she closed 
 the door, and looked into Mrs. Colwood's eyes. Muriel 
 saw a face in which bloom and first youth were forever 
 dead, though in its delicate features horror was still 
 beautiful. She threw her arms round the girl, weeping. 
 But Diana put her aside. She walked to a chair, and sat 
 down. " My mother " she said, looking up. 
 
 Her voice dropped. She moistened her dry lips, and 
 began once more: "My mother " 
 
 But the brain could maintain its flickering strength no 
 longer. There was a low cry of "Oliver!" that stabbed 
 the heart; then, suddenly, her limbs were loosened, and 
 she sank back, unconscious, out of her friend's grasp and 
 ken.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 HER ladyship will be here directly, sir." 
 Lady Lucy's immaculate butler opened the door 
 of her drawing-room in Eaton Square, ushered in Sir 
 James Chide, noiselessly crossed the room to see to the 
 firfej and then as noiselessly withdrew. 
 
 " Impossible that any one should be as respectable as 
 that man looks!" thought Sir James, impatiently. He 
 walked forward to the fire, warmed hands and feet chilled 
 by a nipping east wind, and then, with his back to the 
 warmth, he examined the room. 
 
 It was very characteristic of its mistress. At Tallyn 
 Henry Marsham had worked his will; here, in this house 
 taken since his death, it was the will and taste of his 
 widow which had prevailed. A gray paper with a small 
 gold sprig upon it, sofas and chairs not too luxurious, a 
 Brussels carpet, dark and unobtrusive, and chintz cur- 
 tains; on the walls, drawings by David Cox, Copley Field- 
 ing, and De Wint ; a few books with Mudie labels ; costly 
 photographs of friends and relations, especially of the 
 relations' babies; on one table, and under a glass case, a 
 model in pith of Lincoln Cathedral, made by Lady Lucy's 
 uncle, who had been a Canon of Lincoln; on another, a 
 set of fine carved chessmen; such was the furniture of 
 the room. It expressed and with emphasis the tastes 
 and likings of that section of English society in which, 
 firmly based as it is upon an ample supply of all material 
 
 231
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 goods, a. seemly and intelligent interest in things ideal and 
 spiritual is also to be found. Everything in the room 
 was in its place, and had been in its place for years. 
 Sir James got no help from the contemplation of it. 
 
 The door opened, and Lady Lucy came quietly in. 
 Sir James looked at her sharply as they shook hands. 
 She had more color than usual; but the result was to 
 make the face look older, and certain lines in it dis- 
 agreeably prominent. Very likely she had been crying. 
 He hoped she had. 
 
 " Oliver told you to expect me ?" 
 
 She assented. Then, still standing, she looked at him 
 steadily. 
 
 "This is a very terrible affair, Sir James." 
 
 " Yes. It must have been a great shock to you." 
 v " Oh ! that does not matter," she said, impatiently. " I 
 must not think of myself. I must think of Oliver. Will 
 you sit down?" 
 
 She motioned him, in her stately way, to a seat. He 
 realized, as he faced her, that he beheld her in a new 
 aspect. She was no longer the gracious and smiling 
 hostess, as her familiar friends knew her, both at Tallyn 
 and in London. Her manner threw a sudden light on 
 certain features in her history: Marsham's continued de- 
 pendence on his mother and inadequate allowance, the 
 autocratic ability shown in the management of the Tallyn 
 household and estates, management in which Marsham 
 was allowed practically no share at all, and other traits 
 and facts long known to him. The gentle, scrupulous, 
 composed woman of every day had vanished in some- 
 thing far more vigorously drawn ; he felt himself confront- 
 ed by a personality as strong as, and probably more stub- 
 born than his own. 
 
 232
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Lady Lucy seated herself. She quietly arranged the 
 folds of her black satin dress; she drew forward a stool, 
 and rested her feet upon it. Sir James watched her, 
 uncertain how to begin. But she saved him the de- 
 cision. 
 
 "I have had a painful interview with my son " she 
 said, quietly. " It could not be otherwise, and I can only 
 hope that in a little while he will do me justice. Oliver 
 will join us presently. And now first, Sir James, let 
 me ask you you really believe that Miss Mallory has 
 been till now in ignorance of her mother's history?" 
 
 Sir James started. 
 
 "Good Heavens, Lady Lucy! Can you do you 
 suppose anything else?" 
 
 Lady Lucy paused before replying. 
 
 " I cannot suppose it since both you and my son 
 and Mr. Ferrier have so high an opinion of her. But it 
 is a strange and mysterious thing that she should have 
 remained in this complete ignorance all these years and 
 a cruel thing, of course to everybody concerned." 
 
 Sir James nodded. 
 
 " I agree. It was a cruel thing, though it was done, 
 no doubt, from the tenderest motives. The suffering was 
 bound to be not less but more, sooner or later." 
 
 " Miss Mallory is very greatly to be pitied. But it is, 
 of course, clear that my son proposed to he/, not knowing 
 what it was essential that he should know." 
 
 Sir James paused. 
 
 "We are old friends, Lady Lucy you and I," he 
 said at last, with deliberation; and as he spoke he bent 
 forward and took her hand. " I am sure you will let me 
 ask you a few questions." 
 
 Lady Lucy made no reply. Her hand without any 
 
 16 233
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 movement of withdrawal or rebuff gently dropped from 
 his. 
 
 "You have been, I think, much attracted by Miss 
 Mallory herself?" 
 
 " Very much attracted. Up to this morning I thought 
 that she would make an excellent wife for Oliver. But 
 I have been acting, of course, throughout under a false 
 impression." 
 
 "Is it your feeling that to marry her would injure 
 Oliver's career?" 
 
 "Certainly. But that is not what weighs with me 
 most heavily." 
 
 " I did not for a moment believe that it would. How- 
 ever, let us take the career first. This is how I look at 
 it. If the marriage went forward, there would no doubt 
 be some scandal and excitement at first, when the truth 
 was known. But Oliver's personality and the girl's 
 charm would soon live it down. In this strange world 
 I am not at all sure it might not in the end help their 
 future. Oliver would be thought to have done a gener- 
 ous and romantic thing, and his wife's goodness and 
 beauty would be all the more appreciated for the back- 
 ground of tragedy." 
 
 Lady Lucy moved impatiently. 
 
 " Sir James I am a plain person, with plain ideas. 
 The case would present itself to me very differently ; and 
 I believe that my view would be that of the ordinary man 
 and woman. However, I repeat, that is not what I think 
 of first by any means." 
 
 " You think of the criminal taint ? the risk to Oliver 
 and to Oliver's children?" 
 
 She made a sign of assent. 
 
 "Character and the protection of character is not 
 234
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 that what we have to think of above all in this world 
 of temptation ? We can none of us afford to throw away 
 the ordinary helps and safeguards. How can I possibly 
 aid and abet Oliver's marriage with the daughter of a 
 woman who first robbed her own young sister, in a 
 peculiarly mean and cruel way, and then committed a 
 deliberate and treacherous murder?" 
 
 "Wait a moment!" exclaimed Sir James, holding up 
 his hand. " Those adjectives, believe me, are unjust." 
 
 " I know that you think so," was the animated reply. 
 "But I remember the case; I have my own opinion." 
 
 " They are unjust," repeated Sir James, with emphasis. 
 " Then it is really the horror of the thing itself not so 
 much its possible effect on social position and opinion, 
 which decides you?" 
 
 "I ask myself I must ask myself," said his com- 
 panion, with equal emphasis, forcing the words : " can I 
 help Oliver to marry the daughter of a convicted mur- 
 deress and adulteress?" 
 
 'No!" said Sir James, holding up his hand again 
 "No!" 
 
 Lady Lucy fell back in her chair. Her unwonted 
 color had disappeared, and the old hand lying in her 
 lap a hand thin to emaciation shook a little. 
 
 " Is not this too painful for us both, Sir James? can 
 we continue it? I have my duty to think of; and yet 
 I cannot, naturally, speak to you with entire frankness. 
 Nor can I possibly regard your view as an impartial one. 
 Forgive me. I should not have dreamed of referring to 
 the matter in any other circumstances." 
 
 " Certainly, I am not impartial," said Sir James, look- 
 ing up. "You know that, of course, well enough." 
 
 He spoke in a strong full voice. Lady Lucy encoun- 
 
 235
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 tered a. singular vivacity in the gray eyes, as though 
 the whole power of the man's personality backed the 
 words. 
 
 " Believe me," she said, with dignity, and not without 
 kindness, " it is not I who would revive such memories." 
 
 Sir James nodded quietly. 
 
 "I am not impartial; but I am well informed. It 
 was my view which affected the judge, and ultimately the 
 Home Office. And since the trial in quite recent years 
 I have received a strange confirmation of it which 
 has never been made public. Did Oliver report this to 
 you?" 
 
 "He told me certain facts," said Lady Lucy, un- 
 willingly ; " but I did not see that they made much dif- 
 ference." 
 
 "Perhaps he did not give them the right emphasis," 
 said Sir James, calmly. " Will you allow me to tell you 
 the whole story? as it appears to me." 
 
 Lady Lucy looked distressed. 
 
 "Is it worth while," she said, earnestly, "to give 
 yourself so much pain ? I cannot imagine that it could 
 alter the view I take of my duty." 
 
 Sir James flushed, and sternly straightened himself. 
 It was a well-known gesture, and ominous to many a 
 prisoner in the dock. 
 
 "Worth while!" he said. "Worth while! when 
 your son's future may depend on the judgment you 
 form." 
 
 The sharpness of his tone called the red also to Lady 
 Lucy's cheek. 
 
 " Can anything that may be said now alter the irrev- 
 ocable?" she asked, in protest. 
 
 " It cannot bring the dead to life ; but if you are really 
 
 236
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 more influenced in this matter by the heinousness of the 
 crime itself, by the moral infection, so to speak that 
 may spring from any kinship with Juliet Sparling or in- 
 heritance from her than by any dread of social disgrace 
 or disadvantage if that be true! then for Oliver's sake 
 for that poor child's sake you ought to listen to me! 
 There, I can meet you there, I have much to say." 
 
 He looked at her earnestly. The slight, involuntary 
 changes of expression in Lady Lucy, as he was speaking, 
 made him say to himself : " She is not indifferent to the 
 social stigma she deceives herself!" But he made no 
 sign of his perception; he held her to her word. 
 
 She paused, in evident hesitation, saying at last, with 
 some coldness: 
 
 " If you wish it, Sir James, of course I am quite ready 
 to listen. I desire to do nothing harshly." 
 
 " I will not keep you long." 
 
 Bending forward, his hands on his knees, his eyes 
 upon the ground, he thought a moment. When he began 
 to speak, it was in a quiet and perfectly colorless tone. 
 
 "I knew Juliet Went worth first when she was seven- 
 teen. I was on the Midland Circuit, and went down to 
 the Milchester Assizes. Her father was High Sheriff, 
 and asked me, with other barristers of the Circuit, not 
 only to his official dinner in the county town, but to 
 luncheon at his house, a mile or two away. There I saw 
 Miss Wentworth. She made a deep impression on me. 
 After the Assizes were over, I stayed at her father's house 
 and in the neighborhood. Within a month I proposed to 
 her. She refused me. I merely mention these circum- 
 stances for the sake of reporting my first impressions of 
 her character. She was very young, and of an extraor- 
 dinarily nervous and sensitive organization. She used 
 
 237
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 to remind me of Horace's image of the young fawn 
 trembling and starting in the mountain paths at the 
 rustling of a leaf or the movement of a lizard. I felt 
 then that her life might very well be a tragedy, and I 
 passionately desired to be able to protect and help her. 
 However, she would have nothing to do with me, and 
 after a little while I lost sight of her. I did happen to 
 hear that her father, having lost his first wife, had married 
 again, that the girl was not happy at home, and had gone 
 off on a long visit to some friends in the United States. 
 Then for years I heard nothing. One evening, about ten 
 years after my first meeting with her, I read in the even- 
 ing papers the accounts of a ' Supposed Murder at Brigh- 
 ton.' Next morning Riley & Bonner retained me for 
 the defence. Mr. Riley came to see me, with Mr. Sparling, 
 the husband of the incriminated lady, and it was in the 
 course of my consultation with them that I learned who 
 Mrs. Sparling was. I had to consider whether to take 
 up the case or not; I saw at once it would be a fight for 
 her life, and I accepted it." 
 
 "What a terrible terrible position!" murmured 
 Lady Lucy, who was shading her eyes with her hand. 
 
 Sir James took no notice. His trained mind and sense 
 were now wholly concerned with the presentation of his 
 story. 
 
 "The main facts, as I see them, were these. Juliet 
 Wentworth had married four years before this date a 
 scholar and archaeologist whom she had met at Harvard 
 during her American stay. Mr. Sparling was an English- 
 man, and a man of some means who was devoting him- 
 self to exploration in Asia Minor. The marriage was not 
 really happy, though they were in love with each other. 
 In both there was a temperament touched with melan- 
 
 338
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 choly, and a curious incapacity to accept the common 
 facts of life. Both hated routine, and were always rest- 
 less for new experience. Mrs. Sparling was brilliant in 
 society. She was wonderfully handsome, in a small 
 slight way; her face was not unlike Miss Curran's picture 
 of Shelley the same wildness and splendor in the eyes, 
 the same delicacy of feature, the same slight excess of 
 breadth across the cheek-bones, and curly mass of hair. 
 She was odd, wayward, eccentric yet always lovable 
 and full of charm. He was a fine creature in many ways, 
 but utterly unfit for practical life. His mind was always 
 dreaming of buried treasure the treasure of the archae- 
 ologist : tombs, vases, gold ornaments, papyri; he had 
 the passion of the excavator and explorer. 
 
 "They came back to England from America shortly 
 after their marriage, and their child was born. The little 
 girl was three years old when Sparling went off to dig in 
 a remote part of Asia Minor. His wife resented his 
 going; but there is no doubt that she was still deeply in 
 love with him. She herself took a little house at Brigh- 
 ton for the child's sake. Her small startling beauty soon 
 made her remarked, and her acquaintances rapidly in- 
 creased. She was too independent and unconventional 
 to ask many questions about the people that amused her; 
 she took them as they came " 
 
 "Sir James! dear Sir James." Lady Lucy raised a 
 pair of imploring hands. " What good can it do that you 
 should tell me all this ? It shows that this poor creature 
 had a wild, undisciplined character. Could any one ever 
 doubt it?" 
 
 "Wild? undisciplined?" repeated Sir James. "Well, 
 if you think that you have disposed of the mystery of 
 it by those adjectives! For me looking back she was 
 
 239
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 what life and temperament and heredity had made her. 
 Up to this point it was an innocent wildness. She 
 could lose herself in art or music ; she did often the most 
 romantic and generous things; she adored her child; 
 and but for some strange kink in the tie that bound them, 
 she would have adored her husband. Well!" he shrug- 
 ged his shoulders mournfully " there it is : she was 
 alone she was beautiful she had no doubt a sense of 
 being neglected she was thirsting for some deeper 
 draught of life than had yet been hers and by the hide- 
 ous irony of fate she found it in gambling ! and in the 
 friendship which ruined her!" 
 
 Sir James paused. Rising from his chair, he began to 
 pace the large room. The immaculate butler came in, 
 made up the fire, and placed the tea : domestic and com- 
 fortable rites, in grim contrast with the story that held 
 the minds of Lady Lucy and her guest. She sat motion- 
 less meanwhile; the butler withdrew, and the tea re- 
 mained untouched. 
 
 " Sir Francis and Lady Wing the two fiends who 
 got possession of her had been settled at Brighton for 
 about a year. Their debts had obliged them to leave 
 London, and they had not yet piled up a sufficient moun- 
 tain of fresh ones to drive them out of Brighton. The 
 man was the disreputable son of a rich and hard- working 
 father who, in the usual way, had damned his son by re- 
 moving all incentives to work, and turning him loose 
 with a pile of money. He had married an adventuress 
 a girl with a music-hall history, some beauty, plenty of 
 vicious ability, and no more conscience than a stone. 
 They were the centre of a gambling and racing set; but 
 Lady Wing was also a very fine musician, and it was 
 through this talent of hers that she and Juliet Sparling 
 
 240
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 became acquainted. They met, first, at a charity con- 
 cert! Mrs. Sparling had a fine voice, Lady Wing accom- 
 panied her. The Wings flattered her, and professed to 
 adore her. Her absent whimsical character prevented 
 her from understanding what kind of people they were; 
 and in her great ignorance of the world, combined with 
 her love of the romantic and the extreme, she took the 
 persons who haunted their house for Bohemians, when 
 she should have known them the majority of them 
 for scoundrels. You will remember that baccarat was 
 then the rage. The Wings played it incessantly, and 
 were very skilful in the decoying and plunder of young 
 men. Juliet Sparling was soon seized by the excitement 
 of the game, and her beauty, her evident good breeding 
 and good faith, were of considerable use to the Wings' 
 manage. Very soon she had lost all the money that her 
 husband had left to her credit, and her bankers wrote to 
 notify her that she was overdrawn. A sudden terror of 
 Sparling's displeasure seized her; she sold a bracelet, 
 and tried to win back what she had lost. The result was 
 only fresh loss, and in a panic she played on and on, till 
 one disastrous night she got up from the baccarat-table 
 heavily in debt to one or two persons, including Sir 
 Francis Wing. With the morning came a letter from 
 her husband, remonstrating in a rather sharp tone on 
 what her own letters and probably an account from 
 some other source had told him of her life at Brighton ; 
 insisting on the need for economy, owing to his own 
 heavy expenses in the great excavation he was engaged 
 upon; and expressing the peremptory hope that she 
 would make the money he had left her last for another 
 two months " 
 
 Sir James lingered in his walk. He stared out of 
 
 241
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 window at the square garden for a few moments, then 
 turned to look frowning at his companion. 
 
 "Then came her temptation. Her father had died 
 a year before, leaving her the trustee of her only sister, 
 who was not yet of age. It had taken some little time to 
 wind up his affairs; but on the day after she received 
 her husband's letter of remonstrance, six thousand 
 pounds out of her father's estate was paid into her bank- 
 ing account. By this time she was in one of those states 
 of excitement and unreasoning terror to which she had 
 been liable from her childhood. She took the trust mon- 
 ey in order to pay the debts, and then gambled again in 
 order to replace the trust money. Her motive through- 
 out wad the motive of the hunted creature. She was 
 afraid of confessing to her husband, especially by letter. 
 She believed he would cast her off and in her despair 
 and remorse she clung to his affection, and to the hope 
 of his coming home, as she had never yet done. 
 
 11 In less than a month in spite of ups and downs of 
 fortune, probably skilfully contrived by Francis Wing 
 and his accomplices for there can be no question that 
 the play was fraudulent she had lost four thousand out 
 of the six; and it is clear that more than once she thought 
 of suicide as the only way out, and nothing but the 
 remembrance of the child restrained her. By this time 
 Francis Wing, who was a most handsome, well - bred, 
 and plausible villain, was desperately in love with her 
 if one can use the word love for such a passion. He 
 began to lend her money in small sums. She was in- 
 duced to look upon him as her only friend, and forced 
 by the mere terror of the situation in which she found 
 herself to propitiate and play him as best she might. 
 One day, in an unguarded moment of remorse, she let 
 
 242
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 him guess what had happened about the trust money. 
 Thenceforward she was wholly in his power. He pressed 
 his attentions upon her; and she, alternately civil and 
 repellent, as her mood went, was regarded by some of 
 the guests in the house as not unlikely to respond to 
 them in the end. Meanwhile he had told his wife the 
 secret of the trust money for his own purposes. Lady 
 Wing, who was an extremely jealous woman, believed at 
 this time that he was merely pretending a passion for 
 Mrs. Sparling in order the more securely to plunder what 
 still remained of the six thousand pounds. She therefore 
 aided and abetted him; and her plan, no doubt, was to 
 wait till they and their accomplices had absorbed the last 
 of Mrs. Sparling's money, and then to make a midnight 
 flitting, leaving their victim to her fate. 
 
 " The denouement, however, came with frightful rapid- 
 ity. The Wings had taken an old house at the back of 
 the downs for the summer, no doubt to escape from some 
 of the notoriety they had gained in Brighton. There to 
 her final ruin Juliet Sparling was induced to join them, 
 and gambling began again; she still desperately hoping 
 to replace the trust money, and salving her conscience, 
 as to her sister, by drawing for the time on tfye sums lent 
 her by Francis Wing. Here at last Lady Wing's sus- 
 picion was aroused, and Mrs. Sparling found herself be- 
 tween the hatred of the wife and the dishonorable pas- 
 sion of the husband. Yet to leave them would be the 
 signal for exposure. For some time the presence of other 
 guests protected her. Then the guests left, and one 
 August night after dinner, Francis Wing, who had drunk 
 a great deal of champagne, made frantic love to her. She 
 escaped from him with difficulty, in a passion of loathing 
 and terror, and rushed in-doors, where she found Lady 
 
 243
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Wing in the gallery of the old house, on the first floor, 
 walking up and down in a jealous fury. Juliet Sparling 
 burst in upon her with the reproaches of a woman driven 
 to bay, threatening to go at once to her husband and 
 make a clean breast of the whole history of their miser- 
 able acquaintance. She was practically beside herself 
 already, as the sequel showed, mortally ill, worn out by 
 remorse and sleeplessness, and quivering under the insult 
 which had been offered her. Lady Wing recovered her 
 own self-possession under the stimulus of Juliet's break- 
 down. She taunted her in the crudest way, accused her 
 of being the temptress in the case of Sir Francis, and of 
 simulating a hypocritical indignation in order to save 
 herself with her husband, and finally charged her with 
 the robbery of her sister's money, declaring that as soon 
 as daylight came she would take steps to set the crimi- 
 nal law in motion, and so protect both herself and her 
 husband from any charge such a woman might bring 
 against them. The threat, of course, was mere bluff. 
 But Mrs. Sparling, in her frenzy and her ignorance, took 
 it for truth. Finally, the fierce creature came up to her, 
 snatching at a brooch in the bosom of her dress, and 
 crying out in the vilest language that it was Sir Francis's 
 gift. Juliet, pushed up against the panelling of the 
 gallery, caught at a dagger belonging to a trophy of 
 Eastern arms displayed on the wall, close to her hand, 
 and struck wildly at her tormentor. The dagger pierced 
 Lady Wing's left breast she was in evening dress and 
 dtcolktee; it penetrated to the heart, and she fell dead at 
 Juliet's feet as her husband entered the gallery. Juliet 
 dropped the dagger; and as Sir Francis rushed to his 
 wife, she fled shrieking up the stairs her white dress 
 covered with blood to her own room, falling uncon- 
 
 244
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 scious before she reached it. She was carried to her 
 room by the servants the police were sent for and the 
 rest or most of the rest you know." 
 
 Sir James ceased speaking. A heavy silence possessed 
 the room. 
 
 Sir James walked quickly up to his companion. 
 
 " Now I ask you to notice two points in the story as I 
 have told it. My cross-examination of Wing served its 
 purpose as an exposure of the man except in one di- 
 rection. He swore that Mrs. Sparling had made dis- 
 honorable advances to him, and had finally become his 
 mistress, in order to buy his silence on the trust money 
 and the continuance of his financial help. On the other 
 hand, the case for the defence was that as I have 
 stated it was in the maddened state of feeling, provoked 
 by his attack upon her honor, and made intolerable 
 by the wife's taunts and threats, that Juliet Sparling 
 struck the fatal blow. At the trial the judge believed 
 me ; the jury and a large part of the public you, 
 I have no doubt among them believed Wing. The 
 jury were probably influenced by some of the evidence 
 given by the fellow-guests in the house, which seemed 
 to me simply to amount to this that a woman in the 
 strait in which Juliet Sparling was will endeavor, out of 
 mortal fear, to keep the ruffian who has her in his power 
 in a good-humor." 
 
 " However, I have now confirmatory evidence for my 
 theory of the matter evidence which has never been 
 produced and which I tell you now simply because 
 the happiness of her child and of your son is at 
 stake." 
 
 Lady Lucy moved a little. The color returned to her 
 cheeks. Sir James, however, gave her no time to in- 
 
 245
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 ternipt. He stood before her, smiting one hand against 
 another, to emphasize his words, as he continued: 
 
 "Francis Wing lived for some eighteen years after 
 Mrs. Sparling's death. Then, just as the police were at 
 last on his track as the avengers of a long series of frauds, 
 he died at Antwerp in extreme poverty and degradation. 
 The day before he died he dictated a letter to me, which 
 reached me, through a priest, twenty-four hours after his 
 death. For his son's sake, he invited me to regard it as 
 confidential. If Mrs. Sparling had been alive I should, 
 of course, have taken no notice of the request. But she 
 had been dead for eighteen years; I had lost sight com- 
 pletely of Sparling and the child, and, curiously enough, 
 I knew something of Wing's son. He was about ten 
 years old at the death of his mother, and was then 
 rescued from his father by the Wing kindred and de- 
 cently brought up. At the time the letter reached me 
 he was a promising young man of eight-and- twenty, he 
 had just been called to the Bar, and he was in the 
 chambers of a friend of mine. By publishing Wing's 
 confession I could do no good to the dead, and I 
 might harm the living. So I held my tongue. 
 Whether, now, I should still hold it is, no doubt, a 
 question. 
 
 " However, to go back to the statement. Wing de- 
 clared to me in this letter that Juliet Sparling's relation 
 to him had been absolutely innocent, that he had per- 
 secuted her with his suit, and she had never given him a 
 friendly word, except out of fear. On the fatal evening 
 he had driven her out of her mind, he said, by his be- 
 havior in the garden; she was not answerable for her 
 actions; and his evidence at the trial was merely dictated 
 either by the desire to make his own case look less black 
 
 246
 
 The Testing o* Diana Mallory 
 
 or by the fiendish wish to punish Juliet Sparling for her 
 loathing of him. 
 
 "But he confessed something else! more important 
 still. I must go back a little. You will remember my 
 version of the dagger incident? I represented Mrs. 
 Sparling as finding the dagger on the wall as she was 
 pushed or dragged up against the panelling by her an- 
 tagonist as it were, under her hand. Wing swore at 
 the trial that the dagger was not there, and had never 
 been there. The house belonged to an old traveller and 
 sportsman who had brought home arms of different sorts 
 from all parts of the world. The house was full of them. 
 There were two collections of them on the wall of the 
 dining-room, one in the hall, and one or two in the 
 gallery. Wing declared that the dagger used was taken 
 by Juliet Sparling from the hall trophy, and must have 
 been carried up-stairs with a deliberate purpose of mur- 
 der. According to him, their quarrel in the garden had 
 been a quarrel about money matters, and Mrs. Sparling 
 had left him, in great excitement, convinced that the 
 chief obstacle in the way of her complete control of Wing 
 and his money lay in the wife. There again as to the 
 weapon I had no means of refuting him. As far as the 
 appearance after the murder of the racks holding the 
 arms was concerned, the weapon might have been taken 
 from either place. And again on the whole the jury 
 believed Wing. The robbery of the sister's money the 
 incredible rapidity of Juliet Sparling's deterioration 
 had set them against her. Her wild beauty, her proud 
 and dumb misery in the dock, were of a kind rather to 
 alienate the plain man than to move him. They be- 
 lieved her capable of anything and it was natural 
 enough. 
 
 247
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " But Wing confessed to me that he knew perfectly well 
 that the dagger belonged to the stand in the gallery. He 
 had often examined the arms there, and was quite certain 
 of the fact. He swore this to the priest. Here, again, 
 you can only explain his evidence by a desire for re- 
 venge." 
 
 Sir James paused. As he moved a little away from 
 his companion his expression altered. It was as though 
 he put from him the external incidents and considera- 
 tions with which he had been dealing, and the vivacity of 
 manner which fitted them. Feelings and forces of an- 
 other kind emerged, clothing themselves in the beauty 
 of an incomparable voice, and in an aspect of humane 
 and melancholy dignity. 
 
 He turned to Lady Lucy. 
 
 " Now then, " he said, gently, " I am in a position to 
 put the matter to you finally, as before God it appears 
 to me. Juliet Sparling as I said to Oliver last night 
 was not a bad woman! She sinned deeply, but she was 
 never false to her husband in thought or deed; none of 
 her wrong-doing was deliberate; she was tortured by 
 remorse; and her murderous act was the impulse of a 
 moment, and partly in self-defence. It was wholly un- 
 premeditated; and it killed her no less than her victim. 
 When, next day, she was removed by the police, she was 
 already a dying woman. I have in my possession a letter 
 written to me by her after her release, in view of her 
 impending death, by the order of the Home Office a 
 few days before she died. It is humble it is heart- 
 rending it breathes the sincerity of one who had turned 
 all her thoughts from earth ; but it thanked me for having 
 read her aright; and if ever I could have felt a doubt 
 of my own interpretation of the case but, thank God, 
 
 248
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 I never did! that letter would have shamed it out of 
 me! Poor soul, poor soul! She sinned, and she suf- 
 fered agonies, beyond any penalty of man's inflicting. 
 Will you prolong her punishment in her child ?" 
 
 Lady Lucy had covered her face with her hand. He 
 saw her breath flutter in her breast. And sitting down 
 beside her, blanched by the effort he had made, and by 
 the emotion he had at last permitted himself, yet fixing 
 his eyes steadily on the woman before him, he waited for 
 her reply. 
 17
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 I ADY LUCY did not reply at once. She slowly drew 
 Lrf forward the neglected tea-table, made tea, and of- 
 fered it to Sir James. He took it impatiently, the Irish 
 blood in him running hot and fast; and when she had 
 finished her cup, and still the silence lasted, except for 
 the trivial question-and-answer of the tea-making, he 
 broke in upon it with a somewhat peremptory 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Lady Lucy clasped her hands on her lap. The hand 
 which had been so far bare was now gloved like the 
 other, and something in the spectacle of the long fingers, 
 calmly interlocked and clad in spotless white kid, in- 
 creased the secret exasperation in her companion. 
 
 " Believe me, dear Sir James," she said at last, lift- 
 ing her clear brown eyes, " I am very grateful to you. 
 It must have been a great effort for you to tell me this 
 awful story, and I thank you for the confidence you have 
 reposed in me." 
 
 Sir James pushed his chair back. 
 
 " I did it, of course, for a special reason," he said, 
 sharply. " I hope I have given you cause to change 
 your mind." 
 
 She shook her head slowly. 
 
 " What have you proved to me ? That Mrs. Sparling's 
 crime was not so hideous as some of us supposed ? 
 that she did not fall to the lowest depths of all? and 
 
 250
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 that she endured great provocation ? But could anything 
 really be more vile than the history of those weeks of 
 
 excitement and fraud ? of base yielding to temptation ? 
 
 of cruelty to her husband and child ? even as you have 
 told it? Her conduct led directly to adultery and vio- 
 lence. If, by God's mercy, she was saved from the 
 worst crimes imputed to her, does it make much dif- 
 ference to the moral judgment we must form ?" 
 
 He looked at her in amazement. 
 
 "No difference! between murder and a kind of ac- 
 cident? between adultery and fidelity?" 
 
 Lady Lucy hesitated then resumed, with stubborn- 
 ness: "You put it like an advocate. But look at the 
 indelible facts look at the future. If my son married 
 the daughter of such a woman and had children, what 
 must happen? First of all, could he, could any one, 
 be free from the dread of inherited lawlessness and 
 passion? A woman does not gamble, steal, and take 
 life in a moment of violence without some exceptional 
 flaw in temperament and will, and we see again and 
 again how such flaws reappear in the descendants of 
 weak and wicked people. Then again Oliver must re- 
 nounce and throw away all that is implied in family 
 memories and traditions. His wife could never speak 
 to her children and his of her own mother and bringing 
 up. They would be kept in ignorance, as she herself was 
 kept, till the time came that they must know. Say what 
 you will, Juliet Sparling was condemned to death for 
 murder in a notorious case after a trial which also 
 branded her as a thief. Think of a boy at Eton or Ox- 
 ford a girl in her first youth hearing for the first 
 time perhaps in some casual way the story of the 
 woman whose blood ran in theirs! What a cloud on
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 a family! what a danger and drawback for young 
 lives!" 
 
 Her delicate features, under the crown of white hair, 
 were once more flooded with color, and the passion in 
 her eyes held them steady under Sir James's penetrat- 
 ing look. Through his inner mind there ran the cry : 
 " Pharisee! Hypocrite!" 
 
 But he fought on. 
 
 "Lady Lucy! your son loves this girl remember 
 that ! And in herself you admit that she is blameless 
 all that you could desire for his wife remember that 
 also." 
 
 " I remember both. But I was brought up by people 
 who never admitted that any feeling was beyond our 
 control or ought to be indulged against right and 
 reason." 
 
 " Supposing Oliver entirely declines to take your view ? 
 supposing he marries Miss Mallory?" 
 
 " He will not break my heart," she said, drawing a 
 quicker breath. "He will get over it." 
 
 "But if he persists?" 
 
 " He must take the consequences. I cannot aid and 
 abet him." 
 
 "And the girl herself? She has accepted him. She 
 is young, innocent, full of tender and sensitive feeling. 
 Is it possible that you should not weigh her claim against 
 your fears and scruples?" 
 
 " I feel for her most sincerely." 
 
 Sir James suddenly threw out a restless foot, which 
 caught Lady Lucy's fox terrier, who was snoozing under 
 the tea-table. He hastily apologized, and the speaker 
 resumed : 
 
 " But, in my opinion, she would do a far nobler thing 
 252
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 if she regarded herself as bound to some extent to bear 
 her mother's burden to pay her mother's debt to society. 
 It may sound harsh but is it ? Is a dedicated life 
 necessarily an unhappy life? Would not everybody 
 respect and revere her ? She would sacrifice herself, as 
 the Sister of Mercy does, or the missionary, and she 
 would find her reward. But to enter a family with an 
 unstained record, bearing with her such a name and such 
 associations, would be, in my opinion, a wrong and self- 
 ish act!" 
 
 Lady Lucy drew herself to her full height. In the 
 dusk of the declining afternoon the black satin and white 
 ruffles of her dress, her white head in its lace cap. her thin 
 neck and shoulders, her tall slenderness, and the rigidity 
 of her attitude, made a formidable^tudyinpersonality. 
 Sir James's whole soul rose in one scornful and indig- 
 nant protest. But he felt himself beaten. The only 
 hope lay in Oliver himself. 
 
 He rose slowly from his chair. 
 
 " It is useless, I see, to try and argue the matter further. 
 But I warn you : I do not believe that Oliver will obey 
 you, and forgive me Lady Lucy! but frankly I 
 hope he will not. Nor will he suffer too severely, even if 
 you, his mother, desert him. Miss Mallory has some 
 fortune " 
 
 " Oliver will not live upon his wife!" 
 
 " He may accept her aid till he has found some way of 
 earning money. What amazes me if you will allow me 
 the liberty of an old friend is that you should think a 
 woman justified in coercing a son of mature age in such 
 a matter!" 
 
 His tone, his manner pierced Lady Lucy's pride. She 
 threw back her head nervously, but her tone was calm : 
 
 253
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " A woman to whom property has been intrusted must 
 do her best to see that the will and desires of those who 
 placed it in her hands are carried out!" 
 
 "Well, well!" Sir James looked for his stick " I am 
 sorry for Oliver but" he straightened himself "it 
 will make a bigger man of him." 
 
 Lady Lucy made no reply, but her expression was 
 eloquent of a patience which her old friend might abuse 
 if he would. 
 
 "Does Ferrier know? Have you consulted him?" 
 asked Sir James, turning abruptly. 
 
 "He will be here, I think, this afternoon as usual," 
 said Lady Lucy, evasively. " And, of course, he must 
 know what concerns us so deeply." 
 
 As she spoke the hall-door bell was heard. 
 
 "That is probably he." She looked at her companion 
 uncertainly. " Don't go, Sir James unless you are really 
 in a hurry." 
 
 The invitation was not urgent; but Sir James stayed, 
 all the same. Ferrier was a man so interesting to his 
 friends that no judgment of his could be indifferent to 
 them. Moreover, there was a certain angry curiosity as 
 to how far Lady Lucy's influence would affect him. 
 Chide took inward note of the fact that his speculation 
 took this form, and not another. Oh! the hypocritical 
 obstinacy of decent women! the lack in them of heart, 
 of generosity, of imagination!, 
 
 The door opened, and Ferrier entered, with Marsham 
 and the butler behind him. Mr. Ferrier, in his London 
 frock-coat, appeared rounder and heavier than ever but 
 for the contradictory vigor and lightness of his step, 
 the shrewd cheerfulness of the eyes. It had been a 
 hard week in Parliament, however, and his features 
 
 254
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 and complexion showed signs of overwork and short 
 sleep. 
 
 For a few minutes, while tea was renewed, and the cur- 
 tains closed, he maintained a pleasant chat with Lady 
 Lucy, while the other two looked at each other in silence. 
 
 But when the servant had gone, Ferrier put down his 
 cup unfinished. " I am very sorry for you both, " he 
 said, gravely, looking from Lady Lucy to her son. " I 
 need not say your letter this morning took me wholly by 
 surprise. I have since been doing my best to think of a 
 way out." 
 
 There was a short pause broken by Marsham, who 
 was sitting a little apart from the others, restlessly 
 fingering a paper-knife. 
 
 " If you could persuade my mother to take a kind and 
 reasonable view," he said, abruptly; "that is really the 
 only way out." 
 
 Lady Lucy stiffened under the attack. Drawn on by 
 Ferrier's interrogative glance, she quietly repeated, with 
 more detail, and even greater austerity, the arguments 
 and considerations she had made use of in her wrestle 
 with Sir James. Chide clearly perceived that her oppo- 
 sition was hardening with every successive explanation 
 of it. What had been at first, no doubt, an instinctive 
 recoil was now being converted into a plausible and rea- 
 soned case, and the oftener she repeated it the stronger 
 would she become on her own side and the more in 
 love with her own contentions. 
 
 Ferrier listened attentively; took note of what she 
 reported as to Sir James's fresh evidence; and when she 
 ceased called upon Chide to explain. Chide's second 
 defence of Juliet Sparling as given to a fellow-lawyer 
 was a remarkable piece of technical statement, admira- 
 
 255
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 bly arranged, and unmarked by any trace of the per- 
 sonal feeling he had not been able to hide from Lady Lucy. 
 
 "Most interesting most interesting," murmured Fer- 
 rier, as the story came to an end. " A tragic and mem- 
 orable case." 
 
 He pondered a little, his eyes on the carpet, while the 
 others waited. Then he turned to Lady Lucy and took 
 her hand. 
 
 "Dear lady!" he said, gently, "I think you ought 
 to give way!" 
 
 Lady Lucy's face quivered a little. She decidedly 
 withdrew her hand. 
 
 " I am sorry you are both against me," she said, look- 
 ing from one to the other. " I am sorry you help Oliver 
 to think unkindly of me. But if I must stand alone, I 
 must. I cannot give way." 
 
 Ferrier raised his eyebrows with a little perplexed 
 look. Thrusting his hands into his pockets, he went to 
 stand by the fire, staring down into it a minute or two, 
 as though the flames might bring counsel. 
 
 "Miss Mallory is still ignorant, Oliver is that so?" 
 he said, at last. 
 
 " Entirely. But it is not possible she should continue 
 to be so. She has begun to make inquiries, and I agree 
 with Sir James it is right she should be told " 
 
 " I propose to go down to Beechcote to-morrow," put 
 in Sir James. 
 
 " Have you any idea what view Miss Mallory would 
 be likely to take of the matter as affecting her engage- 
 ment?" 
 
 "She could have no view that was not unselfish and 
 noble like herself," said Marsham, hotly. "What has 
 that to do with it?" 
 
 256
 
 DEAR LADY,' HE SAID, GENTLY, ' I THINK YOU OUOHT TO r. I V K 
 WAY !!"
 
 The Testing o* Diana Mallorg 
 
 " She might release you," was Ferrier's slow reply. 
 
 Marsham flushed. 
 
 "And you think I should be such a hound as to let 
 her!" 
 
 Sir James only just prevented himself from throwing 
 a triumphant look at his hostess. 
 
 " You will, of course, inform her of your mother's 
 opposition?" said Ferrier. 
 
 " It will be impossible to keep it from her." 
 
 "Poor child!" murmured Ferrier "poor child!" 
 
 Then he looked at Lady Lucy. 
 
 "May I take Oliver into the inner room a little 
 while?" he asked, pointing to a farther drawing-room. 
 
 "By all means. I shall be here when you return." 
 
 Sir James had a few hurried words in private 
 with Marsham, and then took his leave. As he and 
 Lady Lucy shook hands, he gave her a penetrating 
 look. 
 
 "Try and think of the girl!" he said, in a low voice; 
 "the girl in her first youth." 
 
 " I think of my son," was the unmoved reply. " Good- 
 bye, Sir James. I feel that we are adversaries, and I 
 wish it were not so." 
 
 Sir James walked away, possessed by a savage desire 
 to do some damage to the cathedral in pith, as he passed 
 it on his way to the door ; or to shake his fist in the faces 
 of Wilberforce and Lord Shaftesbury, whose portraits 
 adorned the staircase. The type of Catholic woman 
 which he most admired rose in his mind ; compassionate, 
 tender, infinitely soft and loving like the saints; save 
 where " the faith " was concerned like the saints, again. 
 This Protestant rigidity and self - sufficiency were the 
 deuce ! 
 
 257
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 But he would go down to Beechcote, and he and 
 Oliver between them would see that child through. 
 
 Meanwhile, Ferrier and Marsham were in anxious con- 
 clave. Ferrier counselled delay. " Let the thing sleep 
 a little. Don't announce the engagement. You and Miss 
 Mallory will, of course, understand each other. You will 
 correspond. But don't hurry it. So much considera- 
 tion, at least, is due to your mother's strong feeling." 
 
 Marsham assented, but despondently. 
 
 "You know my mother; time will make no differ- 
 ence." 
 
 "I'm not so sure I'm not so sure," said Ferrier, 
 cheerfully. " Did your mother say anything about 
 finances?" 
 
 Marsham gave a gloomy smile. 
 
 " I shall be a pauper, of course that was made quite 
 plain to me." 
 
 "No, no! that must be prevented!" said Ferrier, 
 with energy. 
 
 Marsham was not quick to reply. His manner as he 
 stood with his back to the fire, his distinguished head 
 well thrown back on his straight, lean shoulders, was the 
 manner of a proud man suffering humiliation. He was 
 thirty-six, and rapidly becoming a politician of impor- 
 tance. Yet here he was poor and impotent, in the 
 midst of great wealth, wholly dependent, by his father's 
 monstrous will, on his mother's caprice liable to be 
 thwarted and commanded, as though he were a boy of 
 fifteen. Up till now Lady Lucy's yoke had been toler- 
 able ; to-day it galled beyond endurance. 
 
 Moreover, there was something peculiarly irritating at 
 the moment in Ferrier's intervention. There had been 
 
 258
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 increased Parliamentary friction of late between the two 
 men, in spite of the intimacy of their personal relations. 
 To be forced to owe fortune, career, and the permission 
 to marry as he pleased to Ferrier's influence with his 
 mother was, at this juncture, a bitter pill for Oliver Mar- 
 sham. 
 
 Ferrier understood him perfectly, and he had never 
 displayed more kindness or more tact than in the con- 
 versation which passed between them. Marsham finally 
 agreed that Diana must be frankly informed of his 
 mother's state of mind, and that a waiting policy offered 
 the only hope. On this they were retiring to the front 
 drawing-room when Lady Lucy opened the communi- 
 cating door. 
 
 "A letter for you, Oliver." 
 
 He took it, and turned it over. The handwriting was 
 unknown to him. 
 
 "Who brought this?" he asked of the butler standing 
 behind his mother. 
 
 " A servant, sir, from Beechcote Manor. He was told 
 to wait for an answer." 
 
 " I will send one. Come when I ring." 
 
 The butler departed, and Marsham went hurriedly 
 into the inner room, closing the door behind him. Ferrier 
 and Lady Lucy were left, looking at each other in anxiety. 
 But before they could put it into words, Marsham re- 
 appeared, in evident agitation. He hurried to the bell 
 and rang it. 
 
 Lady Lucy pointedly made no inquiry. But Ferrier 
 spoke. 
 
 "No bad news, I hope?" 
 
 Marsham turned. 
 
 " She has been told," he said, hoarsely. " Mrs. Col-
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 wood, her companion, speaks of 'shock.' I must go 
 down at once." 
 
 Lady Lucy said nothing. She, too, had grown white. 
 
 The butler appeared. Marsham asked for the Sunday 
 trains, ordered some packing, went down-stairs to speak 
 to the Beechcote messenger, and returned. 
 
 Ferrier retired into the farthest window, and Marsham 
 approached his mother. 
 
 " Good-bye, mother. I will write to you from Beech- 
 cote, where I shall stay at the little inn in the village. 
 Have you no kind word that I may carry with me?" 
 
 Lady Lucy looked at him steadily. 
 
 " I shall write myself to Miss Mallory, Oliver." 
 
 His pallor gave place to a flush of indignation. 
 
 "Is it necessary to do anything so cruel, mother?" 
 
 "I shall not write cruelly." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders impatiently. 
 
 "Considering what you have made up your mind to 
 do, I should have thought least said, soonest mended. 
 However, if you must, you must. I can only prepare 
 Diana for your letter and soften it when it comes." 
 
 " In your new love, Oliver, have you quite forgotten 
 the old?" Lady Lucy's voice shook for the first time. 
 
 "I shall be only too glad to remember it, when you 
 give me the opportunity," he said, sombrely. 
 
 " I have not been a bad mother to you, Oliver. I have 
 claims upon you." 
 
 He did not reply, and his silence wounded Lady Lucy 
 to the quick. Was it her fault if her husband, out of an 
 eccentric distrust of the character of his son, and moved 
 by a kind of old-fashioned and Spartan belief that a man 
 must endure hardness before he is fit for luxury, had 
 made her and not Oliver the arbiter and legatee of his 
 
 260
 
 The Testing o* Diana Mallory 
 
 wealth? But Oliver had never wanted for anything. 
 He had only to ask. What right had she to thwart her 
 husband's decision? 
 
 " Good-bye, mother," said Marsham again. " If you 
 are writing to Isabel you will, I suppose, discuss the mat- 
 ter with her. She is not unlikely to side with you not 
 for your reason, however but because of some silly non- 
 sense about politics. If she does, I beg she will not write 
 to me. It could only embitter matters." 
 
 "I will give her your message. Good-bye, Oliver." 
 
 He left the room, with a gesture of farewell to Ferrier. 
 / 
 
 Ferrier came back toward the fire. As he did so 
 he was struck painfully struck by a change in Lady 
 Lucy. She was not pale, and her eyes were singularly 
 bright. Yet age was, for the first time, written in a face 
 from which Time had so far taken but his lightest toll. 
 It moved him strangely; though, as to the matter in 
 hand, his sympathies were all with Oliver. But through 
 thirty years Lady Lucy had been the only woman for 
 him. Since first, as a youth of twenty, he had seen her 
 in her father's house, he had never wavered. She was 
 his senior by five years, and their first acquaintance had 
 been one of boy-adoration on his side and a charming 
 elder-sisterliness on hers. Then he had declared him- 
 self, and she had refused him in order to marry Henry 
 Marsham and Henry Marsham's fortune. It seemed to 
 him then that he would soon forget her soon find a 
 warmer and more generous heart. But that was mere 
 ignorance of himself. After awhile he became the inti- 
 mate friend of her husband, herself, and her child. Some- 
 thing, indeed, had happened to his affection for her. He 
 felt himself in no danger beside her, so far as passion was 
 
 261
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 concerned; and he knew very well that she would have 
 banished him forever at a moment's notice rather than 
 give her husband an hour's uneasiness. But to be near 
 her, to be in her world, consulted, trusted, and flattered 
 by her, to slip daily into his accustomed chair, to feel 
 year by year the strands of friendship and of intimacy 
 woven more closely between him and her between him 
 and hers these things gradually filled all the space in his 
 life left by politics or by thought. They deprived him of 
 any other home, and this home became a necessity. 
 
 Then Henry Marsham died. Once more Ferrier asked 
 Lady Lucy to marry him, and again she refused. He 
 acquiesced; their old friendship was resumed; but, once 
 more, with a difference. In a sense he had no longer 
 any illusions about her. He saw that while she believed 
 herself to be acting under the influence of religion and 
 other high matters, she was, in truth, a narrow and 
 rather cold-hearted woman, with a strong element of 
 worldliness, disguised in much placid moralizing. At 
 the bottom of his soul he resented her treatment of 
 him, and despised himself for submitting to it. But the 
 old habit had become a tyranny not to be broken. Where 
 else could he go for talk, for intimacy, for rest? And 
 for all his disillusion there were still at her command 
 occasional felicities of manner and strains of feeling 
 ethereally delicate and spiritual, like a stanza from the 
 Christian Year that moved him and pleased his taste 
 as nothing else had power to move and please; steeped, 
 as they were, in a far-off magic of youth and memory. 
 
 So he stayed by her, and she knew very well that he 
 would stay by her to the end. 
 
 He sat down beside her and took her hand. 
 
 "You are tired." 
 
 262
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " It has been a miserable day." 
 
 " Shall I read to you ? It would be wise, I think, to 
 put it out of your mind for a while, and come back to it 
 fresh." 
 
 " It will be difficult to attend." Her smile was faint 
 and sad, "But I will do my best." 
 
 He took up a volume of Dean Church's sermons, and 
 began to read. Presently, as always, his subtler self 
 became conscious of the irony of the situation. He was 
 endeavoring to soothe her trouble by applying to it 
 some of the noblest religious thought of our day, ex- 
 pressed in the noblest language. Such an attempt im- 
 plied some moral correspondence between the message 
 and the listener. Yet all the time he was conscious 
 himself of cowardice and hypocrisy. What part of the 
 Christian message really applied to Lady Lucy this after- 
 noon but the searching words : " He that loveth not his 
 brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom 
 he hath not seen?" 
 
 Yet he read on. The delicate ascetic face of his 
 companion grew calmer; he himself felt a certain refresh- 
 ment and rest. There was no one else in the world with 
 whom he could sit like this, to whom he could speak 
 or read of the inner life. Lucy Marsham had made him 
 what he was, a childless bachelor, with certain memories 
 in his past life of which he was ashamed representing 
 the revenge of a strong man's temperament and physical 
 nature. But in the old age she had all but reached, and 
 he was approaching, she was still the one dear and in- 
 dispensable friend. If she must needs be harsh and 
 tyrannical well, he must try and mitigate the effects, for 
 herself and others. But his utmost effort must restrain 
 itself within certain limits. He was not at all sure that if 
 
 263
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 offended in some mortal point, she might not do without 
 him. But so long as they both lived, he could not do 
 without her. 
 
 Early the following morning Alicia Drake appeared 
 in Eaton Square, and by two o'clock Mrs. Fotheringham 
 was also there. She had rushed up from Leeds by the 
 first possible train, summoned by Alicia's letter. Lady 
 Lucy and her daughter held conference, and Miss Drake 
 was admitted to their counsels. 
 
 "Of course, mamma," said Isabel Fotheringham, "I 
 don't at all agree with you in the matter. Nobody is 
 responsible for their mothers and fathers. We make our- 
 selves. But I shall not be sorry if the discovery frees 
 Oliver from a marriage which would have been a rope 
 round his neck. She is a foolish, arrogant, sentimental 
 girl, brought up on the most wrong-headed principles, 
 and she could never have made a decent wife for him. 
 She will, I hope, have the sense to see it and he will 
 be well out of it." 
 
 "Oliver, at present, is very determined," said Lady 
 Lucy, in a tone of depression. 
 
 " Oh, well, of course, having just proposed to her, he 
 must, of course, behave like a gentleman and not like a 
 cad. But she can't possibly hold him to it. You will 
 write to her, mamma and so shall I." 
 
 "We shall make him, I fear, very angry." 
 
 "Oliver? Well, there are moments in every family 
 when it is no use shirking. We have to think of Oliver's 
 career, and what he may do for his party, and for re- 
 form. You think he proposed to her in that walk on 
 the hill?" said Mrs. Fotheringham, turning to her cousin 
 Alicia. 
 
 264
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 Alicia woke up from a brown-study of her own. She 
 was dressed with her usual perfection in a gray cloth, 
 just suggesting the change of season. Her felt hat with 
 its plume of feathers lay on her lap, and her hair, slightly 
 loosened by the journey, captured the eye by its abun- 
 dance and beauty. The violets on her breast perfumed 
 the room, and the rings upon her hands flashed just as 
 much as is permitted to an unmarried girl, and no more. 
 As Mrs. Fotheringham looked at her, she said to herself: 
 "Another Redfern! Really Alicia is too extravagant!" 
 
 On that head no one could have reproached herself. 
 A cheap coat and skirt, much worn, a hat of no particular 
 color or shape, frayed gloves and disreputable boots, 
 proclaimed both the parsimony of her father's will and 
 the independence of her opinions. 
 
 " Oh, of course he proposed on the hill," replied Alicia, 
 thoughtfully. " And you say, Aunt Lucy, that he guess- 
 ed and she knew nothing ? Yes ! : I was certain he 
 guessed." 
 
 "But she knows now," said Lady Lucy; "and, of 
 course, we must all be very sorry for her." 
 
 "Oh, of course!" said Isabel. "But she will soon 
 get over it. You won't find it will do her any harm. 
 People will make her a heroine." 
 
 " I should advise her not to go about with that cousin," 
 said Alicia, softly. 
 
 "The girl who told you?" 
 
 "She was an outsider! She told me, evidently, to 
 spite her cousin, who seemed not to have paid her enough 
 attention, and then wanted me to swear secrecy." 
 
 " Well, if her mother was a sister of Juliet Sparling, 
 you can't expect much, can you ? What a mercy it has 
 all come out so soon! The mess would have been in- 
 18 265
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 finitely greater if the engagement had gone on a few 
 weeks." 
 
 "My dear," said her mother, gravely, "we must not 
 reckon upon Oliver's yielding to our persuasions." 
 
 Isabel smiled and shrugged her shoulders. Oliver 
 condemn himself to the simple life! to the forfeiture of 
 half a million of money for the sake of the beaux yeux 
 of Diana Mallory! Oliver, who had never faced any 
 hardship or gone without any luxury in his life! 
 
 Alicia said nothing; but the alertness of her brilliant 
 eyes showed the activity of the brain behind them. 
 While Mrs. Fotheringham went off to committees, Miss 
 Drake spent the rest of the day in ministering to Lady 
 Lucy, who found her company, her gossip about Beech- 
 cote, her sympathetic yet restrained attitude toward the 
 whole matter, quite invaluable. But, in spite of these 
 aids, the hours of waiting and suspense passed heavily, 
 and Alicia said to herself that Cousin Lucy was beginning 
 to look frail.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 OWING to the scantiness of Sunday trains, Marsham 
 did not arrive at Beechcote village till between nine 
 and ten at night. He left his bag at the village inn, tried 
 to ignore the scarcely concealed astonishment with which 
 the well-known master or reputed master of Tallyn 
 was received within its extremely modest walls, and 
 walked up to the manor-house. There he had a short 
 conversation with Mrs. Colwood, who did not propose 
 to tell Diana of his arrival till the morning. 
 
 "She does not know that I wrote to you," said the 
 little lady, in her pale distress. " She wrote to you her- 
 self this evening. I hope I have not done wrong." 
 
 Marsham reassured her, and they had a melancholy 
 consultation. Diana, it seemed, had insisted on getting 
 up that day as usual. She had tottered across to her 
 sitting-room and had spent the day there alone, writing 
 a few letters, or sitting motionless in her chair for hours 
 together. She had scarcely eaten, and Mrs. Colwood 
 was sure she had not slept at all since the shock. It was 
 to be hoped that out of sheer fatigue she might sleep, 
 on this, the second night. But it was essential there 
 should be no fresh excitement, such as the knowledge 
 of Marsham's arrival would certainly arouse. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood could hardly bring herself to speak of 
 Fanny Merton. She was, of course, still in the house 
 sulking and inclined to blame everybody, her dead uncle 
 
 267
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 in particular, rather than herself. But, mercifully, she 
 was departing early on the Monday morning to some 
 friends in London. 
 
 " If you come after breakfast you will find Miss Mallory 
 alone. I will tell her first thing that you are here." 
 
 Marsham assented, and got up to take his leave. In- 
 voluntarily he looked round the drawing-room where 
 he had first seen Diana the day before. Then it was 
 flooded by spring sunshine not more radiant than her 
 face. Now a solitary lamp made a faint spot of light 
 amid the shadows of the panelled walls. He and Mrs. 
 Colwood spoke almost in whispers. The old house, 
 generally so winning and sympathetic, seemed to hold 
 itself silent and aloof as though in this touch of calam- 
 ity the living were no longer its master and the dead 
 generations woke. And, up-stairs, Diana lay perhaps in 
 her white bed, miserable and alone, not knowing that he 
 was there, within a few yards of her. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood noiselessly opened a garden door and 
 so dismissed him. It was moonlight outside, and instead 
 of returning to the inn he took the road up the hill to 
 the crest of the encircling down. Diverging a little to the 
 left, he found himself on the open hill-side, at a point 
 commanding the village and Beechcote itself, ringed by 
 its ancient woods. In the village two dim lights, far apart, 
 were visible ; lights, he thought, of sickness or of birth ? 
 for the poor sleep early. One of the Beechcote windows 
 shone with a dim illumination. Was she there, and 
 sleepless? The sky was full of light; the blanched chalk 
 down on which he stood ran northward in a shining 
 curve, bare in the moon; but in the hollow below, and on 
 the horizon, the dark huddled woods kept watch, guard- 
 ing the secrets of night. The owls were calling in the 
 
 268
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 trees behind him some in faint prolonged cry, one in a 
 sharp shrieking note. And at whiles a train rushed upon 
 the ear, held it, and died away; or a breeze crept among 
 the dead beech leaves at his feet. Otherwise not a sound 
 or show of life; Marsham was alone with night and him- 
 self. 
 
 Twenty-four hours little more since on that same 
 hill-side he had held Diana in his arms in the first 
 rapture of love. What was it that had changed ? How 
 was it for he was frank with himself that the love 
 which had been then the top and completion of his life, 
 the angel of all good-fortune within and without, had 
 become now, to some extent, a burden to be borne, an 
 obligation to be met ? 
 
 Certainly, he loved her well. But she came to him 
 now, bringing as her marriage portion, not easy joy and 
 success, the full years of prosperity and ambition, but 
 poverty, effort, a certain measure of disgrace, and the 
 perpetual presence of a ghastly and heart-breaking 
 memory. He shrank from this last in a positive and 
 sharp impatience. Why should Juliet Sparling's crime 
 affect him? depress the vigor and cheerfulness of his 
 life? 
 
 As to the effort before him, he felt toward it as a man 
 of weak unpractised muscle who endeavors with strain- 
 ing to raise a physical weight. He would make the effort, 
 but it would tax his whole strength. As he strolled along 
 the down, dismally smoking and pondering, he made 
 himself contemplate the then and now taking stock, as it 
 were, of his life. In this truth-compelling darkness, apart 
 from the stimulus of his mother's tyranny, he felt 
 himself to be two men: one in love with Diana, the 
 pther in love with success and political ambition, and 
 
 269
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 money as the agent and servant of both. He had never 
 for one moment envisaged the first love Diana as the 
 alternative to, or substitute for the second love success. 
 As he had conceived her up to twenty-four hours before, 
 Diana was to be, indeed, one of the chief elements and 
 ministers of success. In winning her, he was, in fact, to 
 make the best of both worlds. A certain cool analytic 
 gift that he possessed put all this plainly before him. 
 And now it must be a choice between Diana and all 
 those other desirable things. 
 
 Take the poverty first. What would it amount to? 
 He knew approximately what was Diana's fortune. He 
 had meant with easy generosity to leave it all in her 
 hands, to do what she would with. Now, until his 
 mother came to her senses, they must chiefly depend 
 upon it. What could he add to it ? He had been called 
 to the Bar, but had never practised. Directorships no 
 doubt, he might get, like other men; though not so easily 
 now, if it was to be known that his mother meant to 
 make a pauper of him. And once a man whom he had 
 met in political life, who was no doubt ignorant of his 
 private circumstances, had sounded him as to whether 
 he would become the London correspondent of a great 
 American paper. He had laughed then, good-humoredly, 
 at the proposal. Perhaps the thing might still be open. 
 It would mean a few extra hundreds. 
 
 He laughed again as he thought of it, but not good- 
 .humoredly. The whole thing was so monstrous! His 
 mother had close on twenty thousand a year! For all 
 her puritanical training she liked luxury of a certain 
 kind and had brought up her son in it. Marsham had 
 never gambled or speculated or raced. It was part of his 
 democratic creed and his Quaker ancestry to despise such 
 
 2JO
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 modes of wasting money, and to be scornful of the men 
 who indulged in them. But the best of housing, service, 
 and clothes; the best shooting, whether in England or 
 Scotland; the best golfing, fishing, and travelling: all 
 these had come to him year after year since his boy- 
 hood, without question. His mother, of course, had pro- 
 vided the majority of them, for his own small income 
 and his allowance from her were absorbed by his personal 
 expenses, his Parliamentary life, and the subscriptions to 
 the party, which in addition to his mother's made him, 
 as he was well aware, a person of importance in its ranks, 
 quite apart from his record in the House. 
 
 Now all that must be given up. He would be reduced 
 to an income including what he imagined to be Diana's 
 of less than half his personal spending hitherto; and 
 those vast perspectives implied in the inheritance at his 
 mother's death of his father's half million must also be 
 renounced. 
 
 No doubt he could just maintain himself in Parlia- 
 ment. But everything judged by the standards he had 
 been brought up in would be difficult where every- 
 thing till now had been ease. 
 
 He knew his mother too well to doubt her stubborn- 
 ness, and his feeling was bitter, indeed. Bitter, too, 
 against his father, who had left him in this plight. Why 
 had his father distrusted and wronged him so ? He re- 
 called with discomfort certain collisions of his youth; 
 certain disappointments at school and college he had 
 inflicted on his father's ambition; certain lectures and 
 gibes from that strong mouth, in his early manhood. 
 Absurd ! If his father had had to do with a really spend- 
 thrift and unsatisfactory son, there might have been some 
 sense in it. But for these trifles these suspicions these 
 
 27!
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 foolish notions of a doctrinaire to inflict this stigma 
 and this yoke on him all his days! 
 
 Suddenly his wanderings along the moon-lit hill came 
 to a stand-still. For he recognized the hollow in the 
 chalk the gnarled thorn the wide outlook. He stood 
 gazing about him a shamed lover; conscious of a dozen 
 contradictory feelings. Beautiful and tender Diana! 
 "Stick to her, Oliver! she is worth it!" Chide's eager 
 and peremptory tone smote on the inward ear. Of 
 course he would stick to her. The only thing which it 
 gave him any pleasure to remember in this nightmare 
 of a day was his own answer to Ferrier's suggestion that 
 Diana might release him : " Do you imagine I could be 
 such a hound as to let her?" As he said it, he had been 
 conscious that the words rang well; that he had struck 
 the right attitude, and done the right thing. Of course 
 he had done the right thing! What would he, or any 
 other decent person, have thought of a man who could 
 draw back from his word, for such a cause ? 
 
 No ! he resigned himself. He would do nothing mean 
 and ungentlemanly. A policy of waiting and diplomacy 
 should be tried. Ferrier might be of some use. But, if 
 nothing availed, he must marry and make the best of it. 
 He wondered to what charitable societies his mother 
 would leave her money! 
 
 Slowly he strolled back along the hill. That dim 
 light, high up on the shrouded walls of Beechcote, seemed 
 to go with him, softly, insistently reminding him of 
 Diana. The thought of her moved him deeply. He 
 longed to have her in his arms, to comfort her, to feel her 
 dependent on him for the recovery of joy and vitality. 
 It was only by an obstinate and eager dwelling upon 
 her sweetness and charm that he could protect himself 
 
 272
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 against the rise of an invading wave of repugnance and 
 depression; the same repugnance, the same instinctive 
 longing to escape, which he had always felt, as boy or 
 man, in the presence of sickness, or death, or mourning. 
 
 Marsham had been long asleep in his queer little room 
 at "The Green Man." The last lights were out in the 
 village, and the moon had set. Diana stole out of bed; 
 Muriel must not hear her, Muriel whose eyes were already 
 so tired and tear- worn with another's grief. She went to 
 the window, and, throwing a shawl over her, she knelt 
 there, looking out. She was dimly conscious of stars, 
 of the hill, the woods; what she really saw was a prison 
 room as she was able to imagine it, and her mother lying 
 there her young mother only four years older than she, 
 Diana, was now. Or again she saw the court of law the 
 judge in the black cap and her mother looking up. 
 Fanny had said she was small and slight with dark 
 hair. 
 
 The strange frozen horror of it made tears or sleep 
 or rest impossible. She did not think much of Mar- 
 sham; she could hardly remember what she had written 
 to him. Love was only another anguish. Nor could it 
 protect her from the images which pursued her. The 
 only thought which seemed to soothe the torture of 
 imagination was the thought stamped on her brain tissue 
 by the long inheritance of centuries the thought of 
 Christ on Calvary. " My God, my God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me?" The words repeated themselves again 
 and again. She did not pray in words. But her agony 
 crept to the foot of what has become through the action 
 and interaction of two thousand years, the typical and 
 representative agony of the world, and, clinging there, 
 
 273
 
 The Testing of Diana Mai lory 
 
 made wild appeal, like the generations before her, to a 
 God in whose hand lie the creatures of His will. 
 
 "Mrs. Colwood said I might come and say good-bye 
 to you," said Fanny Merton, holding her head high. 
 
 She stood on the threshold of Diana's little sitting- 
 room, looking in. There was an injured pride in her 
 bearing, balanced by a certain anxiety which seemed to 
 keep it within bounds. 
 
 " Please come in," said Diana. 
 
 She rose with difficulty from the table where she was 
 forcing herself to write a letter. Had she followed her 
 own will she would have been up at her usual time and 
 down to breakfast. But she had turned faint while 
 dressing, and Mrs. Colwood had persuaded her to let 
 some tea be brought up-stairs. 
 
 Fanny came in, half closing the door. 
 
 "Well, I'm off," she said, flushing. "I dare say you 
 won't want to see me again." 
 
 Diana came feebly forward, clinging to the chairs. 
 
 "It wasn't your fault. I must have known some 
 time." 
 
 Fanny looked at her uneasily. 
 
 " Well, of course, that's true. But I dare say I well 
 I'm no good at beating about the bush, never was! And 
 I was in a temper, too that was at the bottom of it." 
 
 Diana made no reply. Her eyes, magnified by ex- 
 haustion and pallor, seemed to be keeping a pitiful shrink- 
 ing watch lest she should be hurt again past bearing. 
 It was like the shrinking of a child that has been tort- 
 ured, from its tormentor. 
 
 "You are going to London?" 
 
 "Yes. You remember those Devonshire people I 
 274
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 went to stay with ? One of the girls is up in London 
 with her aunt. I'm going to board with them a bit." 
 
 " My lawyers will send the thousand pounds to Aunt 
 Merton when they have arranged for it," said Diana, 
 quietly. "Is that what you wish?" 
 
 A look of relief she could not conceal slipped into 
 Fanny's countenance. 
 
 "You're going to give it us after all?" she said, 
 stumbling over the words. 
 
 " I promised to give it you." 
 
 Fanny fidgeted, but even her perceptions told her 
 that further thanks would be out of place. 
 
 " Mother '11 write to you, of course. And you'd better 
 send fifty pounds of it to me. I can't go home under 
 three months, and I shall run short." 
 
 "Very well," said Diana. 
 
 " Good-bye," said Fanny, coming a little nearer. Then 
 she looked round her, with a first genuine impulse of 
 something like remorse if the word is not too strong. 
 It was rather, perhaps, a consciousness of having man- 
 aged her opportunities extremely badly. " I'm sorry you 
 didn't like me. " she said, abruptly, "and I didn't mean 
 to be nasty." 
 
 " Good-bye. ' ' Diana held out her hand ; yet trembling 
 involuntarily as she did so. Fanny broke out : 
 
 " Diana, why do you look like that ? It's all so long 
 ago you can't do anything you ought to try and for- 
 get it." 
 
 "No, I can't do anything," said Diana, withdrawing 
 her right hand from her cousin, and clasping both on her 
 breast. " I can only " 
 
 But the word died on her lips; she turned abruptly 
 away, adding, hurriedly, in another tone : " If you ever 
 
 275
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 want anything, you know we're always here Mrs. Col- 
 wood and I. Please give us your address." 
 
 "Thanks." Fanny retreated; but could not forbear, 
 as she reached the door, from letting loose the thought 
 which burned her inner mind. She turned round de- 
 liberately. "Mr. Marsham '11 cheer you up, Diana! 
 you'll see. Of course, he'll behave like a gentleman. It 
 won't make a bit of difference to you. I'll just ask Mrs. 
 Colwood to tell me when it's all fixed up." 
 
 Diana said nothing. She was hanging over the fire, 
 and her face was hidden. Fanny waited a moment, then 
 opened the door and went. 
 
 As soon as the carriage conveying Miss Merton to the 
 station had safely driven off, Mrs. Colwood, who, in no 
 conventional sense, had been speeding the parting guest, 
 ran up-stairs again to Diana's room. 
 
 "She's gone?" said Diana, faintly. She was standing 
 by the window. As she spoke the carriage came into 
 view at a bend of the drive and disappeared into the 
 trees beyond. Mrs. Colwood saw her shiver. 
 
 "Did she leave you her address?" 
 
 "Yes. Don't think any more about her. I have 
 something to tell you." 
 
 Diana's painful start was the measure of her state. 
 Muriel Colwood put her arms tenderly round the slight 
 form. 
 
 "Mr. Marsham will be here directly. He came last 
 night too late I would not let him see you. Ah!" 
 She released Diana, and made a rapid step to the win- 
 dow. "There he is! coming by the fields." 
 
 Diana sat down, as though her limbs trembled under 
 her. 
 
 276
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "Did you send for him?" 
 
 " Yes. You forgive me c ' 
 
 "Then he hasn't got my letter." 
 
 She said it without looking up, as though to herself. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood knelt down beside her. 
 
 " It is right he should be here," she said, with energy, 
 almost with command; "it is the right, natural thing." 
 
 Diana stooped, mechanically, and kissed her; then 
 sprang up, quivering, the color rushing into her cheeks. 
 "Why, he mayn't even know!" She threw a piteous 
 look at her companion. 
 
 "He does know, dear he does know." 
 
 Diana composed herself. She lifted her hands to a tress 
 of hair that was unfastened, and put it in its place. 
 Instinctively she straightened her belt, her white collar. 
 Mrs. Colwood noticed that she was in black again, in one 
 of the dresses of her mourning. 
 
 When Marsham turned, at the sound of the latch, to 
 see Diana coming in, all the man's secret calculations 
 and revolts were for the moment scattered and drowned 
 in sheer pity and dismay. In a few short hours can 
 grief so work on youth ? He ran to her, but she held up 
 a hand which arrested him half-way. Then she closed 
 the door, but still stood near it, as though she feared to 
 move, or speak, looking at him with her appealing eyes. 
 
 "Oliver!" 
 
 He held out his hands. 
 
 "My poor, poor darling!" 
 
 She gave a little cry, as though some tension broke. 
 Her lips almost smiled; but she held him away from 
 her. 
 
 "You're not not ashamed of me?" 
 
 277
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 His protests were the natural, the inevitable protests 
 that any man with red blood in his veins must need have 
 uttered, brought face to face with so much sorrow and 
 so much beauty. She let him make them, while her 
 left hand gently stroked and caressed his right hand 
 which held hers; yet all the time resolutely turning her 
 face and her soft breast away, as though she dreaded to 
 be kissed, to lose will and identity in the mere delight of 
 his touch. And he felt, too, in some strange way, as 
 though the blow that had fallen upon her had placed 
 her at a distance from him; not disgraced but con- 
 secrate. 
 
 "Will you please sit down and let us talk?" she said, 
 after a moment, withdrawing herself. 
 
 She pushed a chair forward, and sat down herself. 
 The tears were in her eyes, but she brushed them away 
 unconsciously. 
 
 "If papa had told me!" she said, in a low voice "if 
 he had only told me before he died." 
 
 "It was out of love," said Marsham; "but yes it 
 would have been wiser kinder to have spoken." 
 
 She started. 
 
 "Oh no not that. But we might have sorrowed 
 together. And he was always alone he bore it all alone 
 even when he was dying." 
 
 "But you, dearest, shall not bear it alone!" cried 
 Marsham, finding her hand again and kissing it. " My 
 first task shall be to comfort you to make you forget." 
 
 He thought she winced at the word " forget." 
 
 "When did you first guess or know?" 
 
 He hesitated then thought it best to tell the truth. 
 
 "When we were in the lime-walk." 
 
 "When you asked her name? I remember" her 
 278
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 voice broke " how you wrung my hand ! And you never 
 had any suspicion before?" 
 
 " Never. And it makes no difference, Diana to you 
 and me none. I want you to understand that now 
 at once." 
 
 She looked at him, smiling tremulously. His words 
 became him; even in her sorrow her eyes delighted in 
 his shrewd thin face; in the fair hair, prematurely touched 
 with gray, and lying heavily on the broad brow; in the 
 intelligence and distinction of his whole aspect. 
 
 " You are so good to me " she said, with a little sob. 
 "No no! please, dear Oliver! we have so much to 
 talk of." And again she prevented him from taking her 
 in his arms. "Tell me" she laid her hand on his 
 persuasively : " Sir James, of course, knew from the be- 
 ginning?" 
 
 " Yes from the beginning that first night at Tallyn. 
 He is coming down this afternoon, dearest. He knew 
 you would want to see him. But it may not be till late." 
 
 " After all, I know so little yet," she said, bewildered. 
 " Only only what Fanny told me." 
 
 " What made her tell you ?" 
 
 " She was angry with me I forget about what. I did 
 not understand at first what she was saying. Oliver" 
 she grasped his hand tightly, while the lids dropped over 
 the eyes, as though she would shut out even his face as 
 she asked her question "is it true that that the 
 death sentence " 
 
 "Yes," said Marsham, reluctantly. "But it was at 
 once commuted. And three weeks after the sentence she 
 was released. She lived, Sir James tells me, nearly two 
 months after your father brought her home." 
 
 " I wrote last night to the lawyers" Diana breathed 
 
 279
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 it almost in a whisper. " I am sure there is a letter for 
 me I am sure papa wrote." 
 
 "Promise me one thing!" said Marsham. "If they 
 send you newspapers for my sake, don't read them. 
 Sir James will tell you, this afternoon, things the public 
 have never known facts which would certainly have 
 altered the verdict if the jury had known. Your poor 
 mother struck the blow in what was practically an im- 
 pulse of self-defence, and the evidence which mainly 
 convicted her was perjured evidence, as the liar who gave 
 it confessed years afterward. Sir James will tell you 
 that. He has the confession." 
 
 Her face relaxed, her mouth trembled violently. 
 
 "Oh, Oliver! Oliver!" She was unable to bear the 
 relief his words brought her : she broke down under it. 
 
 He caught her in his arms at last, and she gave way 
 she let herself be weak and woman. Clinging to him 
 with all the pure passion of a woman and all the trust of 
 a child, she felt his kisses on her cheek, and her deep 
 sobs shook her upon his breast. Marsham's being was 
 stirred to its depths. He gave her the best he had to 
 give; and in that moment of mortal appeal on her side 
 and desperate pity on his, their natures met in that fusion 
 of spirit and desire wherewith love can lend even tragedy 
 and pain to its own uses. 
 
 And yet and yet! was it in that very moment that 
 feeling on the man's side "o'erleaped itself, and fell 
 on the other" ? When they resumed conversation, Mar- 
 sham's tacit expectation was that Diana would now show 
 herself comforted; that, sure of him and of his affection, 
 she would now be ready to put the tragic past aside; to 
 think first and foremost of her own present life and his, 
 
 280
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 and face the future cheerfully. A misunderstanding 
 arose between them, indeed, which is, perhaps, one of the 
 typical misunderstandings between men and women. 
 The man, impatient of painful thoughts and recollections, 
 eager to be quit of them as weakening and unprofitable, 
 determined to silence them by the pleasant clamor of his 
 own ambitions and desires ; the woman, priestess of the 
 past, clinging to all the pieties of memory, in terror lest 
 she forget the dead, feeling it a disloyalty even to draw 
 the dagger from the wound between these two figures 
 and dispositions there is a deep and natural antag- 
 onism. 
 
 It showed itself rapidly in the case of Marsham and 
 Diana ; for their moment of high feeling was no sooner 
 over, and she sitting quietly again, her hand in his, the 
 blinding tears dashed away, than Marsham's mind flew 
 inevitably to his own great sacrifice. She must be com- 
 forted, indeed, poor child! yet he could not but feel that 
 he, too, deserved consolation, and that his own most 
 actual plight was no less worthy of her thoughts than 
 the ghastly details of a tragedy twenty years old. 
 
 Yet she seemed to have forgotten Lady Lucy! to 
 have no inkling of the real situation. And he could find 
 no way in which to break it. 
 
 For, in little broken sentences of horror and recollec- 
 tion, she kept going back to her mother's story her 
 father's silence and suffering. It was as though her mind 
 could not disentangle itself from the load which had been 
 flung upon it could not recover its healthiness of action 
 amid the phantom sights and sounds which beset imag- 
 ination. Again and again she must ask him for details 
 and shrink from the answers; must hide her eyes with 
 the little moan that wrung his heart; and break out in 
 19 281
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 ejaculations, as though of bewilderment, under a revela* 
 tion so singular and so terrible. 
 
 It was to be expected, of course ; he could only hope it 
 would soon pass. Secretly, after a time, he was repelled 
 and wearied. He answered her with the same tender 
 words, he tried to be all kindness; but more perfunc- 
 torily. The oneness of that supreme moment vanished 
 and did not return. 
 
 Meanwhile, Diana's perceptions, stunned by the one 
 overmastering thought, gave her no warning. And, in 
 truth, if Marsham could have understood, the process of 
 mental recovery was set going in her by just this freedom 
 of utterance to the man she loved these words and looks 
 and tears that brought ease after the dumb horror of 
 the first hours. 
 
 At last he made an effort, hiding the nascent im- 
 patience in a caress. 
 
 " If I could only persuade you not to dwell upon it too 
 persistently to put it from your thoughts as soon and 
 as much as you can! Dear, we shall have our own 
 anxieties!" 
 
 She looked up with a sudden start. 
 
 "My mother," he said, reluctantly, "may give us 
 trouble." 
 
 The color rushed into Diana's cheeks, and ebbed with 
 equal suddenness. 
 
 "Lady Lucy! Oh! how could I forget? Oliver! 
 she thinks I am not fit!" 
 
 And in her eyes he saw for the first time the self-abase- 
 ment he had dreaded, yet perhaps expected, to see there 
 before. For in her first question to him there had been 
 no real doubt of him; it had been the natural humility of 
 wounded love that cries out, expecting the reply that no 
 
 282
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 power on earth could check itself from giving were the 
 case reversed. 
 
 "Dearest! you know my mother's bringing up: her 
 Quaker training, and her rather stern ideas. We shall 
 persuade her in time." 
 
 "In time? And now she she forbids it?" 
 
 Her voice faltered. And yet, unconsciously, she had 
 drawn herself a little together and away. 
 
 Marsham began to give a somewhat confused and 
 yet guarded account of his mother's state of mind, en- 
 deavoring to prepare her for the letter which might ar- 
 rive on the morrow. He got up and moved about the 
 room as he spoke, while Diana sat, looking at him, her 
 lips trembling from time to time. Presently he men- 
 tioned Ferrier's name, and Diana started. 
 
 " Does he think it would do you harm that you ought 
 to give me up ?" 
 
 " Not he ! And if anybody can make my mother hear 
 reason, it will be Ferrier." 
 
 "Lady Lucy believes it would injure you in Parlia- 
 ment?" faltered Diana. 
 
 " No, I don't believe she does. No sane person could." 
 
 "Then it's because of the disgrace? Oliver! per- 
 haps you ought to give me up?" 
 
 She breathed quick. It stabbed him to see the flush 
 in her cheeks contending with the misery in her eyes. 
 She could not pose, or play a part. What she could not 
 hide from him was just the conflict between her love 
 and her new-born shame. Before that scene on the hill 
 there would have been her girlish dignity also to reckon 
 with. But the greater had swallowed up the less; and 
 from her own love in innocent and simple faith she 
 
 imagined his. 
 
 283
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 So that when she spoke of his giving her up, it was 
 not her pride that spoke, but only and truly her fear of 
 doing him a hurt by which she meant a hurt in public 
 estimation or repute. The whole business side of the 
 matter was unknown to her. She had never speculated 
 on his circumstances, and she was constitutionally and 
 rather proudly indifferent to questions of money. Vague- 
 ly, of course, she knew that the Marshams were rich and 
 that Tallyn was Lady Lucy's. Beyond, she had never 
 inquired. 
 
 This absence of all self-love in her attitude together 
 with her complete ignorance of the calculation in which 
 she was involved touched him sharply. It kept him 
 silent about the money ; it seemed impossible to speak of 
 it. And yet all the time the thought of it clamored 
 perhaps increasingly in his own mind. 
 
 He told her that they must stand firm that she must 
 be patient that Ferrier would work for them and Lady 
 Lucy would come round. And she, loving him more and 
 more with every word, seeing in him a god of consolation 
 and of chivalry, trusted him wholly. It was characteristic 
 of her that she did not attempt heroics for the heroics' 
 sake ; there was no idea of renouncing him with a flourish 
 of trumpets. He said he loved her, and she believed him. 
 But her heart went on its knees to him in a gratitude 
 that doubled love, even in the midst of her aching be- 
 wilderment and pain. 
 
 He made her come out with him before luncheon; he 
 talked with her of politics and their future; he did his 
 best to scatter the nightmare in which she moved. 
 
 But after awhile he felt his efforts fail. The scenes 
 that held her mind betrayed themselves in her recurrent 
 
 284
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 pallor, the trembling of her hand in his, her piteous, 
 sudden looks. She did not talk of her mother, but he 
 could not presently rouse her to talk of anything else; 
 she sat silent in her chair, gazing before her, her slender 
 hands on her knee, dreaming and forlorn. 
 
 Then he remembered, and with involuntary relief, that 
 he must get back to town, and to the House, for an 
 important division. He told her, and she made no 
 protest. Evidently she was already absorbed in the 
 thought of Sir James Chide's visit. But when the time 
 came for him to go she let herself be kissed, and then, 
 as he was moving away, she caught his hand, and held 
 it wildly to her lips. 
 
 "Oh, if you hadn't come! if you hadn't come!" Her 
 tears fell on the hand. 
 
 "But I did come!" he said, caressing her. "I was 
 here last night did Mrs. Colwood tell you? Afterward 
 in the dark I walked up to the hill, only to look down 
 upon this house, that held you." 
 
 " If I had known, " she murmured, on his breast, " I 
 should have slept." 
 
 He went in exaltation; overwhelmed by her charm 
 even in this eclipse of grief, and by the perception of her 
 passion. 
 
 But before he was half-way to London he felt that 
 he had been rather foolish and quixotic in not having 
 told her simply and practically what his mother's op- 
 position meant. She must learn it some day; better 
 from him than others. His mother, indeed, might tell 
 her in the letter she had threatened to write. But 
 he thought not. Nobody was more loftily secret as 
 to business affairs than Lady Lucy; money might 
 not have existed for the rare mention she made of 
 
 285
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 it. No ; she would base her opposition on other 
 grounds. 
 
 These reflections brought him back to earth, and to 
 the gloomy pondering of the situation. Half a million ! 
 because of the ill-doing of a poor neurotic woman 
 twenty years ago! 
 
 It filled him with a curious resentment against Juliet 
 Sparling herself, which left him still more out of sym- 
 pathy with Diana's horror and grief. It must really be 
 understood, when they married, that Mrs. Sparling's 
 name was never to be mentioned between them that 
 the whole grimy business was buried out of sight forever. 
 
 And with a great and morbid impatience he shook the 
 recollection from him. The bustle of Whitehall, as he 
 drove down it, was like wine in his veins ; the crowd and 
 the gossip of the Central Lobby, as he pressed his way 
 through to the door of the House of Commons, had never 
 been so full of stimulus or savor. In this agreeable, ex- 
 citing world he knew his place ; the relief was enormous ; 
 and, for a time, Marsham was himself again. 
 
 Sir James Chide came in the late afternoon; and in 
 her two hours with him, Diana learned, from lips that 
 spared her all they could, the heart-breaking story of 
 which Fanny had given her but the crudest outlines. 
 
 The full story, and its telling, taxed the courage both 
 of hearer and speaker. Diana bore it, as it seemed to 
 Sir James, with the piteous simplicity of one in whose 
 nature grief had no pretences to overcome. The iron 
 entered into her soul, and her quick imagination made 
 her torment. But her father had taught her lessons of 
 self-conquest, and in this first testing of her youth she 
 did not fail. Sir James was astonished at the quiet she 
 
 286
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 was able to maintain, and touched to the heart by the 
 suffering she could not conceal. 
 
 Nothing was said of his own relation to her mother's 
 case ; but he saw that she understood it, and their hearts 
 moved together. When he rose to take his leave she 
 held his hand in hers with such a look in her eyes as 
 a daughter might have worn; and he, with an emotion to 
 which he gave little outward expression, vowed to him- 
 self that henceforward she should lack no fatherly help 
 or counsel that he could give her. 
 
 He gathered, with relief, that the engagement per- 
 sisted, and the perception led him to praise Marsham in 
 a warm Irish way. But he could not find anything 
 hopeful to say of Lady Lucy. " If you only hold to each 
 other, my dear young lady, things will come right!" 
 Diana flushed and shrank a little, and he felt helplessly 
 that the battle was for their fighting, and not his. 
 
 Meanwhile, as he had seen Mr. Riley, he did his best 
 to prepare her for the letters and enclosures, which had 
 been for twenty years in the custody of the firm, and 
 would reach her on the morrow. 
 
 But what he did not prepare her for was the letter 
 from Lady Lucy Marsham which reached Beechcote by 
 the evening post, after Sir James had left. 
 
 The letter lay awhile on Diana's knee, unopened. 
 Muriel Colwood, glancing at her, went away with the 
 tears in her eyes, and at last the stumbling fingers broke 
 the seal. 
 
 "Mv DEAR Miss MALLORY, I want you to understand why it 
 is that I must oppose your marriage with my son. You know 
 well, I think, how gladly I should have welcomed you as a 
 daughter but for this terrible revelation. As it is, I cannot 
 consent to the engagement, and if it is carried out Oliver must 
 
 287
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 renounce the inheritance of his father's fortune. I do not say 
 this as any vulgar threat. It is simply that I cannot allow 
 my husband's wealth to be used in furthering what he would 
 never have permitted. He had and so have I the strongest 
 feeling as to the sacredness of the family and its traditions. He 
 held, as I do, that it ought to be founded in mutual respect and 
 honor, and that children should have round about them the 
 help that comes from the memory of unstained and God-fearing 
 ancestors. Do you not also feel this ? Is it not a great principle, 
 to which personal happiness and gratification may justly be 
 sacrificed? And would not such a sacrifice bring with it the 
 highest happiness of all ? 
 
 "Do not think that I am cruel or hard-hearted. I grieve for 
 you with all my soul, and I have prayed for you earnestly, 
 though, perhaps, you will consider this mere hypocrisy. But I 
 must first think of my son and of my husband. Very possibly 
 you and Oliver may disregard what I say. But if so, I warn 
 you that Oliver is not indifferent to money, simply because the 
 full development of his career depends on it. He will regret 
 what he has done, and your mutual happiness will be endangered. 
 Moreover, he shrinks from all painful thoughts and associations; 
 he seems to have no power to bear them; yet how can you pro- 
 tect him from them? 
 
 " I beg you to be counselled in time, to think of him rather 
 than yourself if, indeed, you care for him. And should you 
 decide rightly, an old woman's love and gratitude will be yours 
 as long as she lives. 
 
 " Believe me, dear Miss Mallory, very sincerely yours, 
 
 " LUCY MARSHAM." 
 
 Diana dragged herself up-stairs and locked her door. 
 At ten o'clock Mrs. Col wood knocked, and heard a low 
 voice asking to be left alone. She went away wondering, 
 in her astonishment and terror, what new blow had fallen. 
 No sound reached her during the night except the 
 bluster of a north wind rushing in great gusts upon the 
 hill-side and the woods.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 ATE on Monday afternoon Lady Niton paid a call 
 L* in Eaton Square. She and Lady Lucy were very 
 old friends, and rarely passed a week when they were 
 both in town without seeing each other. 
 
 Mr. Ferrier lunched with her on Monday, and casually 
 remarked that Lady Lucy was not as well as usual. Lady 
 Niton replied that she would look her up that afternoon ; 
 and she added: " And what about that procrastinating 
 fellow Oliver? Is he engaged yet?" 
 
 " Not to my knowledge," said Mr. Ferrier, after a pause. 
 
 "Then he ought to be! What on earth is he shilly- 
 shallying for ? In my days young men had proper blood 
 in their veins." 
 
 Ferrier did not pursue the subject, and Lady Niton 
 at once jumped to the conclusion that something had 
 happened. By five o'clock she was in Eaton Square. 
 
 Only Alicia Drake was in the drawing-room when she 
 was announced. 
 
 "I hear Lucy's seedy," said the old lady, abruptly, 
 after vouchsafing a couple of fingers to Miss Drake. " I 
 suppose she's been starving herself, as usual ?" 
 
 Oliver's mother enjoyed an appetite as fastidious as 
 her judgments on men and morals, and Lady Niton had 
 a running quarrel with her on the subject. 
 
 Alicia replied that it had been, indeed, unusually dif- 
 ficult of late to persuade Lady Lucy to eat. 
 
 289
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "The less you eat the less you may eat," said Lady 
 Niton, with vigor. "The stomach contracts unless you 
 give it something to do. That's what's the matter with 
 Lucy, my dear though, of course, I never dare name the 
 organ. But I suppose she's been worrying herself about 
 something?" 
 
 " I am afraid she has." 
 
 "Is Oliver engaged?" asked Lady Niton, suddenly, 
 observing the young lady. 
 
 Alicia replied demurely that that question had perhaps 
 better be addressed to Lady Lucy. 
 
 "What's the matter? Can't the young people make 
 up their minds ? Do they want Lucy to make them up 
 for them?" 
 
 Alicia looked at her companion a little under her 
 brows, and did not reply. Lady Niton was so piqued by 
 the girl's expression that she immediately threw herself 
 on the mystery she divined tearing and scratching at it, 
 like a dog in a rabbit-hole. And very soon she had 
 dragged it to the light. Miss Drake merely remarked 
 that it was very sad, but it appeared that Miss Mallory 
 was not really a Mallory at all, but the daughter of a 
 certain Mrs. Sparling Juliet Sparling, who 
 
 "Juliet Sparling!" cried Lady Niton, her queer small 
 eyes starting in their sockets. " My dear, you must be 
 mad!" 
 
 Alicia smiled, though gravely. She was afraid Lady 
 Niton would find that what she said was true. 
 
 A cross-examination followed, after which Lady Niton 
 sat speechless for a while. She took a fan out of her 
 large reticule and fanned herself, a proceeding by which 
 she often protested against the temperature at which 
 Lady Lucy kept her drawing-room. She then asked for 
 
 290
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 a window to be opened, and when she had been suf- 
 ficiently oxygenated she delivered herself: 
 
 "Well, and why not? We really didn't have the 
 picking and choosing of our mothers or fathers, though 
 Lucy always behaves as though we had to the fourth 
 generation. Besides, I always took the side of that 
 poor creature, and Lucy believed the worst as usual. 
 Well, and so she's going to make Oliver back out 
 of it?" 
 
 At this point the door opened, and Lady Lucy glided 
 in, clad in a frail majesty which would have overawed 
 any one but Elizabeth Niton. Alicia discreetly disap- 
 peared, and Lady Niton, after an inquiry as to her friend's 
 health delivered, as it were, at the point of the bayonet, 
 and followed by a flying remark on the absurdity of 
 treating your body as if it were only given you to be 
 harried plunged headlong into the great topic. What 
 an amazing business! Now at last one would see what 
 Oliver was made of! 
 
 Lady Lucy summoned all her dignity, expounded her 
 view ; and entirely declined to be laughed or rated out of 
 it. For Elizabeth Niton, her wig much awry, her old 
 eyes and cheeks blazing, took up the cause of Diana with 
 alternate sarcasm and eloquence. As for the social dis- 
 repute stuff! All that was wanting to such a beautiful 
 creature as Diana Mallory was a story and a scandal. 
 Positively she would be the rage, and Oliver's fortune 
 was made. 
 
 Lady Lucy sat in pale endurance, throwing in an 
 occasional protest, not budging by one inch and no 
 doubt reminding herself from time to time, in the in- 
 tervals of her old friend's attacks, of the letter she had 
 just despatched to Beechcote until, at last, Lady 
 
 291
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Niton, having worked herself up into a fine frenzy to no 
 purpose at all, thought it was time to depart. 
 
 "Well, my dear," she said, leaning on her stick, the 
 queerest rag-bag of a figure crooked wig, rusty black 
 dress, and an unspeakable bonnet " you are a saint, of 
 course, and I am a quarrelsome old sinner; I like society, 
 and you, I believe, regard it as a grove of barren fig-trees. 
 I don't care a rap for my neighbor if he doesn't amuse 
 me, and you live in a puddle of good works. But, upon 
 my word, I wouldn't be you when it comes to the sheep 
 and the goats business! Here is a young girl, sweet 
 and good and beautifully brought up money and man- 
 ners and everything handsome about her she is in love 
 with Oliver, and he with her and just because you hap- 
 pen to find out that she is the daughter of a poor creat- 
 ure who made a tragic mess of her life, and suffered 
 for it infinitely more than you and I are ever likely to 
 suffer for our intolerably respectable peccadilloes you 
 will break her heart and his if he's the good-luck to 
 have one! and there you sit, looking like a suffering 
 angel, and expecting all your old friends, I suppose, to 
 pity and admire you. Well, I won't, Lucy! I won't! 
 That's flat. There's my hand. Good-bye!" 
 
 Lady Lucy took it patiently, though from no other 
 person in the world save Elizabeth Niton would she have 
 so taken it. 
 
 " I thought, Elizabeth, you would have tried to under- 
 stand me." 
 
 Elizabeth Niton shook her head. 
 
 " There's only your Maker could do that, Lucy. And 
 He must be pretty puzzled to account for you some- 
 times. Good-bye. I thought Alicia looked uncommon- 
 ly cheerfull" 
 
 292
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 This last remark was delivered as a parting shot as 
 Lady Niton hobbled to the door. She could not, how- 
 ever, resist pausing to see its effect. Lady Lucy turned 
 indignantly. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean by that remark. Alicia 
 has behaved with great kindness and tact!" 
 
 " I dare say ! We're all darlings when we get our way. 
 What does Ferrier say?" 
 
 Lady Lucy hesitated. 
 
 " If my old friends cannot see it as I do if they blame 
 me I am very sorry. But it is my responsibility." 
 
 " A precious good thing, my dear, for everybody else ! 
 But as far as I can make out, they are engaged?" 
 
 "Nothing is settled," said Lady Lucy, hastily; "and 
 I need not say, Elizabeth, that if you have any affection 
 for us or any consideration for Miss Mallory you will 
 not breathe a word of this most sad business to anybody." 
 
 " Well, for Oliver's sake, if he doesn't intend to behave 
 like a man, I do certainly hope it may be kept dark!" 
 cried Lady Niton. "For if he does desert her, under 
 such circumstances, I suppose you know that a great 
 many people will be inclined to cut him ? I shall hold my 
 tongue. But, of course, it will come out." 
 
 With which final shaft she departed, leaving Lady 
 Lucy a little uneasy. She mentioned Elizabeth Niton's 
 "foolish remark" to Mrs. Fotheringham in the course of 
 the evening. Isabel Fotheringham laughed it to scorn. 
 
 "You may be quite sure there will be plenty of ill- 
 natured talk either way, whether Oliver gives her up or 
 doesn't. The real thing to bear in mind is that if Oliver 
 yields to your wishes, mamma as you certainly deserve 
 that he should, after all you have done for him he will 
 be delivered from an ignorant and reactionary wife who 
 
 293
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 might have spoiled his career. I like to call a spade a 
 spade. Oliver belongs to his party, and his party have 
 a right to count upon him. He has no right to jeopardize 
 either his opinions or his money; we have a claim on 
 both." 
 
 Lady Lucy gave an unconscious sigh. She was glad 
 of any arguments, from anybody, that offered her sup- 
 port. But it did occur to her that if Diana Mallory 
 had not shown a weakness for the soldiers of her country, 
 and if her heart had been right on Women's Suffrage, 
 Isabel would have judged her case differently; so that 
 her approval was not worth all it might have been. 
 
 Meanwhile, in the House of Commons, Isabel Fother- 
 ingham's arguments was being put in other forms. 
 
 On the Tuesday morning Marsham went down to the 
 House, for a Committee, in a curious mood half love, 
 half martyrdom. The thought of Diana was very sweet ; 
 it warmed and thrilled his heart. But somehow, with 
 every hour, he realized more fully what a magnificent 
 thing he was doing, and how serious was his position. 
 
 In a few hurried words with Ferrier, before the meet- 
 ing of the House, Marsham gave the result of his visit 
 to Beechcote. Diana had been, of course, very much 
 shaken, but was bearing the thing bravely. They were 
 engaged, but nothing was to be said in public for at 
 least six months, so as to give Lady Lucy time to re- 
 consider. 
 
 "Though, of course, I know, as far as that is con- 
 cerned, we might as well be married to-morrow and 
 have done with it!" 
 
 "Ah! but it is due to her to your mother." 
 
 " I suppose it is. But the whole situation is grotesque. 
 294
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 I must look out for some way of making money. Any 
 suggestions thankfully received!" 
 
 Marsham spoke with an irritable flippancy. Ferrier's 
 hazel eyes, set and almost lost in spreading cheeks, dwelt 
 upon him thoughtfully. 
 
 "All right; I will think of some. You explained the 
 position to Miss Mallory?" 
 
 "No," said Marsham, shortly. "How could I?" 
 The alternatives flew through Ferrier's mind: "Cow- 
 ardice? or delicacy?" Aloud, he said: "I am afraid 
 she will not be long in ignorance. It will be a big fight 
 for her, too." 
 
 Marsham shrugged his thin shoulders. 
 " Of course. And all for nothing. Hullo, Fleming! 
 do you want me ?" 
 
 For the Liberal Chief Whip had paused beside them 
 where they stood, in a corner of the smoking-room, as 
 though wishing to speak to one or other of them, yet not 
 liking to break up their conversation. 
 
 " Don't let me interrupt," he said to Marsham. " But 
 can I have a word presently?" 
 "Now, if you like." 
 
 " Come to the Terrace," said the other, and they went 
 out into the gray of a March afternoon. There they 
 walked up and down for some time, engaged in an 
 extremely confidential conversation. Signs of a general 
 election were beginning to be strong and numerous. 
 The Tory Government was weakening visibly, and the 
 Liberals felt themselves in sight of an autumn, if not a 
 summer, dissolution. But funds! there was the rub. 
 The party coffers were very poorly supplied, and unless 
 they could be largely replenished, and at once, the 
 prospects of the election were not rosy. 
 
 295
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Marsham had hitherto counted as one of the men 
 on whom the party could rely. It was known that his 
 own personal resources were not great, but he com- 
 manded his mother's ample purse. Lady Lucy had 
 always shown herself both loyal and generous, and at 
 her death it was, of course, assumed that he would be 
 her heir. Lady Lucy's check, in fact, sent, through her 
 son, to the leading party club, had been of considerable 
 importance in the election five years before this date, in 
 which Marsham himself had been returned ; the Chief 
 Whip wanted to assure himself that in case of need it 
 would be repeated. 
 
 But for the first time in a conversation of this kind 
 Marsham's reply was halting and uncertain. He would 
 do his best, but he could not pledge himself. When 
 the Chief Whip, disappointed and astonished, broke up 
 their conference, Marsham walked into the House after 
 him, in the morbid belief that a large part of his influence 
 and prestige with his party was already gone. Let those 
 fellows, he thought, who imagine that the popular party 
 can be run without money, inform themselves, and not 
 talk like asses! 
 
 In the afternoon, during an exciting debate on a sub- 
 ject Marsham had made to some extent his own, and in 
 which he was expected to speak, two letters were brought 
 to him. One was from Diana. He put it into his pocket, 
 feeling an instinctive recoil with his speech in sight 
 from the emotion it must needs express and arouse. The 
 other was from the chairman of a Committee in Duns- 
 combe, the chief town of his division. The town was, so 
 far, without any proper hall for public meetings. It was 
 proposed to build a new Liberal Club with a hall at- 
 
 296
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 tached. The leading local supporter of the scheme wrote 
 with apologies to ask Marsham what he was prepared 
 to subscribe. It was early days to make the inquiry, 
 but in confidence he might state that he was afraid 
 local support for the scheme would mean more talk 
 than money. Marsham pondered the letter gloomily. 
 A week earlier he would have gone to his mother for 
 a thousand pounds without any doubt of her reply. 
 
 It was just toward the close of the dinner-hour that 
 Marsham caught the Speaker's eye. Perhaps the special 
 effort that had been necessary to recall his thoughts to 
 the point had given his nerves a stimulus. At any 
 rate, he spoke unusually well, and sat down amid the 
 cheers of his party, conscious that he had advanced his 
 Parliamentary career. A good many congratulations 
 reached him during the evening; he "drank delight of 
 battle with his peers," for the division went well, and 
 when he left the House at one o'clock in the morning it 
 was in a mood of tingling exhilaration, and with a sense 
 of heightened powers. 
 
 It was not till he reached his own room, in his mother's 
 hushed and darkened house, that he opened Diana's 
 letter. 
 
 The mere sight of it, as he drew it out of his pocket, 
 jarred upon him strangely. It recalled to him the fears 
 and discomforts, the sense of sudden misfortune and of 
 ugly associations, which had been, for a time, obliterated 
 in the stress and interest of politics. He opened it al- 
 most reluctantly, wondering at himself. 
 
 " MY DEAR OLIVER, This letter from your mother reached me 
 last night. I don't know what to say, though I have thought 
 for many hours. I ought not to do you this great injury; that 
 seems plain to me. Yet, then, I think of all you said to me, 
 
 ao 297
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 and I feel you must decide. You must do what is best for your 
 future and your career; and I shall never blame you, whatever 
 you think right. I wish I had known, or realized, the whole 
 truth about your mother when you were still here. It was my 
 stupidity. 
 
 " I have no claim none against what is best for you. Just 
 two words, Oliver! and I think they ought to be 'Good-bye.' 
 
 " Sir James Chide came after you left, and was most dear 
 and kind. To-day I have my father's letter and one from my 
 mother that she wrote for me twenty years ago. I mustn't 
 write any more. My eyes are so tired. 
 
 "Your grateful DIANA." 
 
 He laid down the blurred note, and turned to the en- 
 closure. Then he read his mother's letter. And he had 
 imagined, in his folly, that his mother's refinement would 
 at least make use of some other weapon than the money ! 
 Why, it was all money! a blunderbuss of the crudest 
 kind, held at Diana's head in the crudest way. This is 
 how the saints behave the people of delicacy when it 
 comes to a pinch! He saw his mother stripped of all her 
 pretensions, her spiritual airs, and for the first time in 
 his life his life of unwilling subordination he dared to 
 despise her. 
 
 But neither contempt nor indignation helped him 
 much. How was he to answer Diana? He paced up 
 and down for an hour considering it, then sat down and 
 wrote. 
 
 His letter ran as follows: 
 
 " DEAREST DIANA, I asked you to be my wife, and I stand by 
 my word. I did not like to say too much about my mother's 
 state of mind when we were together yesterday, but I am afraid 
 it is very true that she will withdraw her present allowance to 
 me, and deprive me of the money which my father left. Most 
 unjustly, as it has always seemed to me, she has complete con- 
 trol over it. Never mind. I must see what can be done. 
 
 298
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 No doubt my political career will be, for a time, much affected. 
 We must hope it will only be for a time. 
 
 " Ferrier and Sir James believe that my mother cannot main- 
 tain her present attitude. But I do not, alack! share their 
 belief. I realize, as no one can who does not live in the same 
 house with her, the strength and obstinacy of her will. She 
 will, I suppose, leave my father's half-million to some of the 
 charitable societies in which she believes, and we must try and 
 behave as though it had never existed. I don't regret it for 
 myself. But, of course, there are many public causes one would 
 have liked to help. 
 
 " If I can, I will come down to Beechcote on Saturday again. 
 Meanwhile, do let me urge you to take care of your health, and 
 not to dwell too much on a past that nothing can alter. I 
 understand, of course, how it must affect you; but I am sure it 
 will be best best, indeed, for us both that you should now put 
 it as much as possible out of your mind. It may not be possible 
 to hide the sad truth. I fear it will not be. But I am sure that 
 the less said or even thought about it, the better. You won't 
 think me unkind, will you? 
 
 " You will see a report of my speech in the debate to-morrow. 
 It certainly made an impression, and I must manage, if I can, 
 to stick to Parliament. But we will consult when we meet. 
 
 "Your most loving OLIVER." 
 
 As he wrote it Marsham had been uncomfortably con- 
 scious of another self beside him mocking, or critical. 
 
 "I don't regret it for myself." Pshaw! What was 
 there to choose between him and his mother? There, 
 on his writing- table, lay a number of recent bills, and 
 some correspondence as to a Scotch moor he had per- 
 suaded his mother to take for the coming season. There 
 was now to be an end, he supposed, to the expenditure 
 which the bills represented, and an end to expensive 
 moors. " I don't regret it for myself." Damned hum- 
 bug! When did any man, brought up in wealth, make 
 the cold descent to poverty and self-denial without 
 caring ? Yet he let the sentence stand. He was too 
 sleepy, too inert, to rewrite it. 
 
 299
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 And how cold were all his references to the catastro- 
 phe ! He groaned as he thought of Diana as though he 
 actually saw the vulture gnawing at the tender breast. 
 Had she slept? had the tears stopped? Let him tear 
 up the beastly thing, and begin again! 
 
 No. His head fell forward on his arm. Some dull 
 weight of character of disillusion interposed. He 
 could do no better. He shut, stamped, and posted what 
 he had written. 
 
 At mid-day, in her Brookshire village, Diana received 
 the letter with another from London, in a handwriting 
 she did not know. 
 
 When she had read Marsham's it dropped from her 
 hand. The color flooded her cheeks as though the 
 heart leaped beneath a fresh blow which it could not 
 realize or measure. Was it so she would have written to 
 Oliver if 
 
 She was sitting at her writing-table in the drawing- 
 room. Her eyes wandered through the mullioned win- 
 dow beside her to the hill-side and the woods. This was 
 Wednesday. Four days since, among those trees, Oliver 
 had spoken to her. During those four days it seemed to 
 her that, in the old Hebrew phrase, she had gone down 
 into the pit. All the nameless dreads and terrors of her 
 youth, all the intensified fears of the last few weeks, had 
 in a few minutes become real and verified only in a 
 shape infinitely more terrible than any fear among them 
 all had ever dared to prophesy. The story of her mother 
 the more she knew of it, the more she realized it, the 
 more sharply it bit into the tissues of life; the more it 
 seemed to set Juliet Sparling and Juliet Sparling's child 
 alone by themselves in a dark world. Diana had never 
 
 300
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 yet had the courage to venture out-of-doors since the 
 news came to her , she feared to see even her old friends 
 the Roughsedges, and had been invisible to them since 
 the Saturday; she feared even the faces of the village 
 children. 
 
 All through she seemed to have been clinging to Mar- 
 sham's supporting hand as to the clew which might 
 when nature had had its way lead her back out of this 
 labyrinth of pain. But surely he would let her sorrow 
 awhile ! would sorrow with her. Under the strange cold- 
 ness and brevity of his letter, she felt like the children in 
 the market-place of old " We have mourned unto you, 
 and ye have not wept." 
 
 Yet if her story was not to be a source of sorrow of 
 divine pity it could only be a source of disgrace and 
 shame. Tears might wash it out! But to hate and re- 
 sent it so it seemed to her must be in a world, where 
 every detail of such a thing was or would be known to 
 go through life branded and crushed by it. If the man 
 who was to be her husband could only face it thus (by 
 a stern ostracism of the dead, by silencing all mention 
 of them between himself and her) , her cheeks could never 
 cease to burn, her heart to shrink. 
 
 Now at last she felt herself weighed indeed to the 
 earth, because Marsham, hi that measured letter, had 
 made her realize the load on him. 
 
 All that huge wealth he was to give up for her ? His 
 mother had actually the power to strip him of his in- 
 heritance? and would certainly exercise it to punish 
 him for marrying her Diana? 
 
 Humiliation came upon her like a flood, and a bitter in- 
 sight followed. Between the lines of the letter she read 
 the reluctance, the regrets of the man who had written it. 
 
 301
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 She saw that he would be faithful to her if he could, 
 but that in her own concentration of love she had ac- 
 cepted what Oliver had not in truth the strength to give 
 her. The Marsham she loved had suddenly disappeared, 
 and in his place was a Marsham whom she might at a 
 personal cost he would never forget, and might never 
 forgive persuade or compel to marry her. 
 
 She sprang up. For the first time since the blow 
 had fallen, vigor had returned to her movements and 
 life to her eyes. 
 
 " Ah, no!" she said to herself, panting a little. " No!* 1 
 A letter fell to the ground the letter in the unknown 
 handwriting. Some premonition made her open it and 
 prepared her for the signature. 
 
 " MY DEAR Miss MALLORY, I heard of the sad discovery which 
 had taken place, from my cousin, Miss Drake, on Sunday morn- 
 ing, and came up at once from the country to be with my mother; 
 for I know well with what sympathy she had been following 
 Oliver's wishes and desires. It is a very painful business. I do 
 most truly regret the perplexing situation in which you find 
 yourself, and I am sure you will not resent it if, as Oliver's 
 sister, I write you my views on the matter. 
 
 "I am afraid it is useless to expect that my mother should 
 give way. And, then, the question is, What is the right course 
 for you and Oliver to pursue? I understand that he proposed 
 to you, and you accepted him, in ignorance of the melancholy 
 truth. And, like a man of honor, he proposes to stand by his 
 engagement unless, of course, you release him. 
 
 " Now, if I were in your place, I should expect to consider 
 such a matter not as affecting myself only, but in its relation 
 to society and the community. Our first duty is to Society. 
 We owe it everything, and we must not act selfishly toward 
 it. Consider Oliver's position. He has his foot on the political 
 ladder. Every session his influence in Parliament increases. 
 His speech to-night was as I hear from a man who has just 
 come from the debate the most brilliant he has yet made. It 
 is extremely likely that when our party comes in again he will 
 
 302
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 have office, and in ten or fifteen years' time what is there to 
 prevent his being even Prime Minister? with all the mighty 
 influence over millions of human beings which that means ? 
 
 "But to give him every chance in his career money is, un- 
 fortunately, indispensable. Every English Prime Minister has 
 been a rich man. It may be a blot on our English life. I think 
 it is. But, then, I have been all my life on the side of the poor. 
 You, who are a Tory and an Imperialist, who sympathize with 
 militarism and with war, will agree that it is important our 
 politicians should be among the ' Haves,' that a man's posses- 
 sions do matter to his party and his cause. 
 
 "They matter especially at the present moment to our 
 party and our cause. We are the poor party, and our rich men 
 are few and far between. 
 
 " You may say that you would help him, and that your own 
 money would be at his disposal. But could a man live upon 
 his wife, in such circumstances, with any self-respect F Of course, 
 I know that you are very young, and I trust that your views on 
 many subjects, social and political, will change, and change 
 materially, before long. It is a s;nous thing for women nowa- 
 days to throw themselves across the path of progress. At the 
 same time I see that you have a strong if I may say so a 
 vehement character. It may not be easy for you to cast off 
 at once what, I understand, has been your father's influence. 
 And meanwhile Oliver would be fighting all your father's and 
 your ideas largely on your money; for he has only a thousand 
 a year of his own. 
 
 "Please let me assure you that I am not influenced by my 
 mother's views. She attaches importance an exaggerated 
 if she were not my mother, I should say an absurd impor- 
 tance, to the family. Whereas, ideas the great possibilities 
 of the future when free men and women shall lead a free and 
 noble life these are what influence me these are what I live 
 for. 
 
 " It will cause you both pain to separate. I know that. But 
 summon a rational will to your aid, and you will soon see that 
 passion is a poor thing compared to impersonal and unselfish 
 aims. The cause of women their political and social enfran- 
 chisement the freeing of men from the curse of militarism 
 of both men and women from the patriotic lies which make 
 us bullies and cowards it is to these I would invite you when 
 you have overcome a mere personal grief. 
 
 33
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " I fear I shall seem to you a voice crying in the wilderness; 
 but I wnte in Oliver's interest and your own. 
 " Yours sincerely, 
 
 "ISABEL FOTHERINGHAM. 
 
 "P.S. Our secretary, Mrs. Derrick Smith, at the Mary 
 Wollstonecraft Club, will always be glad to send you any 
 literature you might require." 
 
 Diana read to the end. She put it down with some- 
 thing like a smile. As she paced the room, her head 
 thrown back, her hands behind her, the weight had been 
 lifted from her, she breathed from a freer breast. 
 
 Very soon she went back to her desk and began to 
 write. 
 
 "My DEAR OLIVER, I did not realize how things were when 
 you came yesterday Now I see. You must not marry me. I 
 could not bear to bring poverty upon you, and to-day I do 
 not feel that I have the strength to meet your mother's and your 
 sister's opposition. 
 
 " Will you please tell Lady Lucy and Mrs. Fotheringham that 
 f have received their letters ? It will not be necessary to answer 
 them. You will tell them that I have broken off the engage- 
 ment. 
 
 " You were very good to me yesterday. I thank you with all 
 my heart. But it is not in my power yet to forget it all. 
 My mother was so young and it seems but the other day. 
 
 "I would not injure your career for the world. I hope that 
 all good will come to you always. 
 
 "Probably Mrs. Colwood and I shall go abroad for a little 
 while. I want to be alone and it will be easiest so. Indeed, 
 if possible, we shall leave London to-morrow night. Good-bye. 
 
 " DIANA." 
 
 She rose, and stood looking down upon the letter. A 
 thought struck her. Would he take the sentence giving 
 the probable time of her departure as an invitation to 
 him to come and meet her at the station? as showing 
 a hope that he might yet persist and prevail ? 
 
 304
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 She stooped impetuously to rewrite the letter. In- 
 stead, her tears fell on it. Sobbing, she put it up she 
 pressed it to her lips. If he did come might they not 
 press hands ? look into each other's eyes? just once, 
 once more? 
 
 An hour later the home was in a bustle of packing 
 and housekeeping arrangements. Muriel Colwood, with 
 a small set face and lips, and eyes that would this time 
 have scorned to cry, was writing notes and giving direc- 
 tions. Meanwhile, Diana had written to Mrs. Rough- 
 sedge, and, instead of answering the letter, the recipient 
 appeared in person, breathless with the haste she had 
 made, the gray curls displaced. 
 
 Diana told her story, her slender fingers quivering in 
 the large motherly hand whose grasp soothed her, her 
 eyes avoiding the tender dismay and pity writ large on 
 the old face beside her; and at the end she said, with an 
 effort: 
 
 " Perhaps you have all expected me to be engaged to 
 Mr. Marsham. He did propose to me but I have re- 
 fused him/' 
 
 She faltered a little as she told her first falsehood, but 
 she told it. 
 
 "My dear!" cried Mrs. Roughsedge, "he can't he 
 won't accept that! If he ever cared for you, he will 
 care for you tenfold more now!" 
 
 " It was I, " said Diana, hurriedly" I have done it. 
 And, please, I would rather it were now all forgotten. 
 Nobody else need know, need they, that he proposed?" 
 
 She stroked her friend's hand piteously. Mrs. Rough- 
 sedge, foreseeing the storm of gossip that would be 
 sweeping in a day or two through the village and the 
 
 305
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 neighborhood, could not command herself to speak. 
 Her questions her indignation choked her. At the 
 end of the conversation, when Diana had described such 
 plans as she had, and the elder lady rose to go, she said, 
 faltering : 
 
 "May Hugh come and say good-bye?" 
 
 Diana shrank a moment, and then assented. Mrs. 
 Roughsedge folded the girl to her heart, and fairly broke 
 down. Diana comforted her; but it seemed as if her 
 own tears were now dry. When they were parting, she 
 called her friend back a moment. 
 
 "I think," she said, steadily, "it would be best now 
 that everybody here should know what my name was, 
 and who I am. Will you tell the Vicar, and anybody 
 else you think of? I shall come back to live here. 
 I know everybody will be kind " Her voice died away. 
 
 The March sun had set and the lamps were lit when 
 Hugh Roughsedge entered the drawing-room where 
 Diana sat writing letters, paying bills, absorbing herself 
 in all the details of departure. The meeting between 
 them was short. Diana was embarrassed, above all, by 
 the tumult of suppressed feeling she divined in Rough- 
 sedge. For the first time she must perforce recognize 
 what hitherto she had preferred not to see: what now 
 she was determined not to know. The young soldier, 
 on his side, was stifled by his own emotions wrath 
 contempt pity; and by a maddening desire to wrap this 
 pale stricken creature in his arms, and so protect her 
 from an abominable world. But something told him 
 to his despair that she had been in Marsham's arms; 
 had given her heart irrevocably; and that, Marsham's 
 wife or no, all was done and over for him, Hugh Rough- 
 sedge. 
 
 306
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Yet surely in time in time! That was the inner 
 clamor of the mind, as he bid her good-bye, after twenty 
 minutes' disjointed talk, in which, finally, neither dared 
 to go beyond commonplace. Only at the last, as he held 
 her hand, he asked her: 
 
 "I may write to you from Nigeria?" 
 
 Rather shyly, she assented; adding, with a smile: 
 
 "But I am a bad letter- writer!" 
 
 " You are an angel!" he said, hoarsely, lifted her hand, 
 kissed it, and rushed away. 
 
 She was shaken by the scene, and had hardly com- 
 posed herself again to a weary grappling with business 
 when the front door bell rang once more, and the butler 
 appeared. 
 
 "Mr. Lavery wishes to know, miss, if you will see 
 him." 
 
 The -Vicar! Diana's heart sank. Must she? But 
 some deep instinct some yearning interfered, and she 
 bade him be admitted. 
 
 Then she stood waiting, dreading some onslaught on 
 the secrets of her mind and heart some presumption in 
 the name of religion. 
 
 The tall form entered, in the close-buttoned coat, the 
 gaunt oblong of the face poked forward, between the large 
 protruding ears, the spectacled eyes blinking. 
 
 " May I come in ? I will only keep you a few minutes." 
 
 She came forward and gave him her hand. The door 
 shut behind him. 
 
 "Won't you sit down?" 
 
 " I think not. You must be very busy. I only came 
 to say a few words. Miss Mallory!" 
 
 He still held her hand. Diana trembled, and looked 
 up. 
 
 37
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " I fear you may have thought me harsh. I blame 
 myself in many respects. Will you forgive me? Mrs. 
 Roughsedge has told me what you wished her to tell 
 me. Before you go, will you still let me give you Christ's 
 message?" 
 
 The tears rushed back to Diana's eyes; she looked 
 at him silently. 
 
 " ' Blessed are they that mourn,' " he said, gently, 
 with a tender dignity, " ' for they shall be comforted!' ' 
 
 Their eyes met. From the man's face and manner 
 everything had dropped but the passion of Christian 
 charity, mingled with a touch of remorse as though, in 
 what had been revealed to him, the servant had realized 
 some mysterious rebuke of his Lord. 
 
 "Remember that!" he went on. "Your mourning 
 is your blessing. God's love will come to you through it 
 and the sense of fellowship with Christ. Don't cast it 
 from you don't put it away." 
 
 "1 know," she said, brokenly. "It is agony, but it 
 is sacred." 
 
 His eyes grew dim. She withdrew her hand, and they 
 talked a little about her journey. 
 
 " But you will come back," he said to her, presently, 
 with earnestness; "your friends here will think it an 
 honor and a privilege to welcome you." 
 
 " Oh yes, I shall come back. Unless I have some 
 friends in London East London. Perhaps I might 
 work there." 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 "No, you are not strong enough. Come back here. 
 There is God's work to be done in this village, Miss 
 Mallory. Come and put your hand to it. But not yet 
 not yet." 
 
 308
 
 The Testing o* Diana Mallory 
 
 Then her weariness told him that he had said enough, 
 and he went. 
 
 Late that night Diana tore herself from Muriel 
 Colwood, went alone to her room, and locked her door. 
 Then she drew back the curtains, and gazed once more 
 on the same line of hills she had seen rise out of the win- 
 try mists on Christmas morning. The moon was still be- 
 hind the down, and a few stars showed among the clouds. 
 
 She turned away, unlocked a drawer, and, falling upon 
 her knees by the bed, she spread out before her the 
 fragile and time-stained paper that held her mother's 
 last words to her. 
 
 " MY LITTLE DIANA my precious child, It may be it will be 
 years before this reaches you. I have made your father 
 promise to let you grow up without any knowledge or reminder 
 of me. It was difficult, but at last he promised. Yet there 
 must come a time when it will hurt you to think of your mother. 
 When it does listen, my darling. Your father knows that 
 I loved him always ! He knows and he has forgiven. He 
 knows too what I did and how so does Sir James. There is 
 no place, no pardon for me on earth but you may still love me, 
 Diana still love me and pray for me. Oh, my little one! 
 they brought you in to kiss me a little while ago and you 
 looked at me with your blue deep eyes and then you kissed 
 me so softly a little strangely with your cool lips and now 
 I have made the nurse lift me up that I may write. A few days 
 perhaps even a few hours will bring me rest. I long for it. 
 And yet it is sweet to be with your father, and to hear your 
 little feet on the stairs. But most sweet, perhaps, because it 
 must end so soon. Death makes these days possible, and for 
 that I bless and welcome death. I seem to be slipping away on 
 the great stream so gently tired only your father's hand. 
 Good-bye my precious Diana your dying and very weary 
 
 "MOTHER." 
 
 The words sank into Diana's young heart. They 
 dulled the smart of her crushed love; they awakened a 
 
 39
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 sense of those forces ineffable and majestic, terrible and 
 yet "to be entreated," which hold and stamp the human 
 life. Oliver had forsaken her. His kiss was still on her 
 lips. Yet he had forsaken her. She must stand alone. 
 Only in the spirit she put out clinging hands ; she drew 
 her mother to her breast; she smiled into her father's 
 eyes. One with them; and so one with all who suffer! 
 She offered her life to those great Forces; to the hidden 
 Will. And thus, after three days of torture, agony 
 passed into a trance of ecstasy of aspiration. 
 
 But these were the exaltations of night and silence. 
 With the returning day, Diana was again the mere girl, 
 struggling with misery and nervous shock. In the 
 middle of the morning arrived a special messenger with 
 a letter from Marsham. It contained arguments and 
 protestations which in the living mouth might have had 
 some power. That the living mouth was not there to 
 make them was a fact more eloquent than any letter. 
 For the first time Diana was conscious of impatience, of 
 a natural indignation. She merely asked the messenger 
 to say that " there was no answer." 
 
 Yet, as they crossed London her heart fluttered within 
 her. One moment her eyes were at the window scanning 
 the bustle of the streets; the next she would force her- 
 self to talk and smile with Muriel Colwood. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood insisted on dinner at the Charing Cross 
 Hotel. Diana submitted. Afterward they made their 
 way, along the departure platform, to the Dover-Calais 
 train. They took their seats. Muriel Colwood knew 
 felt it indeed, through every nerve that the girl with 
 her was still watching, still hoping, still straining each 
 bodily perception in a listening expectancy. 
 
 310
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 The train was very full, and the platform crowded with 
 friends, luggage, and officials. Upon the tumult the 
 great electric lamps threw their cold ugly light. The 
 roar and whistling of the trains filled the vast station. 
 Diana, meanwhile, sat motionless in her corner, looking 
 out, one hand propping her face. 
 
 But no one came. The signal was given for departure. 
 The train glided out. Diana's head slipped back and 
 her eyes closed. Muriel, stifling her tears, dared not 
 approach her. 
 
 Northward and eastward from Dover Harbor, sweep 
 beyond sweep, rose the white cliffs that are to the ar- 
 riving and departing Englishman the symbols of his 
 country. 
 
 Diana, on deck, wrapped in veil and cloak, watched 
 them disappear, in mists already touched by the moon- 
 rise. Six months before she had seen them for the first 
 time, had fed her eyes upon the "dear, dear land," as 
 cliffs and fields and houses flashed upon the sight, yearn- 
 ing toward it with the passion of a daughter and an 
 exile. 
 
 In those six months she had lived out the first chapter 
 of her youth. She stood between two shores of life, like 
 the vessel from which she gazed; vanishing lights and 
 shapes behind her; darkness in front. 
 
 "Where lies the land to which the ship must go? 
 Far, far ahead is all the seamen know!"
 
 Part III
 
 " Love's eye is not so true as all men's : no, 
 How can it? O how can Love's eye be true 
 That is so vexed with watching and with tears?"
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 TONDON was in full season. But it was a cold 
 L, May, and both the town and its inhabitants wore 
 a gray and pinched aspect. Under the east wind an 
 unsavory dust blew along Piccadilly; the ladies were 
 still in furs; the trees were venturing out reluctantly, 
 showing many a young leaf bitten by night frosts; the 
 Park had but a scanty crowd; and the drapers, oppressed 
 with summer goods, saw their muslins and gauzes in the 
 windows give up their freshness for naught. 
 
 Nevertheless, the ferment of political and social life 
 had seldom been greater. A Royal wedding in the near 
 future was supposed to account for the vigor of London's 
 social pulse; the streets, indeed, were already putting up 
 poles and decorations. And a general election, expected 
 in the autumn, if not before, accounted for the vivacity 
 of the clubs, the heat of the newspapers, and the energy 
 of the House of Commons, where all-night sittings were 
 lightly risked by the Government and recklessly chal- 
 lenged by the Opposition. Everybody was playing to 
 the gallery i.e., the country. Old members were woo- 
 ing their constituencies afresh; young candidates were 
 spending feverish energies on new hazards, and anxiously 
 inquiring at what particular date in the campaign tea- 
 parties became unlawful. Great issues were at stake ; for 
 old parties were breaking up under the pressure of new 
 interests and passions ; within the Liberal party the bub-
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 bling of new faiths was at its crudest and hottest; and 
 those who stood by the slow and safe ripening of 
 Freedom, from "precedent to precedent," were in 
 much anxiety as to what shape or shapes might ulti- 
 mately emerge from a brew so strong and heady. 
 Which only means that now, as always, Whigs and 
 Radicals were at odds; and the "unauthorized pro- 
 gramme " of the day was sending its fiery cross 
 through the towns and the industrial districts of the 
 north. 
 
 A debate of some importance was going on in the 
 House of Commons. The Tory Government had brought 
 in a Land Bill, intended, no doubt, rather as bait for 
 electors than practical politics. It was timid and ill- 
 drafted, and the Opposition, in days when there were 
 still some chances in debate, joyously meant to kill it, 
 either by frontal attack or by obstruction. But, in the 
 opinion of the Left Wing of the party, the chief weapon 
 of its killing should be the promise of a much larger and 
 more revolutionary measure from the Liberal side. The 
 powerful Right Wing, however, largely represented on 
 the front bench, held that you could no more make 
 farmers than saints by Act of Parliament, and that only 
 by slow and indirect methods could the people be drawn 
 back to the land. There was, in fact, little difference 
 between them and the front bench opposite, except a 
 difference in method; only the Whig brains were the 
 keener; and in John Ferrier the Right Wing had a 
 personality and an oratorical gift which the whole Tory 
 party admired and envied. 
 
 There had been a party meeting on the subject of the 
 Bill, and Ferrier and the front bench had, on the whole, 
 carried the indorsement of their policy. But there was
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 an active and discontented minority, full of rebellious 
 projects for the general election. 
 
 On this particular afternoon Ferrier had been dealing 
 with the Government Bill on the lines laid down by the 
 meeting at Grenville House. His large pale face (the 
 face of a student rather than a politician), with its 
 small eyes and overhanging brows; the straight hair 
 and massive head; the heavy figure closely buttoned in 
 the familiar frock-coat; the gesture easy, animated, still 
 young on these well-known aspects a crowded House 
 had bent its undivided attention. Then Ferrier sat 
 down; a bore rose; and out flowed the escaping tide to 
 the lobbies and the Terrace. 
 
 Marsham found himself on the Terrace, among a 
 group of malcontents: Barton, grim and unkempt, 
 prophet-eyes blazing, mouth contemptuous; the Scotch- 
 man McEwart, who had been one of the New Year's 
 visitors to Tally n, tall, wiry, red-haired, the embodiment 
 of all things shrewd and efficient; and two or three 
 more. A young London member was holding forth, 
 masking what was really a passion of disgust in a 
 slangy nonchalance. 
 
 "What's the good of turning these fellows out will 
 anybody tell me? if that's all Ferrier can do for us? 
 Think I prefer 'em to that kind of mush ! As for Bar- 
 ton, I've had to hold him down by the coat-tails!" 
 
 Barton allowed the slightest glint of a smile to show 
 itself for an instant. The speaker Roland Lankester 
 was one of his few weaknesses. But the frown returned. 
 He strolled along with his hands in his pockets and 
 his eyes on the ground; his silence was the silence of 
 one in whom the fire was hot. 
 
 "Most disappointing all through!" said McEwart,
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 with emphasis. "The facts wrongly chosen the argu- 
 ment absurd. It '11 take all the heart out of our fellows 
 in the country." 
 
 Marsham looked up. 
 
 "Well, it isn't for want of pressure. Ferriei's life 
 hasn't been worth living this last month." 
 
 The tone was ambiguous. It fitted either with de- 
 fence or indictment. 
 
 The London member Roland Lankester, who was 
 a friend of Marion Vincent, and of Frobisher, represented 
 an East End constituency, and lived there looked at 
 the speaker with a laugh. "That's perfectly true 
 What have we all been doing but 'gingering' Ferrier 
 for the last six months? And here's the result! No 
 earthly good in wearing one's self to fiddle-strings over 
 this election! I shall go and keep pigs in Canada!" 
 
 The group strolled along the Terrace, leaving behind 
 them an animated crowd, all busy with the same subject. 
 In the middle of it they passed Ferrier himself flushed 
 with the puffy eyes of a man who never gets more 
 than a quarter allowance of sleep ; his aspect, neverthe- 
 less, smiling and defiant, and a crowd of friends round 
 him. The wind blew chill up the river, crisping the 
 incoming tide; and the few ladies who were being 
 entertained at tea drew their furs about them, shiv- 
 ering. 
 
 "He'll have to go to the Lords! that's flat if we 
 win this election. If we come back, the new members 
 will never stand him; and if we don't well. I suppose, 
 in that case, he does as well as anybody else." 
 
 The remarks were McEwart's. Lankester turned a 
 sarcastic eye upon him. 
 
 " Don't you be unjust, my boy. Femer's one of the
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 smartest Parliamentary hands England has ever turned 
 out." 
 
 At this Barton roused. 
 
 "What's the good of that?" he asked, with quiet 
 ferocity, in his strong Lancashire accent. "What does 
 Ferrier's smartness matter to us ? The Labor men are 
 sick of it! All he's asked to do is to run straight/ as 
 the party wants him to run." 
 
 "All right. Ad leanest Ferrier to the Lords. I'm 
 agreeable. Only I don't know what Marsham will say 
 to it." 
 
 Lankester pushed back a very shabby pot-hat to a still 
 more rakish angle, buttoning up an equally shabby coat 
 the while against the east wind. He was a tall fair- 
 haired fellow, half a Dane in race and aspect: broad- 
 shouldered, loose-limbed, with a Franciscan passion for 
 poverty and the poor. But a certain humorous tolerance 
 for all sorts and conditions of men, together with certain 
 spiritual gifts, made him friends in all camps. Bishops 
 consulted him, the Socialists claimed him; perhaps it 
 was the East End children who possessed him most 
 wholly. Nevertheless, there was a fierce strain in him; 
 he could be a fanatic, even a hard fanatic, on occasion. 
 
 Marsham did not show much readiness to take up 
 the reference to himself. As he walked beside the others, 
 his slender elegance, his handsome head, and fashionable 
 clothes marked him out from the rugged force of Bar- 
 ton, the middle-class alertness of McEwart, the rubbed 
 apostolicity of Lankester. But the face was fretful and 
 worried. 
 
 " Ferrier has not the smallest intention of going to the 
 Lords!" he said, at last not without a touch of im- 
 patience. 
 
 319
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " That's the party's affair." 
 
 " The party owes him a deal too much to insist upon 
 anything against his will." 
 
 " Does it! does it!" said Lankester. " Ferrier always 
 reminds me of a cat we possessed at home, who brought 
 forth many kittens. She loved them dearly, and licked 
 them all over tenderly all day. But by the end of the 
 second day they were always dead. Somehow she had 
 killed them all. That's what Ferrier does with all our 
 little Radical measures loves 'em all and kills 'em 
 all." 
 
 McEwart flushed. 
 
 " Well, it's no good talking," he said, doggedly; " we've 
 done enough of that! There will be a meeting of the 
 Forward Club next week, and we shall decide on our line 
 of action." 
 
 "Broadstone will never throw him over." Lankester 
 threw another glance at Marsham. " You'll only waste 
 your breath." 
 
 Lord Broadstone was the veteran leader of the party, 
 who in the event of victory at the polls would undoubt- 
 edly be Prime Minister. 
 
 " He can take Foreign Affairs, and go to the Lords in 
 a blaze of glory," said McEwart. " But he's impossible! 
 as leader in the Commons. The party wants grit 
 not dialectic." 
 
 Marsham still said nothing. The others fell to dis- 
 cussing the situation in much detail, gradually elaborat- 
 ing what were, in truth, the first outlines of a serious cam- 
 paign against Ferrier's leadership. Marsham listened, 
 but took no active part in it. It was plain, however, that 
 none of the group felt himself in any way checked by 
 Marsham' s presence or silence. 
 
 320
 
 The Testing of? Diana Mallorg 
 
 Presently Marsham the debate in the House having 
 fallen to levels of dulness "measureless to man" re- 
 membered that his mother had expressed a wish that 
 he might come home to dinner. He left the House, 
 lengthening his walk for exercise, by way of Whitehall 
 and Piccadilly. His expression was still worried and pre- 
 occupied. Mechanically he stopped to look into a pict- 
 ure-dealer's shop, still open, somewhere about the middle 
 of Piccadilly. A picture he saw there made him start. 
 It was a drawing of the chestnut woods of Vallombrosa, 
 in the first flush and glitter of spring, with a corner of 
 one of the monastic buildings, now used as a hotel. 
 
 She was there. At an official crush the night before 
 he had heard Chide say to Lady Niton that Miss Mallory 
 had written to him from Vallombrosa, and was hoping 
 to stay there till the end of June. So that she was 
 sitting, walking, reading, among those woods. In what 
 mood ? -with what courage ? In any case, she was alone ; 
 fighting her grief alone; looking forward to the future 
 alone. Except, of course, for Mrs. Colwood nice, de- 
 voted little thing! 
 
 He moved on, consumed with regrets and discomfort. 
 During the two months which had elapsed since Diana 
 had left England, he had, in his own opinion, gone 
 through a good deal. He was pursued by the memory 
 of that wretched afternoon when he had debated with 
 himself whether he should not, after all, go and intercept 
 her at Charing Cross, plead his mother's age and frail 
 health, implore her to give him time; not to break off 
 all relations; to revert, at least, to the old friendship. 
 He had actually risen from his seat in the House of 
 Commons half an hour before the starting of the train; 
 had made his way to the Central Lobby, torn by in- 
 
 321
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 decision; and had there been pounced upon by an im- 
 portant and fussy constituent Of course, he could 
 have shaken the man off. But just the extra resolution 
 required to do it had seemed absolutely beyond his 
 power, and when next he looked at the clock it was 
 too late. He went back to the House, haunted by the 
 imagination of a face. She would never have mentioned 
 her route unless she had meant "Come and say good- 
 bye!" unless she had longed for a parting look and 
 word. And he coward that he was had shirked it 
 had denied her last mute petition. 
 
 Well ! after all might it not simply have made 
 matters worse? for her no less than for him? The 
 whole thing was his mother's responsibility. He might, 
 no doubt, have pushed it all through, regardless of con- 
 sequences; he might have accepted the Juliet Sparling 
 heritage, thrown over his career, braved his mother, and 
 carried off Diana by storm if, that is, she would ever 
 have allowed him to make the sacrifice as soon as she 
 fully understood it. But it would have been one of the 
 most quixotic things ever done. He had made his effort 
 to do it; and frankly he had not been capable of 
 it. He wondered how many men of his acquaintance 
 would have been capable of it. 
 
 Nevertheless, he had fallen seriously in his own esti- 
 mation. Nor was he unaware that he had lost a certain 
 amount of consideration with the world at large. His 
 courtship of Diana had been watched by a great many 
 people : and at the same moment that it came to an end 
 and she left England, the story of her parentage had 
 become known in Brookshire. There had been a remark- 
 able outburst of public sympathy and pity, testifying, no 
 doubt, in a striking way, to the effect produced by the 
 
 322
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 girl's personality, even in those few months of residence. 
 And the fact that she was not there, that only the empty 
 house that she had furnished with so much girlish pleas- 
 ure remained to bear its mute testimony to her grief, 
 made feeling all the hotter. Brookshire beheld her as a 
 charming and innocent victim, and, not being able to 
 tell her so, found relief in blaming and mocking at the 
 man who had not stood by her. For it appeared there 
 was to be no engagement, although all Brookshire had 
 expected it. Instead of it, came the announcement of 
 the tragic truth, the girl's hurried departure, and the 
 passionate feeling on her behalf of people like the Rough- 
 sedges, or her quondam critic, the Vicar. 
 
 Marsham, thereupon, had become conscious of a wind 
 of unpopularity blowing through his constituency. Some 
 of the nice women of the neighborhood, with whom he 
 had been always hitherto a welcome and desired guest, 
 had begun to neglect him; men who would never have 
 dreamed of allowing their own sons to marry a girl in 
 Diana's position, greeted him with a shade less consid- 
 eration than usual ; and the Liberal agent in the division 
 had suddenly ceased to clamor for his attendance and 
 speeches at rural meetings. There could be no question 
 that by some means or other the story had got abroad 
 no doubt in a most inaccurate and unjust form and 
 was doing harm. 
 
 Reflections of this kind were passing through his 
 mind as he crossed Hyde Park Corner on his way to 
 Eaton Square. Opposite St. George's Hospital he sud- 
 denly became aware of Sir James Chide on the other 
 side of the road. At sight of him, Marsham waved 
 his hand, quickening his pace that he might come up 
 with him. Sir James, seeing him, gave him a perfunctory 
 
 3 2 3
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 greeting, and suddenly turned aside to hail a hansom, 
 into which he jumped, and was carried promptly out of 
 sight. 
 
 Marsham was conscious of a sudden heat in the face. 
 He had never yet been so sharply reminded of a changed 
 relation. After Diana's departure he had himself writ- 
 ten to Chide, defending his own share in the matter, 
 speaking bitterly of the action taken by his mother and 
 sister, and lamenting that Diana had not been willing 
 to adopt the waiting and temporizing policy, which alone 
 offered any hope of subduing his mother's opposition. 
 Marsham declared persuading himself, as he wrote, of 
 the complete truth of the statement that he had been 
 quite willing to relinquish his father's inheritance for 
 Diana's sake, and that it was her own action alone that 
 had separated them. Sir James had rather coldly ac- 
 knowledged the letter, with the remark that few words 
 were best on a subject so painful; and since then there 
 had been no intimacy between the two men. Marsham 
 could only think with discomfort of the scene at Felton 
 Park, when a man of passionate nature and romantic 
 heart had allowed him access to the most sacred and 
 tragic memories of his life. Sir James felt, he supposed, 
 that he had been cheated out of his confidence cheated 
 out of his sympathy. Well! it was unjust! 
 
 He reached Eaton Square in good time for dinner, and 
 found his mother in the drawing-room. 
 
 " You look tired, Oliver," she said, as he kissed her. 
 
 "It's the east wind, I suppose beastly day!" 
 
 Lady Lucy surveyed him, as he stood, moody and 
 physically chilled, with his back to the fire, 
 
 "Was the debate interesting?" 
 
 324
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " Ferrier made a very disappointing speech. All our 
 fellows are getting restive." 
 
 Lady Lucy looked astonished. 
 
 "Surely they ought to trust his judgment! He has 
 done so splendidly for the party." 
 
 Marsham shook his head. 
 
 " I wish you would use your influence," he said, slowly. 
 " There is a regular revolt coming on. A large number of 
 men on our side say they won't be led by him; that if 
 we come in, he must go to the Lords." 
 
 Lady Lucy started. 
 
 "Oliver!" she said, indignantly, "you know it 
 would break his heart!" 
 
 And before both minds there rose a vision of Ferrier's 
 future, as he himself certainly conceived it. A trium- 
 phant election the Liberals in office himself, Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer, and leader of the Commons 
 with the reversion of the Premiership whenever old Lord 
 Broadstone should die or retire this indeed had been 
 Ferrier's working understanding with his party for years; 
 years of strenuous labor, and on the whole of magnifi- 
 cent generalship. Deposition from the leadership of the 
 Commons, with whatever compensations, could only 
 mean to him, and to the world in general, the failure of 
 his career. 
 
 "They would give him Foreign Affairs, of course," 
 said Marsham, after a pause. 
 
 "Nothing that they could give him would make up!" 
 said Lady Lucy, with energy. " You certainly, Oliver, 
 could not lend yourself to any intrigue of the kind." 
 
 Marsham shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "My position is not exactly agreeable! I don't agree 
 with Ferrier, and I do agree with the malcontents. 
 
 3 2 5
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Moreover, when we come in, they will represent the 
 strongest element in the party, with the future in their 
 hands." 
 
 Lady Lucy looked at him with sparkling eyes. 
 
 "You can't desert him, Oliver! not you!" 
 
 "Perhaps I'd better drop out of Parliament!" he said, 
 impatiently. " The game sometimes doesn't seem worth 
 the candle." 
 
 Lady Lucy alarmed laid a hand on his. 
 
 " Don't say those things, Oliver. You know you have 
 never done so well as this year." 
 
 " Yes up to two months ago." 
 
 His mother withdrew her hand. She perfectly under- 
 stood. Oliver often allowed himself allusions of this 
 kind, arid the relations of mother and son were not 
 thereby improved. 
 
 Silence reigned for a few minutes. With a hand 
 that shook slightly, Lady Lucy drew toward her a small 
 piece of knitting she had been occupied with when 
 Marsham came in, and resumed it. Meanwhile there 
 flashed through his mind one of those recollections that 
 are only apparently incongruous. He was thinking of a 
 dinner-party which his mother had given the night be- 
 fore; a vast dinner of twenty people; all well-fed, pros- 
 perous, moderately distinguished, and, in his opinion, less 
 than moderately amused. The dinner had dragged ; the 
 guests had left early; and he had come back to the 
 drawing-room after seeing off the last of them, stifled 
 with yawns. Waste of food, waste of money, waste of 
 time waste of everything ! He had suddenly been 
 seized with a passionate sense of the dulness of his 
 home life; with a wonder how long he could go on sub- 
 mitting to it. And as he recalled these feelings as of 
 
 326
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 dust in the mouth there struck across them an image 
 from a dream-world. Diana sat at the head of the long 
 table; Diana in white, with her slender neck, and the 
 blue eyes, with then* dear short-sighted look, her 
 smile, and the masses of her dark hair. The dull faces 
 on either side faded away; the lights, the flowers were 
 for her for her alone! 
 
 He roused himself with an effort. His mother was 
 putting up her knitting, which, indeed, she had only 
 pretended to work at. 
 
 "We must go and dress, Oliver. Oh! I forgot to tell 
 you Alicia arrived an hour ago." 
 
 "Ah!" He raised his eyebrows indifferently. "I 
 hope she's well?" 
 
 "Brilliantly well and as handsome as ever." 
 "Any love-affairs?" 
 
 "Several, apparently but nothing suitable," said 
 Lady Lucy, with a smile, as she rose and gathered to- 
 gether her possessions. 
 
 "It's time, I think, that Alicia made up her mind. 
 She has been out a good while." 
 
 It gave him a curious pleasure he could hardly tell 
 why to say this slighting thing of Alicia. After all, he 
 had no evidence that she had done anything unfriendly 
 or malicious at the time of the crisis. Instinctively, he 
 had ranged her then and since as an enemy as a person 
 who had worked against him. But, in truth, he knew 
 nothing for certain. Perhaps, after the foolish passages 
 between them a year ago, it was natural that she should 
 dislike and be critical of Diana. As to her coming now, 
 it was completely indifferent to him. It would be a 
 good thing, no doubt, for his mother to have her com- 
 panionship. 
 
 327
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 As he opened the door for Lady Lucy to leave the 
 room, he noticed her gray and fragile look. 
 
 " I believe you have had enough of London, mother. 
 You ought to be getting abroad." 
 
 " I am all right," said Lady Lucy, hastily. " Like you, 
 I hate east winds. Oliver, I have had a charming letter 
 from Mr. Heath." 
 
 Mr. Heath had been for some months Marsham's 
 local correspondent on the subject of the new Liberal 
 hall in the county town. Lady Lucy had recently sent 
 a check to the Committee, which had set all their build- 
 ing anxieties at rest. 
 
 Oliver looked down rather moodily upon her. 
 
 "It's pretty easy to write charming letters when 
 people send you money. It would have been more to 
 the purpose, I think, if they had taken a little trouble to 
 raise some themselves I" 
 
 Lady Lucy flushed. 
 
 " I don't suppose Dunscombe is a place with many 
 rich people in it," she said, in a voice of protest, as she 
 passed him. Her thoughts hurt her as she mounted 
 the stairs. Oliver had not received her gift for, after 
 all, it was a gift to him very graciously. And the same 
 might have been said of various other things that she 
 had tried to do for him during the preceding months. 
 
 As to Marsham, while he dressed, he too recalled 
 other checks that had been recently paid for him, other 
 anxious attempts that had been made to please him. 
 Since Diana had vanished from the scene, no com- 
 plaisance, no liberality had been too much for his 
 mother's good- will. He had never been so conscious of 
 an atmosphere of money much money. And there 
 were moments what he himself would have described 
 
 328
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 as morbid moments when it seemed to him the price 
 of blood; when he felt himself to be a mere, crude moral 
 tale embodied and walking about. Yet how ridiculous! 
 What reasonable man, knowing what money means, and 
 the power of it, but must have flinched a little under 
 such a test as had been offered to him? His flinching 
 had been nothing final or damnable. It was Diana, 
 who, in her ignorance of the world, had expected him to 
 take the sacrifice as though it were nothing and meant 
 nothing -as no honest man of the world, in fact, could 
 have taken it. 
 
 When Marsham descended he found Alicia already in 
 possession of the drawing-room. Her gown of a brilliant 
 shade of blue put the room out of joint, and beside the 
 startling effect of her hair, all the washed-out decoration 
 and conventional ornament which it contained made a 
 worse effect than usual. There was nothing conven- 
 tional or effaced about Alicia. She had become stead- 
 ily more emphatic, more triumphant, more self-con- 
 fident. 
 
 "Well, what have you been doing with yourself? 
 nothing but politics?" The careless, provocative smile 
 with which the words were accomplished roused a kind 
 of instant antagonism in Marsham. 
 
 " Nothing nothing, at least, worth anybody's remem- 
 bering." 
 
 "You spoke at Dunscombe last week." 
 
 "I did." 
 
 " And you went to help Mr. Collins at the Sheffield bye- 
 election." 
 
 " I did. I am very much flattered that you know so 
 much about my movements." 
 
 a 329
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " I always know everything that you are doing," said 
 Alicia, quietly "you, and Cousin Lucy." 
 
 "You have the advantage of me then"; his laugh 
 was embarrassed, but not amicable; "for I am afraid I 
 have no idea what you have been doing since Easter!" 
 
 "I have been at home, flirting with the Curate," said 
 Alicia, with a laugh. As she sat, with her head thrown 
 back against the chair, the light sparkling on her white 
 skin, on her necklace of yellow topazes, and the iewelled 
 fan in her hands, the folds of blue chiffon billowing 
 round her, there could be no doubt of her effectiveness. 
 Marsham could not help laughing, too. 
 
 "Charming for the Curate! Did he propose to you?" 
 
 "Certainly. I think we were engaged for twenty- 
 four hours." 
 
 "That you might see what it was like? Et aprksf" 
 
 " He was afraid he had mistaken my character 
 
 Marsham laughed out. 
 
 "Poor victim! May I ask what you did it for?" 
 
 He found himself looking at her with curiosity and 
 a certain anger. To be engaged, even for twenty-four 
 hours, means that you allow your betrothed the privileges 
 of betrothal. And in the case of Alicia no man was 
 likely to forego them. She was really a little too un- 
 scrupulous ! 
 
 " What I did it for ? He was so nice and good-look- 
 ingr 
 
 " And there was nobody else ?" 
 
 " Nobody. Home was a desert." 
 
 "H'm!" said Marsham. "Is he broken-hearted?" 
 
 Alicia shrugged her shoulders a little. 
 
 " I don't think so. I write him such charming letters. 
 It is all simmering down beautifully." 
 
 330
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Marsham moved restlessly to and fro, first putting 
 down a lamp, then fidgeting with an evening paper. 
 Alicia never failed to stir in him the instinct of sex, in 
 its combative and critical form; and hostile as he be- 
 lieved he was to her, her advent had certainly shaken 
 him out of his depression. 
 
 She meanwhile watched him with her teasing eyes, 
 apparently enjoying his disapproval. 
 
 "1 know exactly what you are thinking," she said, 
 presently. 
 
 "I doubt it." 
 
 "Heartless coquette!" she said, mimicking his voice. 
 "Never mind her turn will come presently!" 
 
 "You don't allow my thoughts much originality." 
 
 "Why should I? Confess! you did think that?" 
 
 Her small white teeth flashed in the smile she gave 
 him. There was an exuberance of life and spirits about 
 her that was rather disarming. But he did not mean to 
 be disarmed. 
 
 " I did not think anything of the kind," he said, return- 
 ing to the fire and looking down upon her; "simply be- 
 cause I know you too well." 
 
 Alicia reddened a little. It was one of her attractions 
 that she flushed so easily. 
 
 "Because you know me too well?" she repeated. 
 " Let me see. That means that you don't believe my 
 turn will ever come?" 
 
 Marsham smiled. 
 
 " Your turn for what?" he said, dryly. 
 
 "I think we are getting mixed up!" Her laugh was 
 as musical as he remembered it. "Let's begin again. 
 Ah! here comes Cousin Lucy!" 
 
 Lady Lucy entered, ushering in an elderly relation, a
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Miss Falloden, dwelling also in Eaton Square-, a com- 
 fortable lady with a comfortable income; a social stop- 
 per of chinks, moreover , kind and talkative ; who was 
 always welcome on occasions when life was not too 
 strenuous or the company too critical. Marsham offered 
 her his arm, and the little party made its way to the 
 dining-room. 
 
 "Do you go back to the House, Oliver, to-night?" 
 asked his mother, as the entree went round. 
 
 He replied in the affirmative, and resumed his con- 
 versation with Alicia. Sh^ was teasing him on the sub- 
 ject of some of his Labor friends in the House of Com- 
 mons. It appeared that she had made the Curate, who 
 was a Christian Socialist, take her to a Labor Conference 
 at Bristol, where all the leaders were present, and her 
 account of the proceedings and the types was both amus- 
 ing and malicious. It was the first time that Marsham 
 had known her attempt any conversation of the kind, and 
 he recognized that her cleverness was developing. But 
 many of the remarks she made on persons well known to 
 him annoyed him extremely, and he could not help try- 
 ing to punish her for them. Alicia, however, was not 
 easily punished. She evaded him with a mosquito-like 
 quickness, returning to the charge as soon as he imag- 
 ined himself to have scored with an irrelevance or an 
 absurdity which would have been exasperating in a 
 man, but had somehow to be answered and politely 
 handled from a woman. He lost his footing continually ; 
 and as she had none to lose, she had, on the whole, the 
 best of it. 
 
 Then in the very midst of it he remembered, with 
 a pang, another skirmish, another battle of words with 
 
 332
 
 ALICIA, UPRIGHT IN HER CORNER OLIVER, DEEP IN HIS 
 
 ARM-CHAIR"
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 another adversary, in a different scene. The thrill of 
 that moment in the Tallyn drawing-room, when he had 
 felt himself Diana's conqueror; delighting in her rosy 
 surrender, which was the mere sweet admission of a 
 girl's limitations; and in its implied appeal, timid and 
 yet proud, to a victor who was also a friend all this he 
 was conscious of, by association, while the sparring with 
 Alicia still went on. His tongue moved under the stimu- 
 lus of hers; but in the background of the mind rose the 
 images and sensations of the past. 
 
 Lady Lucy, meanwhile, looked on, well pleased. She 
 had not seen Oliver so cheerful, or so much inclined to 
 talk, since "that unfortunate affair," and she was pro- 
 portionately grateful to Alicia. 
 
 Marsham returned to the drawing-room with the 
 ladies, declaring that he must be off in twenty minutes. 
 Alicia settled herself in a corner of the sofa, and played 
 with Lady Lucy's dog. Marsham endeavored, for a lit- 
 tle, to do his duty by Miss Falloden; but in a few min- 
 utes he had drifted back to Alicia. This time she made 
 him talk of Parliament, and the two or three measures 
 in which he was particularly interested. She showed, 
 indeed, a rather astonishing acquaintance with the de- 
 tails of those measures, and the thought crossed Mar- 
 sham's mind: " Has sLe been getting them up ? and 
 why?" But the idea did not make the conversation she 
 offered him any the less pleasant. Quite the contrary. 
 The mixture of teasing and deference which she showed 
 him, in the course of it, had been the secret of her old 
 hold upon him. She reasserted something of it now, 
 and he was not unwilling. During the morose and taci- 
 turn phase through which he had been passing there 
 had been no opportunity or desire to talk of himself, 
 
 333
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 especially to a woman. But Alicia had always made him 
 talk of himself, and he had forgotten how agreeable it 
 might be. 
 
 He threw himself down beside her, and the time 
 passed. Lady Lucy and Miss Falloden had retired into 
 the back drawing-room, where the one knitted and the 
 other gossiped. But as the clock struck a quarter to 
 eleven Lady Lucy called, in some astonishment: "So 
 you are not going back to the House, Oliver?" 
 
 He sprang to his feet. 
 
 "Heavens!" He looked at the clock, irresolute. 
 " Well, there's nothing much on, mother. I don't think 
 I need." 
 
 And he subsided again into his chair beside Alicia. 
 
 Miss Falloden looked at Lady Lucy with a meaning 
 smile. 
 
 "I didn't know they were such friends!" she said, un- 
 der her breath. 
 
 Lady Lucy made no reply. But her eyes travelled 
 through the archway dividing the two rooms to the 
 distant figures framed within it Alicia, upright in her 
 corner, the red gold of her hair shining against the back- 
 ground of a white azalea ; Oliver, deep in his arm-chair, 
 his long legs crossed, his hands gesticulating. 
 
 Lady Niton's sarcasms recurred to her. She was not 
 sure whether she welcomed or disliked the idea. But, 
 after all, why not ?
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ECCO, Signorina! il Convento!" 
 The driver reined up his horse, pointing with his 
 whip. 
 
 Diana and Muriel Colwood stood up eagerly in the 
 carriage, and there at the end of the long white road, 
 blazing on the mountain-side, terrace upon terrace, arch 
 upon arch, rose the majestic pile of buildings which bears 
 the name of St. Francis. Nothing else from this point 
 was to be seen of Assisi. The sun, descending over the 
 mountain of Orvieto, flooded the building itself with a 
 level and blinding light, while upon Monte Subasio, be- 
 hind, a vast thunder-cloud, towering ift the southern 
 sky, threw storm-shadows, darkly purple, across the 
 mountain-side, and from their bosom the monastery, the 
 churches, and those huge substructures which make the 
 platform on which the convent stands, shone out in 
 startling splendor. 
 
 The travellers gazed their fill, and the carriage clat- 
 tered on. 
 
 As they neared the town and began to climb the hill 
 Diana looked round her at the plain through which they 
 had come, at the mountains to the east, at the dome of 
 the Portiuncula. Under the rushing light and shade of 
 the storm-clouds, the blues of the hills, the young green 
 of the vines, the silver of the olives, rose and faded, as it 
 were, in waves of color, impetuous and magnificent. 
 
 335
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Only the great golden building, crowned by its double 
 church, most famous of all the shrines of Italy, glowed 
 steadily, amid the alternating gleam and gloom fit guar- 
 dian of that still living and burning memory which is 
 St. Francis. 
 
 "We shall be happy here, sha'n't we?" said Diana, 
 stealing a hand into her companion's. " And we needn't 
 hurry away." 
 
 She drew a long breath. Muriel looked at her tenderly 
 enchanted whenever the old enthusiasm, the old buoy- 
 ancy reappeared. They had now been in Italy for nearly 
 two months. Muriel knew that for her companion the 
 time had passed in one long wrestle for a new moral 
 and spiritual standing-ground. All the glory of Italy 
 had passed before the girl's troubled eyes as something 
 beautiful but incoherent, a dream landscape, on which 
 only now and then her full consciousness laid hold. 
 For to the intenser feeling of youth, full reality belongs 
 only to the world within ; the world where the heart loves 
 and suffers. Diana's true life was there ; and she did not 
 even admit the loyal and gentle woman who had taken 
 a sister's place beside her to a knowledge of its ebb and 
 flow. She bore herself cheerfully and simply; went to 
 picture-galleries and churches ; sketched and read mak- 
 ing no parade either of sorrow or of endurance. But the 
 impression on Mrs. Colwood all the time was of a des- 
 perately struggling soul voyaging strange seas of grief 
 alone. She sometimes though rarely talked with 
 Muriel of her mother's case; she would sometimes bring 
 her friend a letter of her father's, or a fragment of journal 
 from that full and tragic store which the solicitors had 
 now placed in her hands; generally escaping afterward 
 from all comment ; only able to bear a look, a pressure of 
 
 336
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 the hand. But, as a rule, she kept her pain out of sight. 
 In the long dumb debate with herself she had grown thin 
 and pale. There was nothing, however, to be done, 
 nothing to be said. The devoted friend could only watch 
 and wait. Meanwhile, of Oliver Marsham not a word 
 was ever spoken between them. 
 
 The travellers climbed the hill as the sun sank behind 
 the mountains, made for the Subasio Hotel, found letters, 
 and ordered rooms. 
 
 Among her letters, Diana opened one from Sir James 
 Chide. "The House will be up on Thursday for the 
 recess, and at last I have persuaded Ferrier to let me 
 carry him off. He is looking worn out, and, as I tell 
 him, will break down before the election unless he takes 
 a holiday now. So he comes protesting. We shall 
 probably join you somewhere in Umbria at Perugia or 
 Assisi. If I don't find you at one or the other, I shall 
 write to Siena, where you said you meant to be by the 
 first week in June. And, by-the-way, I shouldn't wonder 
 if Bobbie Forbes were with us. He amuses Ferrier, who 
 is very fond of him. But, of course, you needn't sea 
 anything of him unless you like." 
 
 The letter was passed on to Muriel, who thought she 
 perceived that the news it contained seemed to make 
 Diana shrink into herself. She was much attached to 
 Sir James Chide, and had evidently felt pleasure in the 
 expectation of his coming out to join them. But Mr. 
 Ferrier and Bobbie Forbes both of them associated 
 with the Marshams and Tallyn ? Mrs. Colwood noticed 
 the look of effort in the girl's delicate face, and wished 
 that Sir James had been inspired to come alone. 
 
 After unpacking, there still remained half an hour 
 
 337
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 before dark. They hurried out for a first look at the 
 double church. 
 
 The evening was cold and the wind chill. Spring 
 comes tardily to the high mountain town, and a light 
 powdering of snow still lay on the topmost slope of Monte 
 Subasio. Before going into the church they turned up 
 the street that leads to the Duomo and the temple of 
 Minerva. Assisi seemed deserted a city of ghosts. Not 
 a soul in the street, not a light in the windows. On 
 either hand, houses built of a marvellous red stone or 
 marble, which seemed still to hold and radiate the 
 tempestuous light which had but just faded from them; 
 the houses of a small provincial aristocracy, immemori- 
 ally pld like the families which still possessed them ; close- 
 paned, rough-hewn, and poor yet showing here and 
 there a doorway, a balcony, a shrine, touched with divine 
 beauty. 
 
 "Where are all the people gone to?" cried Muriel, 
 looking at the secret rose-colored walls, now withdraw- 
 ing into the dusk, and at the empty street. " Not a soul 
 anywhere!" 
 
 Presently they came to an open doorway above it 
 an inscription "Bibliotheca dei Studii Franciscani. " 
 Everything stood open to the passer-by. They went 
 in timidly, groped their way to the marble stairs, and 
 mounted. All void and tenantless! At the top of the 
 stairs was a library with dim bookcases and marble floors 
 and busts; but no custode no reader not a sound! 
 
 "We seem to be all alone here with St. Francis!" 
 said Diana, softly, as they descended to the street "or 
 is everybody at church?" 
 
 They turned their steps back to the Lower Church. 
 As they went in, darkness darkness sudden and pro- 
 
 338
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 found engulfed them. They groped their way along the 
 outer vestibule or transept, finding themselves amid a 
 slowly moving crowd of peasants. The crowd turned; 
 they with it; and a blaze of light burst upon them. 
 
 Before them was the nave of the Lower Church, with 
 its dark-storied chapels on either hand, itself bathed in a 
 golden twilight, with figures of peasants and friars walk- 
 ing in it, vaguely transfigured. But the sanctuary be- 
 yond, the altar, the walls, and low-groined roof flamed 
 and burned. An exposition of the Sacrament was going 
 on. Hundreds of slender candles arranged upon and 
 about the altar in a blazing pyramid drew from the 
 habitual darkness in which they hide themselves Giotto's 
 thrice famous frescos; or quickened on the walls, like 
 flowers gleaming in the dawn, the loveliness of quiet 
 faces, angel and saint and mother, the beauty of draped 
 folds at their simplest and broadest, a fairy magic of 
 wings and trumpets, of halos and crowns. 
 
 Now the two strangers understood why they had 
 found Assisi itself deserted; emptied of its folk this 
 quiet eve. Assisi was here, in the church which is at 
 once the home and daily spectacle of her people. Why 
 stay away among the dull streets and small houses of the 
 hill-side, when there were these pleasures of eye and ear, 
 this sensuous medley of light and color, this fellowship 
 and society, this dramatic symbolism and movement, 
 waiting for them below, in the church of their fathers ? 
 
 So that all were here, old and young, children and 
 youths, fathers just home from their work, mothers with 
 their babies, girls with their sweethearts. Their happy 
 yet reverent familiarity with the old church, their gay 
 and natural participation in the ceremony that was go- 
 ing on, made on Diana's alien mind the effect of a great 
 
 339
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 multitude crowding to salute their King. There, in the 
 midst, surrounded by kneeling acolytes and bending 
 priests, shone the Mystic Presence. Each man and wom- 
 an and child, as they passed out of the shadow into the 
 light, bent the knee, then parted to either side, each to 
 his own place, like courtiers well used to the ways of a 
 beautiful and familiar pageantry. 
 
 An old peasant in a blouse noticed the English ladies, 
 beckoned to them, and with a kind of gracious authority 
 led them through dark chapels, till he had placed them in 
 the open space that spread round the flaming altar, and 
 found them seats on the stone ledge that girdles the 
 walls. An old woman saying her beads looked up smil- 
 ing and made room. A baby or two ran out over the 
 worn marble flags, gazed up at the gilt-and-silver angels 
 hovering among the candles of the altar, and was there 
 softly captured wide-eyed, and laughing in a quiet 
 ecstasy by its watchful mother. 
 
 Diana sat down, bewildered by the sheer beauty of a 
 marvellous and incomparable sight. Above her head 
 shone the Giotto frescos, the immortal four, in which 
 the noblest legend of Catholicism finds its loveliest ex- 
 pression, as it were the script, itself imperishable, of a 
 dying language, to which mankind will soon have lost 
 the key. 
 
 Yet only dying, perhaps, as the tongue of Cicero died 
 to give birth to the new languages of Europe. 
 
 For in Diana's heart this new language of the spirit 
 which is the child of the old was already strong, speak- 
 ing through the vague feelings and emotions which held 
 her spellbound. What matter the garment of dogma 
 and story? the raiment of pleaded fact, which for the 
 modern is no fact ? In Diana, as in hundreds and thou- 
 
 340
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 sands of her fellows, it had become unconsciously 
 without the torment and struggle of an older genera- 
 tion Poetry and Idea; and all the more invincible 
 thereby. 
 
 Above her head, Poverty, gaunt and terrible in her 
 white robe, her skirt torn with brambles, and her poor 
 cheek defaced by the great iron hook which formerly 
 upheld the Sanctuary lamp, married with St. Francis 
 Christ himself joining their hands. 
 
 So Love and Sorrow pledged each other in the gleam- 
 ing color of the roof. Divine Love spoke from the altar, 
 and in the crypt beneath their feet which held the tomb 
 of the Poverello the ashes of Love slept. 
 
 The girl's desolate heart melted within her. In these 
 weeks of groping, religion had not meant much to her. 
 It had been like a bird-voice which night silences. All 
 the energy of her life had gone into endurance. But now 
 it was as though her soul plunged into the freshness of 
 vast waters, which upheld and sustained without effort. 
 Amid the shadows and phantasms of the church -between 
 the faces- on the walls and the kneeling peasants, both 
 equally significant and alive those ghosts of her own 
 heart that moved with her perpetually in the life of 
 memory stood, or knelt, or gazed, with the rest: the 
 piteous figure of her mother; her father's gray hair and 
 faltering step; Oliver's tall youth. Never would she 
 escape them any more ; they were to be the comrades of 
 her life, for Nature had given her no powers of forgetting. 
 But here, in the shrine of St. Francis, it was as though 
 the worst smart of her anguish dropped from her. From 
 the dark splendor, the storied beauty of the church, 
 voices of compassion and of peace spoke to her pain ; the 
 waves of feeling bore her on, unresisting; she closed her 
 
 34?
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 eyes against the lights, holding back the tears. Life 
 seemed suspended, and suffering ceased. 
 
 "So we have tracked you!" whispered a vcice in her 
 ear. She looked up startled. Three English travellers 
 had quietly made their way to the back of the altar. 
 Sir James Chide stood beside her; and behind him the 
 substantial form of Mr. Ferrier, with the merry snub- 
 nosed face of Bobbie Forbes smiling over the great man's 
 shoulder. 
 
 Diana smiling back put a finger to her lip ; the 
 service was at its height, and close as they were to the 
 altar decorum was necessary. Presently, guided by her, 
 they moved softly on to a remoter and darker corner. 
 
 "Couldn't we escape to the Upper Church?" asked 
 Chide of Diana. 
 
 She nodded, and led the way. They stole in and out 
 of the kneeling groups of the north transept, and were 
 soon climbing the stairway that links the two churches, 
 out of sight and hearing of the multitude below. Here 
 there was again pale daylight. Greetings were inter- 
 changed, and both Chide and Ferrier studied Diana's 
 looks with a friendly anxiety they did their best to 
 conceal. Forbes also observed Juliet Sparling's daugh- 
 ter hotly curious yet also hotly sympathetic. What 
 a story, by Jove! 
 
 Their footsteps echoed in the vast emptiness of the 
 Upper Church. Apparently they had it to themselves. 
 
 " No friars!" said Forbes, looking about him. " That's 
 a blessing, anyway! You can't deny, Miss Mallory, that 
 they're a blot on the landscape. Or have you been 
 flattering them up, as all the other ladies do who come 
 here?" 
 
 342
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " We have only just arrived. What's wrong with the 
 friars?" smiled Diana. 
 
 " Well, we arrived this morning, and I've about taken 
 their measure though Ferrier won't allow it. But I saw 
 four of them great lazy, loafing fellows, Miss Mallory 
 much stronger than you or me being dragged up these 
 abominable hills four of 'em in one legno with one 
 wretched toast-rack of a horse. And not one of them 
 thought of walking. Each of them with his brown 
 petticoats, and an umbrella as big as himself. Ugh ! I 
 offered to push behind, and they glared at me. What 
 do you think St. Francis would have said to them? 
 Kicked them out of that legno, pretty quick, I'll bet 
 you!" 
 
 Diana surveyed the typical young Englishman in- 
 dulging a typically Protestant mood. 
 
 " I thought there were only a few old men left," she 
 said, "and that it was all very sad and poetic?" 
 
 "That used to be so," said Ferrier, glancing round the 
 church, so as to make sure that Chide was safely occupied 
 in seeing as much of the Giotto frescos on the walls as 
 the fading light allowed. "Then the Pope won a law- 
 suit. The convent is now the property of the Holy See, 
 the monastery has been revived, and the place seems to 
 swarm with young monks. However, it is you ladies that 
 ruin them. You make pretty speeches to them, and 
 look so charmingly devout." 
 
 "There was a fellow at San Damiano this morning," 
 interrupted Bobbie, indignantly; "awfully good-looking 
 and the most affected cad I ever beheld. I'd like to 
 have been his fag-master at Eton ! I saw him making eyes 
 at some American girls as we came in; then he came 
 posing and sidling up to us, and gave us a little lecture on 
 
 343
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 'Ateismo.' Ferrier said nothing stood there as meek 
 as a lamb, listening to him looking straight at him. I 
 nearly died of laughing behind them." 
 
 "Come here, Bobbie, you reprobate!" cried Chide 
 from a distance. " Hold your tongue, and bring me the 
 guide-book." 
 
 Bobbie strolled off, laughing. 
 
 "Is it all a sham, then," said Diana, looking round 
 her with a smile and a sigh: "St. Francis and the 
 'Fioretti' and the 'Hymn to the Sun'? Has it all 
 ended in lazy monks and hypocrisy?" 
 
 "Dante asked himself the same question eighty 
 years after St. Francis's death. Yet here is this divine 
 church!" Ferrier pointed to the frescoed walls, the mar- 
 vellous roof " here is immortal art ! and here, in your 
 mind and in mine, after six hundred years, is a memory 
 an emotion which, but for St. Francis, had never been; 
 by which indeed we judge his degenerate sons. Is that 
 not achievement enough for one child of man?" 
 
 " Six hundred years hence what modern will be as 
 much alive as St. Francis is now?" Diana wondered, as 
 they strolled on. 
 
 He turned a quiet gaze upon her. 
 
 "Darwin? At least I throw it out." 
 
 "Darwin!" Her voice showed doubt the natural 
 demur of her young ignorance and idealism. 
 
 " Why not ? What faith was to the thirteenth century 
 knowledge is to us. St. Francis rekindled the heart of 
 Europe, Darwin has transformed the main conception 
 of the human mind." 
 
 In the dark she caught the cheerful patience of the 
 small penetrating eyes as they turned upon her. And at 
 the same time strangely she became aware of a sudden 
 
 344
 
 The Testing ofl Diana Mallory 
 
 and painful impression; as though, -through and behind 
 the patience, she perceived an immense fatigue and dis- 
 couragement an ebbing power of life in the man beside 
 her. 
 
 "Hullo!" said Bobbie Forbes, turning back toward 
 them, " I thought there was no one else here." 
 
 For suddenly they had become aware of a tapping 
 sound on the marble floor, and from the shadows of the 
 eastern end there emerged two figures: a woman in 
 front, lame and walking with a stick, and a man behind. 
 The cold reflected light which filled the western half of 
 the church shone full on both faces. Bobbie Forbes and 
 Diana exclaimed, simultaneously. Then Diana sped along 
 the pavement. 
 
 "Who ?" said Chide, rejoining the other two. 
 
 " Frobisher and Miss Vincent," said Forbes, study- 
 ing the new-comers. 
 
 "Miss Vincent!" Chide's voice showed his astonish- 
 ment. " I thought she had been very ill." 
 
 "So she has," said Ferrier "very ill. It is amazing 
 to see her here." 
 
 "And Frobisher?" 
 
 Ferrier made no reply. Chide's expression showed 
 perplexity, perhaps a shade of coldness. In him a warm 
 Irish heart was joined with great strictness, even prudish- 
 ness of manners, the result of an Irish Catholic education 
 of the old type. Young women, in his opinion, could 
 hardly be too careful, in a calumnious world. The mod- 
 ern flouting of old decorums small or great found no 
 supporter in the man who had passionately defended 
 and absolved Juliet Sparling. 
 
 But he followed the rest to the greeting of the new- 
 comers. Diana's hand was in Miss Vincent's, and the 
 
 "3 345
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 girl's face was full of joy ; Marion Vincent, deathly white, 
 her eyes, more amazing, more alive than ever, amid the 
 emaciation that surrounded them, greeted the party 
 with smiling composure neither embarrassed, nor apol- 
 ogetic appealing to Frobisher now and then as to her 
 travelling companion speaking of "our week at Or- 
 vieto" making, in fact, no secret of an arrangement 
 which presently every member of the group about her 
 even Sir James Chide accepted as simply as it was 
 offered to them. 
 
 As to Frobisher, he was rather silent, but no more 
 embarrassed than she. It was evident that he kept an 
 anxious watch lest her stick should slip upon the marble 
 floor, and presently he insisted in a low voice that she 
 should go home and rest. 
 
 " Come back after dinner," she said to him, in the same 
 tone as they emerged on the piazza. He nodded, and 
 hurried off by himself. 
 
 "You are at the Subasio?" The speaker turned to 
 Diana. "So am I. I don't dine but shall we meet 
 afterward?" 
 
 "And Mr. Frobisher?" said Diana, timidly. 
 
 " He is staying at the Leone. But I told him to come 
 back." 
 
 After dinner the whole party met in Diana's little 
 sitting-room, of which one window looked to the con- 
 vent, while the other commanded the plain. And from 
 the second, the tenant of the room had access to a small 
 terrace, public, indeed, to the rest of the hotel, but as 
 there were no other guests the English party took pos- 
 session. 
 
 Bobbie stood beside the terrace window with Diana, 
 gossiping, while Chide and Ferrier paced the terrace 
 
 346
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 with their cigars. Neither Miss Vincent nor Frobisher 
 had yet appeared, and Muriel Colwood was making tea. 
 Bobbie was playing his usual part of the chatterbox, 
 while at the same time he was inwardly applying much 
 native shrewdness and a boundless curiosity to Diana 
 and her affairs. 
 
 Did she know had she any idea that in London at 
 that moment she was one of the main topics of conversa- 
 tion ? in fact, the best talked-about young woman of the 
 day ? that if she were to spend June in town which of 
 course she would not do she would find herself a succes 
 fou people tumbling over one another to invite her, and 
 make a show of her? Everybody of his acquaintance 
 was now engaged in retrying the Wing murder, since 
 that statement of Chide's in the Times. No one talked 
 of anything else, and the new story that was now tacked 
 on to the old had given yet another spin to the ball of 
 gossip. 
 
 How had the story got out ? Bobbie believed that it 
 had been mainly the doing of Lady Niton. At any rate, 
 the world understood perfectly that Juliet Sparling's in- 
 nocent and unfortunate daughter had been harshly 
 treated by Lady Lucy and deserted by Lady Lucy's 
 son. 
 
 Queer fellow, Marsham ! rather a fool, too. Why the 
 deuce didn't he stick to it? Lady Lucy would have 
 come round; he would have gained enormous kudos, 
 and lost nothing. Bobbie looked admiringly at his com- 
 panion, vowing to himself that she was worth fighting 
 for. But his own heart was proof. For three months 
 he had been engaged, sub rosa, to a penniless cousin. 
 No one knew, least of all Lady Niton, who, in spite of 
 her championship of Diana, would probably be furious 
 
 347
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 when she did know. He found himself pining to tell 
 Diana; he would tell her as soon as ever he got an 
 opportunity. Odd! that the effect of having gone 
 through a lot yourself should be that other people were 
 strongly drawn to unload their troubles upon you. 
 Bobbie felt himself a selfish beast; but all the same his 
 " Ettie" and his debts; the pros and cons of the various 
 schemes for his future, in which he had. hitherto allowed 
 Lady Niton to play so queer and tyrannical a part all 
 these burned on his tongue till he could confide them to 
 Diana. 
 
 Meanwhile the talk strayed to Ferrier and politics 
 dangerous ground! Yet some secret impulse in Diana 
 drew her toward it, and Bobbie's curiosity played up. 
 Diana spoke with concern of the great man's pallor and 
 fatigue. "Not to be wondered at," said Forbes, "con- 
 sidering the tight place he was in, or would soon be in." 
 Diana asked for explanations, acting a part a little; for 
 since her acquaintance with Oliver Marsham she had 
 become a diligent reader of newspapers. Bobbie, divin- 
 ing her, gave her the latest and most authentic gossip of 
 the clubs; as to the various incidents and gradations of 
 the now open revolt of the Left Wing ; the current esti- 
 mates of Ferrier's strength in the country; and the pros- 
 pects of the coming election. 
 
 Presently he even ventured on Marsham 's name, feel- 
 ing instinctively that she waited for it. If there was 
 any change in the face beside him the May darkness 
 concealed it, and Bobbie chattered on. There was no 
 doubt that Marsham was in a difficulty. All his sym- 
 pathies at least were with the rebels, and their victory 
 would be his profit. 
 
 " Yet as every one knows that Marsham is under great 
 348
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 obligations to Ferrier, for him to join the conspiracy 
 these fellows are hatching doesn't look pretty." 
 
 " He won't join it!" said Diana, sharply. 
 
 "Well, a good many people think he's in it already. 
 Oh, I dare say it's all rot!" the speaker added, hastily; 
 " and, besides, it's not at all certaiin that Marsham him- 
 self will get in next time." 
 
 "Get in!" It was a cry of astonishment passing on 
 into constraint. "I thought Mr. Marsham's seat was 
 absolutely safe." 
 
 "Not it." Bobbie began to flounder. "The fact is 
 it's not safe at all; it's uncommonly shaky. He'll have 
 a squeak for it. They're not so sweet on him down there 
 as they used to be." 
 
 Gracious! if she were to ask why! The young man 
 was about hastily to change the subject when Sir James 
 and his companion came toward them. 
 
 " Can't we tempt you out, Miss Mallory ?" said Ferrier. 
 "There is a marvellous change!" He pointed to the 
 plain over which the night was falling. " When we met 
 you in the church it was still winter, or wintry spring. 
 Now in two hours the summer's come!" 
 
 And on Diana's face, as she stepped out to join him, 
 struck a buffet of warm air; a heavy scent of narcissus 
 rose from the flower-boxes on the terrace; and from a 
 garden far below came the sharp thin prelude of a 
 nightingale. 
 
 For about half an hour the young girl and the veteran 
 of politics walked up and down sounding each other 
 heart reaching out to heart dumbly behind the veil of 
 words. There was a secret link between them. The 
 politician was bruised and weary well aware that just 
 
 349
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 as Fortune seemed to have brought one of her topmost 
 prizes within his grasp, forces and events were gathering 
 in silence to contest it with him. Ferrier had been 
 twenty- seven years in the House of Commons; his chief 
 life was there, had always been there; outside that 
 maimed and customary pleasure he found, besides, a wom- 
 an now white-haired. To rule to lead that House had 
 been the ambition of his life. He had earned it; had 
 scorned delights for it; and his powers were at their 
 ripest. 
 
 Yet the intrigue, as he knew, was already launched 
 that might, at the last moment, sweep him from his goal. 
 Most of the men concerned in it he either held for hon- 
 est fanatics or despised as flatterers of the mob ignobly 
 pliant. He could and would fight them all with good 
 courage and fair hope of victory. 
 
 But Lucy Marsham's son! that defection, realized or 
 threatened, was beginning now to hit him hard. Amid 
 all their disagreements of the past year his pride had 
 always refused to believe that Marsham could ultimately 
 make common cause with the party dissenters. Ferrier 
 had hardly been able to bring himself, indeed, to take the 
 disagreements seriously. There was a secret impatience, 
 perhaps even a secret arrogance, in his feeling. A young 
 man whom he had watched from his babyhood, had put 
 into Parliament, and led and trained there! that he 
 should take this hostile and harassing line, with threat of 
 worse, was a matter too sore and intimate to be talked 
 about. He did not mean to talk about it. To Lady 
 Lucy he never spoke of Oliver's opinions, except in a 
 half-jesting way; to other people he did not speak of 
 them at all. Ferrier's affections were deep and silent. 
 He had not found it possible to love the mother without
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 loving the son had played, indeed, a father's part to him 
 since Henry Marsham's death. He knew the brilliant, 
 flawed, unstable, attractive fellow through and through. 
 But his knowledge left him still vulnerable. He thought 
 little of Oliver's political capacity; and, for all his affec- 
 tion, had no great admiration for his character. Yet 
 Oliver had power to cause him pain of a kind that no 
 other of his Parliamentary associates possessed. 
 
 The letters of that morning had brought him news of 
 an important meeting in Marsham's constituency, in 
 which his leadership had been for the first time openly 
 and vehemently attacked. Marsham had not been pres- 
 ent at the meeting, and Lady Lucy had written, eagerly 
 declaring that he could not have prevented it and had no 
 responsibility. But could the thing have been done 
 within his own borders without, at least, a tacit con- 
 nivance on his part? 
 
 The incident had awakened a peculiarly strong feeling 
 in the elder man. because during the early days of the 
 recess he had written a series of letters to Marsham 
 on the disputed matters that were dividing the party; 
 letters intended not only to recall Marsham's own alle- 
 giance, but through him to reach two of the leading 
 dissidents Lankester and Barton in particular, for 
 whom he felt a strong personal respect and regard. 
 
 These letters were now a cause of anxiety to him. 
 His procedure in writing them had been, of course, en- 
 tirely correct. It is the business of a party leader to 
 persuade. But he had warned Oliver from the beginning 
 that only portions of them could or should be used in the 
 informal negotiations they were meant to help. Ferrier 
 had always been incorrigibly frank in his talk or corre- 
 spondence with Marsham, ever since the days when as
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 an Oxford undergraduate, bent on shining at the Union, 
 Oliver had first shown an interest in politics, and had 
 found in Ferrier, already in the front rank, the most 
 stimulating of teachers. These remarkable letters ac- 
 cordingly contained a good deal of the caustic or humor- 
 ous discussion of Parliamentary personalities, in which 
 Ferrier Ferrier at his ease excelled; and many pas- 
 sages, besides, in connection with the measures desired 
 by the Left Wing of the party, steeped in the political 
 pessimism, whimsical or serious, in which Ferrier showed 
 perhaps his most characteristic side at moments of 
 leisure or intimacy; while the moods expressed in out- 
 breaks of the kind had little or no effect on his pugnacity 
 as a debater or his skill as a party strategist, in face of 
 the enemy. 
 
 But, by George! if they were indiscreetly shown, or 
 repeated, some of those things might blow up the party! 
 Ferrier uncomfortably remembered one or two instances 
 during the preceding year, in which it had occurred 
 to him as the merest fleeting impression that Oliver 
 had repeated a saying or had twisted an opinion of his 
 unfairly puzzling instances, in which, had it been any 
 one else, Ferrier would have seen the desire to snatch 
 a personal advantage at his, Ferrier's, expense. But 
 how entertain such a notion in the case of Oliver! 
 Ridiculous! 
 
 He would write no more letters, however. With the 
 news of the Dunscombe meeting the relations between 
 himself and Oliver entered upon a new phase. Toward 
 Lucy's son he must bear himself politically hencefor- 
 ward, not as the intimate confiding friend or foster- 
 father, but as the statesman with greater interests than 
 his own to protect. This seemed to him clear; yet the 
 
 352
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 effort to adjust his mind to the new conditions gave him 
 deep and positive pain. 
 
 But what, after all, were his grievances compared with 
 those of this soft-eyed girl ? It pricked his conscience to 
 remember how feebly he had fought her battle. She 
 must know that he had done little or nothing for her; 
 yet there was something peculiarly gentle, one might 
 have thought pitiful, in her manner toward him. His 
 pride winced under it. 
 
 Sir James, too, must have his private talk with Diana 
 when he took her to the farther extremity of the little 
 terrace, and told her of the results and echoes which had 
 followed the publication, in the Times, of Wing's dying 
 statement. 
 
 Diana had given her sanction to the publication with 
 trembling and a torn mind. Justice to her mother re- 
 quired it. There she had no doubt; and her will, there- 
 fore, hardened to the act, and to the publicity which it 
 involved. But Sir Francis Wing's son was still living, 
 and what for her was piety must be for him stain and 
 dishonor. She did not shrink; but the compunctions 
 she could not show she felt; and, through Sir James 
 Chide, she had written a little letter which had done 
 something to soften the blow, as it affected a dull yet 
 not inequitable mind. 
 
 "Does he forgive us?" she asked, in a low voice, turn- 
 ing her face toward the Umbrian plain, with its twinkling 
 lights below, its stars above. 
 
 " He knows he must have done the same in our place," 
 said Sir James. 
 
 After a minute he looked at her closely under the 
 electric light which dominated the terrace. 
 
 353
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "I am afraid you have been going through a great 
 deal," he said, bending over her. " Put it from you when 
 you can. You don't know how people feel for you." 
 
 She looked up with her quick smile. 
 
 "I don't always think of it and oh! I am so thank- 
 ful to know! I dream of them often my father and 
 mother but not unhappily. They are mine much, 
 much more than they ever were." 
 
 She clasped her hands, and he felt rather than saw the 
 exaltation, the tender fire in her look. 
 
 All very well ! But this stage would pass must pass. 
 She had her own life to live. And if one man had be- 
 haved like a selfish coward, all the more reason to invoke, 
 to hurry on the worthy and the perfect lover. 
 
 Presently Marion Vincent appeared, and with her 
 Frobisher, and an unknown man with a magnificent 
 brow, dark eyes of a remarkable vivacity, and a Southern 
 eloquence both of speech and gesture. He proved to be 
 a famous Italian, a poet well known to European fame, 
 who, having married an English wife, had settled himself 
 at Assisi for the study of St. Francis and the Franciscan 
 literature. He became at once the centre of a circle 
 which grouped itself on the terrace, while he pointed to 
 spot after spot, dimly white on the shadows of the moon- 
 lit plain, linking each with the Franciscan legend and the 
 passion of Franciscan poetry. The slopes of San Damiano, 
 the sites of Spello, Bevagna, Cannara; Rivo Torto, the 
 hovering dome of the Portiuncula, the desolate uplands 
 that lead to the Carceri; one after another, the scenes and 
 images grotesque or lovely simple or profound of 
 the vast Franciscan story rose into life under his touch, 
 till they generated in those listening the answer of the 
 
 354
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 soul of to-day to the soul of the Poverello. Poverty, 
 misery, and crime still they haunt the Umbrian villages 
 and the Assisan streets; the shadows of them, as the north 
 knows them, lay deep and terrible in Marion Vincent's 
 eyes. But as the poet spoke the eternal protest and 
 battle-cry of Humanity swelled up against them over- 
 flowed, engulfed them. The hearts of some of his listen- 
 ers burned within them. 
 
 And finally he brought them back to the famous legend 
 of the hidden church: deep, deep in the rock below the 
 two churches that we see to-day; where St. Francis 
 waits standing, with his arms raised to heaven, on fire 
 with an eternal hope, an eternal ecstasy. 
 
 " Waits for what?" said Ferrier, under his breath, for- 
 getting his audience a moment. " The death of Catholi- 
 cism?" 
 
 Sir James Chide gave an uneasy cough. Ferrier, 
 startled, looked round, threw his old friend a gesture of 
 apology which Sir James mutely accepted. Then Sir 
 James got up and strolled away, his hands in his pockets, 
 toward the farther end of the terrace. 
 
 The poet meanwhile, ignorant of this little incident, 
 and assuming the sympathy of his audience, raised his 
 eyebrows, smiling, as he repeated Ferrier's words: 
 
 "The death of Catholicism! No, Signer! its second 
 birth." And with a Southern play of hand and feature 
 the nobility of brow and aspect turned now on this 
 listener, now on that he began to describe the revival 
 of faith in Italy. 
 
 "Ten years ago there was not faith enough in this 
 country to make a heresy! On the one side, a moribund 
 organization, poisoned by a dead philosophy; on the 
 Other, negation, license, weariness a dumb thirst for 
 
 355
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 men knew not what. And now! if St. Francis were 
 here in every olive garden in each hill town on the 
 roads and the by-ways on the mountains in the plains 
 -his heart would greet the swelling of a new tide draw- 
 ing inward to this land the breath of a new spring 
 kindling the buds of life. He would hear preached 
 again, in the language of a new day, his own religion of 
 love, humility, and poverty. The new faith springs 
 from the very heart of Catholicism, banned and perse- 
 cuted as new faiths have always been; but every day it 
 lives, it spreads! Knowledge and science walk hand in 
 hand with it; the future is before it. It spreads in 
 tales and poems, like the Franciscan message; it pene- 
 trates the priesthood ; it passes like the risen body of the 
 Lord through the walls of seminaries and episcopal pal- 
 aces; through the bulwarks that surround the Vatican 
 itself. Tenderly, yet with an absolute courage, it puts 
 aside old abuses, old ignorances! like St. Francis, it 
 holds out its hand to a spiritual bride and the name 
 of that bride is Truth! And in his grave within the 
 rock on tiptoe the Poverello listens the Poverello 
 smiles!" 
 
 The poet raised his hand and pointed to the convent 
 pile, towering under the moonlight. Diana's eyes filled 
 with tears. Sir James had come back to the group, 
 his face, with its dignified and strenuous lines, bent 
 half perplexed, half frowning on the speaker. And the 
 magic of the Umbrian night stole upon each quickened 
 pulse. 
 
 But presently, when the group had broken up and 
 Ferrier was once more strolling beside Diana, he said 
 to her: 
 
 "A fine prophecy! But I had a letter this morning 
 356
 
 The Testing of* Diana Mallorg 
 
 from another Italian writer. It contains the following 
 passage: 'The soul of this nation is dead. The old 
 enthusiasms are gone. We have the most selfish, the 
 most cynical bourgeoisie in Europe. Happy the men of 
 1860! They had some illusions left religion, mon- 
 archy, country. We too have men who would give 
 themselves if they could. But to what ? No one wants 
 them any more nessuno li vuole piu!' Well, there are 
 the two. Which will you believe?" 
 
 "The poet!" said Diana, in a low faltering voice. 
 But it was no cry of triumphant faith. It was the typ- 
 ical cry of our generation before the closed door that 
 openeth not. 
 
 "That was good," said Marion Vincent, as the last of 
 the party disappeared through the terrace window, and 
 she and Diana were left alone "but this is better." 
 
 She drew Diana toward her, kissed her, and smiled 
 at her. But the smile wrung Diana's heart. 
 
 " Why have you been so ill ? and I never knew!" She 
 wrapped a shawl round her friend, and, holding her 
 hands, gazed into her face. 
 
 "It was all so hurried there was so little time to 
 think or remember. But now there is time." 
 
 " Now you are going to rest? and get well?" 
 
 Marion smiled again. 
 
 " I shall have holiday for a few months then rest." 
 
 " You won't live any more in the East End ? You'll 
 come to me in the country?" said Diana, eagerly. 
 
 " Perhaps! But I want to see all I can in my holiday 
 before I rest! All my life I have lived in London. 
 There has been nothing to see but squalor. Do you 
 know that I have lived next door to a fried-fish shop for 
 
 357
 
 The Testing otf Diana Mallory 
 
 twelve years? But now think! I am in Italy and 
 we are going to the Alps and we shall stay on Lake 
 Como and and there is no end to our plans if only 
 my holiday is long enough." 
 
 What a ghost face! and what shining eyes! 
 
 "Oh, but make it long enough!" pleaded Diana, 
 laying one of the emaciated hands against her cheek, 
 and smitten by a vague terror. 
 
 "That does not depend on me," said Marion, slowly. 
 
 "Marion," cried Diana, "tell me what you mean!" 
 
 Marion hesitated a moment, then said, quietly: 
 
 " Promise, dear, to take it quite simply just as I tell 
 it. I am so happy. There was an operation six weeks 
 ago. It was quite successful I have no pain. The 
 doctors give me seven or eight months. Then my enemy 
 will come back and my rest with him." 
 
 A cry escaped Diana as she buried her face in her 
 friend's lap. Marion kissed and comforted her. 
 
 "If you only knew how happy I am!" she said, in a 
 low voice. "Ever since I was a child I seem to have 
 fought fought hard for every step every breath. I 
 fought for bread first and self-respect for myself 
 then for others. One seemed to be hammering at shut 
 gates or climbing precipices with loads that dragged 
 one down. Such trouble always!" she murmured, 
 with closed eyes "such toil and anguish of body and 
 brain! And now it is all over!" she raised herself 
 joyously " I am already on the farther side. I am like 
 St. Francis waiting. And meanwhile I have a dear 
 friend who loves me. I can't let him marry me. Pain 
 and disease and mutilation of all those horrors, as far 
 as I can, he shall know nothing. He shall not nurse 
 me; he shall only love and lead me. But I have been 
 
 358
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 thirsting for beautiful things all my life and he is giv- 
 ing them to me. I have dreamed of Italy since I 
 was a baby, and here I am! I have seen Rome and 
 Florence. We go on to Venice. And next week there 
 will be mountains and snow-peaks rivers forests 
 flowers " 
 
 Her voice sank and died away. Diana clung to her, 
 weeping, in a speechless grief and reverence. At the 
 same time her own murdered love cried out within her, 
 and in the hot despair of youth she told herself that life 
 was as much finished for her as for this tired saint this 
 woman of forty who had borne since her babyhood the 
 burdens of the poor.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE Whitsuntide recess passed for the wanderers 
 in Italy in a glorious prodigality of sun, a rushing 
 of bud and leaf to "feed in air," a twittering of birds, a 
 splendor of warm nights, which for once indorsed the 
 traditional rhapsodies of the poets. The little party of 
 friends which had met at Assisi moved on together to 
 Siena and Perugia, except for Marion Vincent and 
 Frobisher. They quietly bade farewell, and went their 
 way. 
 
 When Marion kissed Diana at parting, she said, with 
 emphasis : 
 
 "Now, remember! you are not to come to London! 
 You are not to go to work in the East End. I forbid 
 it! You are to go home and look lovely and be 
 happy!" 
 
 Diana's eyes gazed wistfully into hers. 
 
 "I am afraid I hadn't thought lately of coming to 
 London," she murmured. "I suppose I'm a coward. 
 And just now I should be no good to anybody." 
 
 "All right. I don't care for your reasons so long as 
 you go home and don't uproot." 
 
 Marion held her close. She had heard all the girl's 
 story, had shown her the most tender sympathy. And 
 on this strange wedding journey of hers she knew that 
 she carried with her Diana's awed love and yearning 
 remembrance. 
 
 360
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 But now she was eager to be gone to be alone again 
 with her best friend, in this breathing-space that re- 
 mained to them. 
 
 So Diana saw them off the shabby, handsome man, 
 with his lean, proud, sincere face, and the woman, so 
 frail and white, yet so indomitable. They carried vari- 
 ous bags and parcels, mostly tied up with string, which 
 represented all their luggage; they travelled with the 
 peasants, fraternizing with them where they could; and 
 it was useless, as Diana saw, to press luxuries on either 
 of them. Many heads turned to look at them, in the 
 streets or on the railway platform. There was some- 
 thing tragic in their aspect ; yet not a trace of abject- 
 ness; nothing that asked for pity. When Diana last 
 caught sight of them, Marion had a contadino's child 
 on her knee, in the corner of a third-class carriage, and 
 Frobisher opposite he spoke a fluent Italian was 
 laughing and jesting with the father. Marion, smiling, 
 waved her hand, and the train bore them away. 
 
 The others moved to Perugia, and the hours they 
 spent together in the high and beautiful town were for 
 all of them hours of well-being. Diana was the centre 
 of the group. In the eyes of the three men her story 
 invested her with a peculiar and touching interest. Their 
 knowledge of it, and her silent acceptance of their knowl- 
 edge, made a bond between her and them which showed 
 itself in a hundred ways. Neither Ferrier, nor Chide, 
 nor young Forbes could ever do too much for her, or 
 think for her too loyally. And, on the other hand, it 
 was her inevitable perception of their unspoken thoughts 
 which gave her courage toward them a kind of freedom 
 which it is very difficult for women to feel or exercise in 
 
 34 361
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 the ordinary circumstances of life. She gave them each 
 gratefully a bit of her heart, in different ways. 
 
 Bobbie had adopted her as elder sister, having none 
 of his own; and by now she knew all about his en- 
 gagement, his distaste for the Foreign Office, his lack of 
 prospects there, and his determination to change it for 
 some less expensive and more remunerative calling. But 
 Lady Niton was the dragon in the path. She had all 
 sorts of ambitious projects for him, none of which, ac- 
 cording to Forbes, ever came off, there being always 
 some better fellow to be had. Diplomacy, in her eyes, 
 was the natural sphere of a young man of parts and 
 family, and as for the money, if he would only show the 
 smallest signs of getting on, she would find it. But in 
 the service of his country Bobbie showed no signs what- 
 ever of "getting on." He hinted uncomfortably, in his 
 conversations with Diana, at the long list of his obliga- 
 tions to Lady Niton money lent, influence exerted, ser- 
 vices of many kinds spread over four or five years, ever 
 since, after a chance meeting in a country-house, she had 
 appointed herself his earthly providence, and he an or- 
 phan of good family, with a small income and extrava- 
 gant tastes had weakly accepted her bounties. 
 
 " Now, of course, she insists on my marrying somebody 
 with money. As if any chaperon would look at me! 
 Two years ago I did make up to a nice girl a real nice 
 girl and only a thousand a year! nothing so tremen- 
 dous, after all. But her mother twice carried her off, in 
 the middle of a rattling ball, because she had engaged 
 herself to me just like sending a naughty child to bed ! 
 And the next time the mother made me take her down 
 to supper, and expounded to me her view of a chaperon's 
 duties: 'My business, Mr. Forbes' you should have 
 
 362
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 seen her stony eye ' is to mar, not to make. The suit- 
 able marriages make themselves or are made in heaven. 
 I have nothing to do with them, except to keep a fair 
 field. The unsuitable marriages have to be prevented, 
 and will be prevented. You understand me?' 'Per- 
 fectly/ I said. 'I understand perfectly. To mar is 
 human, and to make divine? Thank you. Have some 
 more jelly ? No ? Shall I ask for your carriage ? Good- 
 night.' But Lady Niton won't believe a word of it! 
 She thinks I've only to ask and have. She'll be rude to 
 Ettie, and I shall have to punch her head metaphori- 
 cally. And how can you punch a person's head when 
 they've lent you money?" 
 
 Diana could only laugh, and commend him to his 
 Ettie, who, to judge from her letters, was a girl of sense, 
 and might be trusted to get him out of his scrape. 
 
 Meanwhile, Ferrier, the man of affairs, statesman, 
 thinker, and pessimist, found in his new friendship with 
 Diana at once that "agreement," that relaxation, which 
 men of his sort can only find in the society of those 
 women who, without competing with them, can -yet by 
 sympathy and native wit make their companionship 
 abundantly worth while; and also, a means, as it were, 
 of vicarious amends, which he very eagerly took. 
 
 He was, in fact, ashamed for Lady Lucy; humiliated, 
 moreover, by his own small influence with her in a vital 
 matter. And both shame and humiliation took the form 
 of tender consideration for Lady Lucy's victim. 
 
 It did not at all diminish the value of his kindness, 
 that most humanly it largely showed itself in what 
 many people would have considered egotistical confes- 
 sions to a charming girl. Diana found a constant distrac- 
 
 363
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 tion, a constant interest, in listening. Her solitary life 
 with her scholar father h id prepared her for such a friend. 
 In the overthrow of love and feeling, she bravely tried to 
 pick up the threads of the old intellectual pleasures. 
 And both Ferrier and Chide, two of the ablest men of 
 their generation, were never tired of helping her thus to 
 recover herself. Chide was an admirable story-teller ; 
 and his mere daily life had stored him with tales, 
 humorous and grim; while Ferrier talked history and 
 poetry, as they strolled about Siena or Perugia; and, 
 as he sat at night among the letters of the day, had a 
 score of interesting or amusing comments to make upon 
 the politics of the moment. He reserved his "confes- 
 sions," of course, for the tte-b-tete of country walks. It 
 was then that Diana seemed to be holding in her girlish 
 hands something very complex and rare; a nature not 
 easily to be understood by one so much younger. His 
 extraordinary gifts, his disinterested temper, his as- 
 tonishing powers of work raised him in her eyes to 
 heroic stature. And then some very human weakness, 
 some natural vanity, such as wives love and foster in 
 their husbands, but which, in his case appeared mere- 
 ly forlorn and eccentric some deep note of loneliness 
 would touch her heart, and rouse her pity. He 
 talked generally with an amazing confidence, not un- 
 touched perhaps with arrogance, of the political struggle 
 before him; believed he should carry the country with 
 him, and impose his policy on a divided party. Yet 
 again and again, amid the flow of hopeful speculation, 
 Diana became aware, as on the first evening of Assisi, of 
 some hidden and tragic doubt, both of fate and of him- 
 self, some deep-rooted weariness, against which the 
 energy of his talk seemed to be perpetually reacting and 
 
 364
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 protesting. And the solitariness and meagreness of his 
 life in all its personal and domestic aspects appalled her. 
 She saw him often as a great man a really great man 
 yet starved and shelterless amid the storms that were 
 beating up around him. 
 
 The friendship between him and Chide appeared to be 
 very close, yet not a little surprising. They were old 
 comrades in Parliament, and Chide was in the main a 
 whole-hearted supporter of Ferrier's policy and views; 
 resenting in particular, as Diana soon discovered, Mar- 
 sham's change of attitude. But the two men had hardly 
 anything else in common. Ferrier was an enormous 
 reader, most variously accomplished; while his political 
 Whiggery was balanced by a restless scepticism in phi- 
 losophy and religion. For the rest he was an ascetic, even 
 in the stream of London life; he cared nothing for most 
 of the ordinary amusements; he played a vile hand at 
 whist (bridge had not yet dawned upon a waiting world) ; 
 he drank no wine, and was contentedly ignorant both of 
 sport and games. 
 
 Chide, on the other hand, was as innocent of books as 
 Lord Palmerston. All that was necessary for his career 
 as a great advocate he could possess himself of in the 
 twinkling of an eye; his natural judgment and acuteness 
 were of the first order; his powers of eloquence among 
 the most famous of his time; but it is doubtful whether 
 Lady Niton would have found him much better informed 
 about the politics of her youth than Barton himself; Sir 
 James, too, was hazy about Louis Philippe, and could 
 never remember, in the order of Prime Ministers, whether 
 Canning or Lord Liverpool came first. With this, he 
 was a simple and devout Catholic ; loved on his holiday 
 to serve the mass of some poor priest in a mountain 
 
 365
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 valley; and had more than once been known to carry 
 off some lax Catholic junior on his circuit to the per- 
 formance of his Easter duties, willy-nilly by a mixture 
 of magnetism and authority. For all games of chance 
 he had a perfect passion; would play whist all night, 
 and conduct a case magnificently all day. And although 
 he was no sportsman in the ordinary sense, having had 
 no opportunities in a very penurious youth, he had an 
 Irishman's love of horseflesh, and knew the Derby win- 
 ners from the beginning with as much accuracy as 
 Macaulay knew the Senior Wranglers. 
 
 Yet the two men loved, respected, and understood each 
 other. Diana wondered secretly, indeed, whether Sir 
 James could have explained to her the bond between 
 Ferrier and Lady Lucy. That, to her inexperience, was 
 a complete mystery ! Almost every day Ferrier wrote to 
 Tallyn, and twice a week at least, as the letters were 
 delivered at table d'hdte, Diana could not help seeing the 
 long pointed writing on the thin black -edged paper 
 which had once been for her the signal of doom. She 
 hardly suspected, indeed, how often she herself made the 
 subject of the man's letters. Ferrier wrote of her per- 
 sistently to Lady Lucy, being determined that so much 
 punishment at least should be meted out to that lady. 
 The mistress of Tallyn, on her side, never mentioned the 
 name of Miss Mallory. All the pages in his letters which 
 concerned her might never have been written, and he was 
 well aware that not a word of them would ever reach 
 Oliver. Diana's pale and saddened beauty; the dignity 
 which grief, tragic grief, free from all sordid or ignoble 
 elements, can infuse into a personality; the affection she 
 inspired, the universal sympathy that was felt for her: 
 he dwelt on these things, till Lady Lucy, exasperated, 
 
 366
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 could hardly bring herself to open the envelopes which 
 contained his lucubrations. Could any subject, in cor- 
 respondence with herself, be more unfitting or more 
 futile ? and what difference could it all possibly make 
 to the girl's shocking antecedents ? 
 
 One radiant afternoon, after a long day of sight-seeing, 
 Diana and Mrs. Colwood retreated to their rooms to 
 write letters and to rest; Forbes was hotly engaged in 
 bargaining for an Umbrian primitif, which he had just 
 discovered in an old house in a back street, whither, no 
 doubt, the skilful antiquario had that morning transport- 
 ed it from his shop; and Sir James had gone out for a 
 stroll, on the splendid road which winds gradually down 
 the hill on which Perugia stands, to the tomb of the 
 Volumnii, on the edge of the plain, and so on to Assisi 
 and Foligno, in the blue distance. 
 
 Half-way down he met Ferrier, ascending from the 
 tomb. Sir James turned, and they strolled back to- 
 gether. The Umbrian landscape girdling the superb 
 town showed itself unveiled. Every gash on the torn 
 white sides of the eastern Apennines, every tint of purple 
 or porcelain-blue on the nearer hills, every plane of the 
 smiling valley as it wound southward, lay bathed in a 
 broad and searching light which yet was a light of beauty 
 of infinite illusion. 
 
 " I must say I have enjoyed my life," said Ferrier, 
 abruptly, as they paused to look back, " though I don't 
 put it altogether in the first class!" 
 
 Sir James raised his eyebrows smiled and did not 
 immediately reply. 
 
 "Chide, old fellow," Ferrier resumed, turning to him, 
 "before I left England I signed my will. Do you 
 
 3 6 7
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 object that I have named you one of the two execu- 
 tors?" 
 
 Sir James gave him a cordial glance. 
 
 " All right, I'll do my best if need arises. I suppose, 
 Johnnie, you're a rich man?" 
 
 The name "Johnnie," very rarely heard between them, 
 went back to early days at the Bar, when Ferrier was 
 for a time in the same chambers with the young Irishman 
 who, within three years of being called, was making a 
 large income; whereas Ferrier had very soon convinced 
 himself that the Bar was not for him, nor he for the Bar, 
 and being a man of means had "plumped" for politics. 
 
 "Yes, I'm not badly off," said Ferrier; "I'm almost 
 the last of my family ; and a lot of money has found its 
 way to me first and last. It's been precious difficult to 
 know what to do with it. If Oliver Marsham had stuck 
 to that delightful girl I should have left it to him." 
 
 Sir James made a growling sound, more expressive 
 than articulate. 
 
 " As it is, " Ferrier resumed, " I have left half of it 
 to my old Oxford college, and half to the University." 
 
 Chide nodded. Presently a slight flush rose in his 
 very clear complexion, and he looked round on his com- 
 panion with sparkling eyes. 
 
 " It is odd that you should have started this subject. 
 I too have just signed a new will." 
 
 "Ah!" Ferrier's broad countenance showed a very 
 human curiosity. "I believe you are scarcely more 
 blessed with kindred than I?" 
 
 "No. In the main I could please myself. I have 
 left the bulk of what I had to leave to Miss Mallory." 
 
 "Excellent!" cried Ferrier. "She treats you already 
 like a daughter." 
 
 368
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " She is very kind to me," said Sir James, with a touch 
 of ceremony that became him. "And there is no one 
 in whom 1 feel a deeper interest." 
 
 "She must be made happy!" exclaimed Ferrier "she 
 must! Is there no one besides Oliver?" 
 
 Sir James drew himself up. "I hope she has put all 
 thought of Oliver out of her mind long since. Well! 
 I had a letter from Lady Felton last week dear woman 
 that! all the love-affairs in the county come to roost 
 in her mind. She talks of young Roughsedge. Per- 
 haps you don't know anything of the gentleman?" 
 
 He explained, so far as his own knowledge went. 
 Ferrier listened attentively. A soldier ? Good. Hand- 
 some, modest, and capable? better. Had just distin- 
 guished himself in this Nigerian expedition mentioned 
 in despatches last week. Better still ! so long as he kept 
 clear of the folly of allowing himself to be killed. But 
 as to the feelings of the young lady? 
 
 Sir James sighed. " I sometimes see in her traces of 
 of inheritance which make one anxious." 
 
 Ferrier's astonishment showed itself in mouth and eyes. 
 
 " What I mean is, " said Sir James, hastily, " a dra- 
 matic, impassioned way of looking at things. It would 
 never do if she were to get any damned nonsense about 
 'expiation,' or not being free to marry, into her head." 
 
 Ferrier agreed, but a little awkwardly, since the 
 "damned nonsense" was Lady Lucy's nonsense, and 
 both knew it. 
 
 They walked slowly back to Assisi, first putting their 
 elderly heads together a little further on the subject of 
 Diana, and then passing on to the politics of the mo- 
 ment to the ever present subject of the party revolt, 
 and its effect on the election. 
 
 369
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Pshaw! let them attack you as they please!" said 
 Chide, after they had talked awhile. "You are safe 
 enough. There is no one else. You are like the hero 
 in a novel, 'the indispensable." 1 
 
 Ferrier laughed. 
 
 " Don't be so sure. There is always a ' supplanter ' 
 when the time is ripe." 
 
 " Where is he ? Who is he ?" 
 
 "I had a very curious letter from Lord Philip this 
 morning," said Ferrier, thoughtfully. 
 
 Chide 's expression changed. 
 
 Lord Philip Darcy, a brilliant but quite subordinate 
 member of the former Liberal Government, had made 
 but occasional appearances in Parliament during the five 
 years' rule of the Tories. He was a traveller and ex- 
 plorer, and when in England a passionate votary of the 
 Turf. An incisive tongue, never more amusing than 
 when it was engaged in railing at the English workman 
 and democracy in general, a handsome person, and a 
 strong leaning to Ritualism these qualities and distinc- 
 tions had not for some time done much to advance his 
 Parliamentary position. But during the preceding ses- 
 sion he had been more regular in his attendance at the 
 House, and had made a considerable impression there 
 as a man of eccentric, but possibly great ability. On the 
 whole, he had been a loyal supporter of Ferrier's; but in 
 two or three recent speeches there had been signs of 
 coquetting with the extremists. 
 
 Ferrier, having mentioned the letter, relapsed into 
 silence. Sir James, with a little contemptuous laugh, 
 inquired what the nature of the letter might be. 
 
 "Oh, well, he wants certain pledges." Ferrier drew 
 the letter from his pocket, and handed it to his friend.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 Sir James perused it, and handed it back with a sarcastic 
 lip. 
 
 "He imagines you are going to accept that pro- 
 gramme?" 
 
 " I don't know. But it is clear that the letter implies 
 a threat if I don't." 
 
 " A threat of desertion ? Let him." 
 
 " That letter wasn't written off his own bat. There is 
 a good deal behind it. The plot, in fact, is thickening. 
 From the letters of this morning I see that a regular 
 press campaign is beginning." 
 
 He mentioned two party papers which had already 
 gone over to the dissidents one of some importance, the 
 other of none. 
 
 "All right," said Chide; "so long as the Herald and 
 the Flag do their duty. By-the-way, hasn't the Herald 
 got a new editor?" 
 
 " Yes ; a man called Barrington a friend of Oliver's." 
 
 "Ah! a good deal sounder on many points than 
 Oliver!" grumbled Sir James. 
 
 Ferrier did not reply. 
 
 Chide noticed the invariable way in which Marsham's 
 name dropped between them whenever it was introduced 
 in this connection. 
 
 As they neared the gate of the town they parted, Chide 
 returning to the hotel, while Ferrier, the most indefati- 
 gable of sight-seers, hurried off toward San Pietro. 
 
 He spent a quiet hour on the Peruginos, deciding, how- 
 ever, with himself in the end that they gave him but a 
 moderate pleasure; and then came out again into the 
 glow of an incomparable evening. Something in the 
 light and splendor of the scene, as he lingered on the 
 high terrace, hanging over the plain, looking down as
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 though from the battlements, the flagrantia moenia of 
 some celestial city, challenged the whole life and virility 
 of the man. 
 
 " Yet what ails me?" he thought to himself, curiously, 
 and quite without anxiety. " It is as though I were 
 listening for the approach of some person or event as 
 though a door were open or about to open 
 
 What more natural? in this pause before the fight? 
 And yet politics seemed to have little to do with it. The 
 expectancy seemed to lie deeper, in a region of the soul 
 to which none were or ever had been admitted, except 
 some friends of his Oxford youth long since dead. 
 
 And, suddenly, the contest which lay before him ap- 
 peared to him under a new aspect, bathed in a broad 
 philosophic air; a light serene and transforming, like 
 the light of the Umbrian evening. Was it not possibly 
 true that he had no future place as the leader of English 
 Liberalism ? Forces were welling up in its midst, forces 
 of violent and revolutionary change, with which it might 
 well be he had no power to cope. He saw himself, in a 
 waking dream, as one of the last defenders of a lost posi- 
 tion. The day of Utopias was dawning; and what has 
 the critical mind to do with Utopias ? Yet if men desire 
 to attempt them, who shall stay them? 
 
 Barton, McEwart, Lankester with their boundless 
 faith in the power of a few sessions and measures to 
 remake this old, old England with their impatiences, 
 their readiness at any moment to fling some wild ar- 
 row from the string, amid the crowded long-descended 
 growths of English life : he felt a strong intellectual con- 
 tempt both for their optimisms and audacities mingled, 
 perhaps; with a certain envy. 
 
 Sadness and despondency returned. His hand sought 
 372
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 in his pocket for the little volume of Leopardi which he 
 had taken out with him. On that king of pessimists, 
 that prince of all despairs, he had just spent half an hour 
 among the olives. Could renunciation of life and con- 
 tempt of the human destiny go further ? 
 
 Well, Leopardi'_s case was not his. It was true, what 
 he had said to Chide. With all drawbacks, he had en- 
 joyed his life, had found it abundantly worth living. 
 
 And, after all, was not Leopardi himself a witness to 
 the life he rejected, to the Nature he denounced. Ferrier 
 recalled his cry to his brother: "Love me, Carlo, for 
 God's sake! I need love, love, love! fire, enthusiasm, 
 life." 
 
 "Fire, enthusiasm, life." Does the human lot contain 
 these things, or no ? If it does, have the gods mocked us, 
 after all ? 
 
 Pondering these great words, Ferrier strolled home- 
 ward, while the outpouring of the evening splendor died 
 from Perusia Augusta, and the mountains sank deeper 
 into the gold and purple of the twilight. 
 
 As for love, he had missed it long ago. But existence 
 was still rich, still full of savor, so long as a man's will 
 held his grip on men and circumstance. 
 
 All action, he thought, is the climbing of a precipice, 
 upheld above infinity by one slender sustaining rope. 
 Call it what we like will, faith, ambition, the wish to 
 live in the end it fails us all. And in that moment, 
 when we begin to imagine how and when it may fail us, 
 we hear, across the sea of time, the first phantom tolling 
 of the funeral bell. 
 
 There were times now when he seemed to feel the cold 
 approaching breath of such a moment. But they were 
 still invariably succeeded by a passionate recoil of life and 
 
 373
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 energy. By the time he reached the hotel he was once 
 more plunged in all the preoccupations, the schemes, the 
 pugnacities of the party leader. 
 
 A month later, on an evening toward the end of June, 
 Dr. Roughsedge, lying reading in the shade of his little 
 garden, saw his wife approaching. He raised himself 
 with alacrity. 
 
 "You've seen her?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 With this monosyllabic answer Mrs. Roughsedge seat- 
 ed herself, and slowly untied her bonnet-strings. 
 
 "My dear, you seem discomposed." 
 
 "I hate men!" said Mrs. Roughsedge, vehemently. 
 
 The doctor raised his eyebrows. " I apologize for my 
 existence. But you might go so far as to explain." 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge was silent. 
 
 "How is that child?" said the doctor, abruptly. 
 "Come! I am as fond of her as you are." 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge raised her handkerchief. 
 
 "That any man with a heart " she began, in a stifled 
 voice. 
 
 " Why you should speculate on anything so abnormal!" 
 cried the doctor, impatiently. " I suppose your re- 
 mark applies to Oliver Marsham. Is she breaking her 
 own heart? that's all that signifies." 
 
 " She is extremely well and cheerful." 
 
 "Well, then, what's the matter?" 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge looked out of the window, twisting 
 her handkerchief. 
 
 " Nothing only everything seems done and fin- 
 ished." 
 
 "At twenty-two?" The doctor laughed. "And it's 
 374
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorvj 
 
 not quite four months yet since the poor thing dis- 
 covered that her doll was stuffed with sawdust. Really, 
 Patricia!" 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge slowly shook her head. 
 
 "I suspect what it all means," said her husband, 
 " is that she did not show as much interest as she ought 
 in Hugh's performance." 
 
 " She was most kind, and asked me endless questions. 
 She made me promise to bring her the press-cuttings and 
 read her his letters. She could not possibly have shown 
 more sympathy." 
 
 "H'm! well, I give it up." 
 
 "Henry!" his wife turned upon him "I am con- 
 vinced that poor child will never marry!" 
 
 "Give her time, my dear, and don't talk nonsense!" 
 
 " It isn't nonsense ! I tell you I felt just as I did when 
 I went to see Mary Theed, years ago you remember 
 that pretty cousin of mine who became a Carmelite nun ? 
 for the first time after she had taken the veil. She 
 spoke to one from another world it gave one the shiv- 
 ers! and was just as smiling and cheerful over it as 
 Diana and it was just as ghastly and unbearable and 
 abominable as this is." 
 
 "Well, then," said the doctor, after a pause, "I sup- 
 pose she'll take to good works. I hope you can provide 
 her with a lot of hopeless cases in the village. Did she 
 mention Marsham at all?" 
 
 "Not exactly. But she asked about the election 
 
 "The writs are out," interrupted the doctor. "I see 
 the first borough elections are fixed for three weeks 
 hence; ours will be one of the last of the counties; six 
 weeks to-day." 
 
 " I told her you thought he would get in." 
 
 375
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " Yes by the skin of his teeth. All his real populai ity 
 has vanished like smoke. But there's the big estate 
 and his mother's money and the collieries." 
 
 " The Vicar tells me the colliers are discontented all 
 through the district and there may be a big strike 
 
 " Yes, perhaps in the autumn, when the three years' 
 agreement comes to an end not yet. Marsham's vote 
 will run down heavily in the mining villages, but it '11 
 serve this time. They won't put the other man in." 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge rose to take off her things, remark- 
 ing, as she moved away, that Marsham was said to be 
 holding meetings nightly already, and that Lady Lucy 
 and Miss Drake were both hard at work. 
 
 "Miss Drake?" said the doctor, looking up. "Hand- 
 some girl! I saw Marsham in a dog-cart with her yes- 
 terday afternoon." 
 
 Mrs. Roughsedge flushed an angry red, but she said 
 nothing. She was encumbered with parcels, and her 
 husband rose to open the door for her. He stooped and 
 looked into her face. 
 
 "You didn't say anything about that, Patricia, I'll 
 be bound!" 
 
 Meanwhile, Diana was wandering about the Beechcote 
 garden, with her hands full of roses, just gathered. The 
 garden glowed under the westering sun. In the field just 
 below it the silvery lines of new-cut hay lay hot and 
 fragrant in the quivering light. The woods on the hill- 
 side were at the richest moment of their new life, the 
 earth-forces swelling and rioting through every root and 
 branch, wild roses climbing every hedge the miracle of 
 summer at its height. 
 
 Diana sat down upon a grass-bank, to look and dream. 
 376
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 The flowers dropped beside her; she propped her face 
 on her hands. 
 
 The home-coming had been hard. And perhaps the 
 element in it she had felt most difficult to bear had been 
 the universal sympathy with which she had been greeted. 
 It spoke from the faces of the poor the men and wom- 
 en, the lads and girls of the village; with their looks of 
 curiosity, sometimes frank, sometimes furtive or em- 
 barrassed. It was more politely disguised in the man- 
 ners and tones of the gentle people ; but everywhere 
 it. was evident; and sometimes it was beyond her en- 
 durance. 
 
 She could not help imagining the talk about her in 
 her absence; the discussion of the case in the country- 
 houses or in the village. To the village people, unused 
 to the fine discussions which turn on motive and environ- 
 ment, and slow to revise an old opinion, she was just the 
 daughter 
 
 She covered her eyes one hideous word ringing 
 brutally, involuntarily, through her brain. By a kind 
 of miserable obsession the talk in the village public- 
 houses shaped itself in her mind. "Ay, they didn't 
 hang her because she was a lady. She got off, trust 
 her! But if it had been you or me 
 
 She rose, trembling, trying to shake off the horror, 
 walking vaguely through the garden into the fields, as 
 though to escape it. But the horror pursued her, only 
 in different forms. Among the educated people peo- 
 ple who liked dissecting "interesting" or "mysterious" 
 crimes there had been no doubt long discussions of Sir 
 James Chide's letter to the Times, of Sir Francis Wing's 
 confession. But through all the talk, rustic or refined, 
 she heard the name of her mother bandied ; forever 
 *s 377
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 soiled and dishonored; with no right to privacy or cour- 
 tesy any more "Juliet Sparling" to all the world: the 
 loafer at the street corner the drunkard in the tavern 
 
 The thought of this vast publicity, this careless or 
 cruel scorn of the big world toward one so frail, so 
 anguished, so helpless in death clutched Diana many 
 times in each day and night. And it led to that per- 
 petual image in the mind which we saw haunting her 
 in the first hours of her grief, as though she carried her 
 dying mother in her arms, passionately clasping and 
 protecting her, their faces turned to each other, and 
 hidden from all eyes besides. 
 
 Also, it deadened in her the sense of her own case 
 in relation to the gossip of the neighborhood. Ostrich- 
 like, she persuaded herself that not many people could 
 have known anything about her five days' engagement. 
 Dear kind folk like the Roughsedges would not talk of 
 it, nor Lady Lucy surely. And Oliver himself never! 
 
 She had reached a point in the field walk where the 
 hill-side opened to her right, and the little winding path 
 was disclosed which had been to her on that mild Feb- 
 ruary evening the path of Paradise. She stood still a 
 moment, looking upward, the deep sob of loss rising 
 in her throat. 
 
 But she wrestled with herself, and presently turned 
 back to the house, calm and self-possessed. There were 
 things to be thankful for. She knew the worst. And 
 she felt herself singularly set free from ordinary con- 
 ventions and judgments. Nobody could ever quarrel 
 with her if, now that she had come back, she lived her 
 own life in her own way. Nobody could blame her 
 surely most people would approve her if she stood 
 aloof from ordinary society, and ordinary gayeties for 
 
 378
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 a while, at any rate. Oh! she would do nothing singu- 
 lar or rude. But she was often tired and weak not 
 physically, but in mind. Mrs. Roughsedge knew and 
 Muriel. 
 
 Dear Hugh Roughsedge! he was indeed a faithful 
 understanding friend. She was proud of his letters; she 
 was proud of his conduct in the short campaign just 
 over; she looked forward to his return in the autumn. 
 But he must not cherish foolish thoughts or wishes. 
 She would never marry. What Lady Lucy said was 
 true. She had probably no right to marry. She stood 
 apart. 
 
 But but she must not be asked yet to give herself 
 to any great mission any set task of charity or philan- 
 thropy. Her poor heart fluttered within her at the 
 thought, and she clung gratefully to the recollection of 
 Marion's imperious words to her. That exaltation with 
 which, in February, she had spoken to the Vicar of going 
 to the East End to work had dropped quite dropped. 
 
 Of course, there was a child in the village a dear 
 child ill and wasting in a spinal jacket, for whom one 
 would do anything just anything! And there was 
 Betty Dyson plucky, cheerful old soul. But that was 
 another matter. 
 
 What, she asked, had she to give the poor? She 
 wanted guiding and helping and putting in the right 
 way herself. She could not preach to any one wrestle 
 with any one. And ought one to make out of others' 
 woes plasters for one's own? To use the poor as the 
 means of a spiritual "cure" seemed a dubious indecent 
 thing, more than a touch in it of arrogance or sacrilege. 
 
 Meanwhile she had been fighting her fight in the old 
 
 379
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 ways. She had been falling back on her education, 
 appealing to books and thought, reminding herself of 
 what the life of the mind had been to her father in his 
 misery, and of those means of cultivating it to which he 
 would certainly have commended her. She was trying 
 to learn a new foreign language, and, under Marion Vin- 
 cent's urging, the table in the little sitting-room was 
 piled with books on social and industrial matters, which 
 she diligently read and pondered. 
 
 It was all struggle and effort. But it had brought her 
 some reward. And especially through Marion Vincent's 
 letters, and through the long day with Marion in London, 
 which she had now to look back upon. For Miss Vincent 
 and Frobisher had returned, and Marion was once more 
 in her Stepney rooms. She was apparently not much 
 worse; would allow no talk about herself; and though 
 she had quietly relinquished all her old activities, her 
 room was still the centre it had long been for the London 
 thinker and reformer. 
 
 Diana found there an infinity to learn. The sages 
 and saints, it seemed, are of all sides and all opinions. 
 That had not been the lesson of her youth. In a com- 
 forting heat of prejudice her father had found relief from 
 suffering, and his creeds had been fused with her young 
 blood. Lately she had seen their opposites embodied in 
 a woman from whom she shrank in repulsion whose 
 name never passed her lips Oliver's sister who had 
 trampled on her in her misery. Yet here, in Marion's 
 dingy lodging, she saw the very same ideas which Isabel 
 Fotheringham made hateful, clothed in light, speaking 
 from the rugged or noble faces of men and women who 
 saw in them the salvation of their kind. 
 
 The intellect in Diana, the critical instinct resisted. 
 380
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 And, moreover, to have abandoned any fraction of the 
 conservative and traditional beliefs in which she had 
 been reared was impossible for her of all women; it 
 would have seemed to her that she was thereby leaving 
 those two suffering ones, whom only her love sheltered, 
 still lonelier in death. So, beneath the clatter of talk 
 and opinion, run the deep omnipotent tides of our real 
 being. 
 
 But if the mind resisted, the heart felt, and therewith, 
 the soul that total personality which absorbs and 
 transmutes the contradictions of life grew kinder and 
 gentler within her. 
 
 One day, after a discussion on votes for women which 
 had taken place beside Marion's sofa, Diana, when 
 the talkers were gone, had thrown herself on her 
 friend. 
 
 " Dear, you can't wish it ! you can't believe it! To 
 brutalize unsex us!" 
 
 Marion raised herself on her elbow, and looked down 
 the narrow cross street beneath the windows of her 
 lodging. It was a stifling evening. The street was 
 strewn with refuse, the odors from it filled the room. 
 Ragged children with smeared faces were sitting or play- 
 ing listlessly in the gutters. The public-house at the 
 corner was full of animation, and women were passing in 
 and out. Through the roar of traffic from the main 
 street beyond a nearer sound persisted : a note of wail- 
 ing the wailing of babes. 
 
 "There are the unsexed!" said Marion, panting. "Is 
 their brutalization the price we pay for our refinement?" 
 Then, as she sank back: "Try anything everything 
 to change that." 
 
 Diana pressed the speaker's hand to her lips.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 But from Marion Vincent, the girl's thoughts, as she 
 wandered in the summer garden, had passed on to the 
 news which Mrs. Roughsedge had brought her. Oliver 
 was speaking every night, almost, in the villages round 
 Beechcote. Last week he had spoken at Beechcote it- 
 self. Since Mrs. Roughsedge's visit, Diana had borrowed 
 the local paper from Brown, and had read two of Oliver's 
 speeches therein reported. As she looked up to the 
 downs, or caught through the nearer trees the lines of 
 distant woods, it was as though the whole scene earth 
 and air were once more haunted for her by Oliver his 
 presence his voice. Beechcote lay on the high-road 
 from Tallyn to Dunscombe, the chief town of the divi- 
 sion. Several times a week, at least, he must pass the 
 gate. At any moment they might meet face to face. 
 
 The sooner the better ! Unless she abandoned Beech- 
 cote, they must learn to meet on the footing of ordinary 
 acquaintances; and it were best done quickly. 
 
 Voices on the lawn! Diana, peeping through the 
 trees, beheld the Vicar in conversation with Muriel Col- 
 wood. She turned and fled, pausing at last in the 
 deepest covert of the wood, breathless and a little 
 ashamed. 
 
 She had seen him once since her return. Everybody 
 was so kind to her, the Vicar, the Miss Bertrams every- 
 body; only the pity and the kindness burned so. She 
 wrestled with these feelings in the wood, but she none the 
 less kept a thick screen between herself and Mr. Lavery. 
 
 She could never forget that night of her misery when 
 good man that he was! he had brought her the 
 message of his faith. 
 
 But the great melting moments of life are rare, and 
 the tracts between are full of small frictions. What an 
 
 382
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 incredible sermon he had preached on the preceding 
 Sunday! That any minister of the national church 
 representing all sorts and conditions of men should 
 think it right to bring his party politics into the pulpit 
 in that way ! Unseemly ! unpardonable ! 
 
 Her dark eyes flashed and then clouded. She had 
 walked home from the sermon in a heat of wrath, had 
 straightway sought out some blue ribbon, and made 
 Tory rosettes for herself and her dog. Muriel had 
 laughed had been delighted to see her doing it. 
 
 But the rosettes were put away now thrown into the 
 bottom of a drawer. She would never wear them. 
 
 The Vicar, it seemed, was no friend of Oliver's would 
 not vote for him, and had been trying to induce the 
 miners at Hartingfield to run a Labor man. On the 
 other hand, she understood that the Ferrier party in 
 the division were dissatisfied with him on quite other 
 grounds: that they reproached him with a leaning to 
 violent and extreme views, and with a far too luke- 
 warm support of the leader of the party and the leader's 
 policy. The local papers were full of grumbling letters 
 to that effect. 
 
 Her brow knit over Oliver's difficulties. The day 
 before, Mr. Lavery, meeting Muriel in the village street, 
 had suggested that Miss Mallory might lend him the barn 
 for a Socialist meeting a meeting, in fact, for the ha- 
 rassing and heckling of Oliver. 
 
 Had he come now to urge the same plea again? A 
 woman's politics were not, of course, worth remembering! 
 
 She moved on to a point where, still hidden, she could 
 see the lawn. The Vicar was in full career; the harsh 
 creaking voice came to her from the distance. What 
 an awkward unhandsome figure, with his long, lank 
 
 383
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 countenance, his large ears and spectacled eyes! Yet an 
 apostle, she admitted, in his way a whole-hearted, single- 
 minded gentleman. But the barn he should not have. 
 
 She watched him depart, and then slowly emerged 
 from her hiding-place. Muriel, putting loving hands on 
 her shoulders, looked at her with eyes that mocked a 
 little tenderly. 
 
 " Yes, I know," said Diana " I know. I shirked. 
 Did he want the barn ?" 
 
 "Oh no. I convinced him, the other day, you were 
 past praying for." 
 
 " Was he shocked ? ' It is a serious thing for women 
 to throw themselves across the path of progress,' " said 
 Diana, in a queer voice. 
 
 Muriel looked at her, puzzled. Diana reddened, and 
 kissed her. 
 
 "What did he want, then?" 
 
 " He came to ask whether you would take the visiting 
 of Fetter Lane and a class in Sunday-school." 
 
 Diana gasped. 
 
 "What did you say?" 
 
 "Never mind. He went away quelled." 
 
 " No doubt he thought I ought to be glad to be set to 
 work." 
 
 "Oh! they are all masterful that sort." 
 
 Diana walked on. 
 
 "I suppose he gossiped about the election?" 
 
 " Yes. He has all sorts of stories about the mines 
 and the Tallyn estates," said Muriel, unwillingly. 
 
 Diana's look flashed. 
 
 " Do you believe he has any power of collecting evi- 
 dence fairly? I don't. He sees what he wants to see." 
 
 Mrs. Colwood agreed; but did not feel called upon to 
 384
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 confirm Diana's view by illustrations. She kept Mr. 
 Lavery's talk to herself. 
 
 Presently, as the evening fell, Diana sitting under the 
 limes watching the shadows lengthen on the new-mown 
 grass, wondered whether she had any mind any opin- 
 ions of her own at all. Her father; Oliver; Mr. Ferrier; 
 Marion Vincent she saw and felt with them all in 
 turn. In the eyes of a Mrs. Fotheringham could any- 
 thing be more despicable? 
 
 The sun was sinking when she stole out of the garden 
 with some flowers and peaches for Betty Dyson. Her 
 frequent visits to Betty's cottage were often the bright 
 spots in her day. With her, almost alone among the poor 
 people, Diana was conscious of no greedy curiosity be- 
 hind the spoken words. Yet Betty was the living chron- 
 icle of the village, and what she did not know about its 
 inhabitants was not worth knowing. 
 
 Diana found her white and suffering as usual, but so 
 bubbling with news that she had no patience either with 
 her own ailments or with the peaches. Waving both 
 aside, she pounced imperiously upon her visitor, her 
 queer yellowish eyes aglow with "eventful living." 
 
 " Did you hear of old Tom Murthly dropping dead in 
 the medder last Thursday?" 
 
 Diana had just heard of the death of the eccentric old 
 man who for fifty years bachelor and miser had in- 
 habited a dilapidated house in the village. 
 
 " Well, he did. Yo may take it at that yo may." (A 
 mysterious phrase, equivalent, no doubt, to the masculine 
 oath.) " 'Ee 'ad a lot of money Tom 'ad. Them two 
 'ouses was 'is what stands right be'ind Learoyds', down 
 the village." 
 
 "Who will they go to now, Betty?" 
 
 385
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Betty's round, shapeless countenance, furrowed and 
 scarred by time, beamed with the joy of communication. 
 
 "Chancery!" she said, nodding. "Chancery '11 'ave 
 'em, in a twelvemonth's time from now, if Mrs. Jack 
 Murthly's Tom young Tom don't claim 'em from 
 South Africa and the Lord knows where ee is!" 
 
 Diana tried to follow, held captive by a tyrannical 
 pair of eyes. 
 
 " And what relation is Mrs. Jack Murthly to the man 
 who died?" 
 
 "Brother's wife!" said Betty, sharply. "I thought 
 you'd ha' known that." 
 
 " But if nothing is heard of the son, Betty of young 
 Tom Mrs. Murthly's two daughters will have the cot- 
 tages, won't they?" 
 
 Betty's scorn made her rattle her stick on the flagged 
 floor. 
 
 "They ain't daughters! they're only 'alves." 
 
 "Halves?" said Diana, bewildered. 
 
 "Jack Murthly worn't their father!" A fresh shower 
 of nods. "Yo may take it at that!" 
 
 "Well, then, who ?" 
 
 Betty bent hastily forward Diana had placed herself 
 on a stool before her and, thrusting out her wrinkled 
 lips, said, in a hoarse whisper: 
 
 "Two fathers!" 
 
 There was a silence. 
 
 " I don't understand, Betty," said Diana, softly. 
 
 "Jack was 'is father, all right Tom's in South Africa. 
 But he worn't their father, Mrs. Jack bein' a widder 
 or said so. They're only 'alves and 'alves ain't no 
 good in law; so inter Chancery those 'ouses '11 go, come 
 a twelvemonth yo may take it at that!" 
 
 386
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Diana laughed a young spontaneous laugh the first 
 since she had come home. She kept Betty gossiping for 
 half an hour, and as the stream of the village life poured 
 about her, in Betty's racy speech, it was as though some 
 primitive virtue entered into her and cheered her some 
 bracing voice from the Earth-spirit whose purpose is 
 not missed 
 
 "If birth proceeds if things subsist." 
 
 She rose at last, held Betty's hand tenderly, and went 
 her way, conscious of a return of natural pleasure, such 
 as Italy had never brought her, her heart opening afresh 
 to England and the English life. 
 
 Perhaps she would find at home a letter from Mr. 
 Ferrier her dear, famous friend, who never forgot her, 
 ignorant as she was of the great affairs in which he was 
 plunged. But she meant to be ignorant no longer. No 
 more brooding and dreaming! It was pleasant to re- 
 member that Sir James Chide had taken a furnished 
 house Lytchett Manor only a few miles from Beech- 
 cote, and that Mr. Ferrier was to be his guest there as 
 soon as politics allowed. For her, Diana, that was well, 
 for if he were at Tallyn they could have met but seldom 
 if at all. 
 
 She had made a round through a distant and seques- 
 tered lane in order to prolong her walk. Presently she 
 came to a deep cutting in the chalk, where the road, 
 embowered in wild roses and clematis, turned sharply at 
 the foot of a hill. As she approached the turn she heard 
 sounds a man's voice. Her heart suddenly failed her. 
 She looked to either side no gate, no escape. Nothing 
 for it but to go forward. She turned the corner. 
 
 387
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Before her was a low pony carriage which Alicia Drake 
 was driving. It was drawn up by the side of the road, 
 and Alicia sat in it, laughing and talking, while Oliver 
 Marsham gathered a bunch of wild roses from the road- 
 side. As Diana appeared, and before either of them 
 saw her, Marsham returned to the carriage, his hands 
 full of flowers. 
 
 "Will that content you? I have torn myself to rib- 
 bons for you!" 
 
 "Oh, don't expect too much gratitude Oliver!" The 
 last word was low and hurried. Alicia gathered up the 
 reins hastily, and Marsham looked round him startled. 
 
 He saw a tall and slender girl coming toward them, 
 accompanied by a Scotch collie. She bowed to him and 
 to Alicia, and passed quickly on. 
 
 "Never mind any more roses," said Alicia. "We 
 ought to get home." 
 
 They drove toward Tallyn in silence. Alicia's start- 
 ling hat of white muslin framed the red gold of her hair, 
 and the brilliant color assisted here and there by rouge 
 of her cheeks and lips. She said presently, in a sympa- 
 thetic voice: 
 
 " How sorry one is for her!" 
 
 Marsham made no reply. They passed into the dark- 
 ness of overarching trees, and there, veiled from him in 
 the green twilight, Alicia no longer checked the dancing 
 triumph in her eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ONE Saturday in early August, some weeks after 
 the incident described in the last chapter, Bobbie 
 Forbes, in the worst inn's worst fly, such being the stress 
 and famine of election time, drove up to the Tallyn front 
 door. It was the day after the polling, and Tallyn, with 
 its open windows and empty rooms, had the look of a 
 hive from which the bees have swarmed. According 
 to the butler, only Lady Niton was at home, and the 
 household was eagerly awaiting news of the declaration 
 of the poll at Dunscombe Town Hall. Lady Niton, in- 
 deed, was knitting ,in the drawing-room. 
 
 "Capital! to find you alone," said Bobbie, taking a 
 seat beside her. "All the others at Dunscombe, I hear. 
 And no news yet?" 
 
 Lady Niton, who had given him one inky finger 
 (a pile of letters just completed lay beside her) shook 
 her head, looking him critically up and down the while. 
 
 The critical eye, however, was more required in her 
 own case. She was untidily dressed, as usual, in a shabby 
 black gown; her brown "front" was a little displaced, 
 and her cap awry; and her fingers had apparently been 
 badly worsted in a struggle with her pen. Yet her 
 diminutive figure in the drawing-room such is the 
 power of personality made a social place of it at once. 
 
 "I obeyed your summons," Bobbie continued, 
 "though I'm sure Lady Lucy didn't want to invite me 
 
 389
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 with all this hubbub going on. Well, what do you 
 prophesy ? They told me at the station that the result 
 would be out by two o'clock. I very nearly went to the 
 Town Hall, but the fact is everybody's so nervous I 
 funked it. If Oliver's kicked out, the fewer tears over 
 spilled milk the better." 
 
 "He won't be kicked out." 
 
 " Don't make too sure! I have been hearing the most 
 dismal reports. The Ferrierites hate him much worse 
 than if he'd gone against them openly. And the fellows 
 he really agrees with don't love him much better." 
 
 "All the same he will get in; and if he don't get 
 office now he will in a few years." 
 
 "Oliver must be flattered that you believe in him so." 
 
 "I don't believe in him at all," said Lady Niton, 
 sharply. ' ' Every country has the politicians it deserves. ' ' 
 
 Bobbie grinned. 
 
 "I don't find you a democrat yet.V 
 
 "I'm just as much of one as anybody in this house, 
 for all their fine talk. Only they pretend to like being 
 governed by their plumbers and gas-fitters, and I don't." 
 
 "I hear that Oliver's speeches have been extremely 
 good." 
 
 "H'm all about the poor," said Lady Niton, releasing 
 her hand from the knitting-needles, and waving it scorn- 
 fully at the room in which they sat. "Well, if Oliver 
 were to tell me from now till doomsday that his heart 
 bled for the poor, I shouldn't believe him. It doesn't 
 bleed. He is as comfortable in his middle region as you 
 or I." 
 
 Bobbie laughed. 
 
 "Now look here, I'm simply famished for gossip, and 
 I must have it." Lady Niton's ball of wool fell on the 
 
 390
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 floor. Bobbie pounced upon it, and put it in his pocket. 
 "A hostage! Surrender and talk to me! Do you be- 
 long to the Mallory faction or don't you?" 
 
 " Give me my ball, sir and don't dare to mention that 
 girl's name in this house." 
 
 Bobbie opened his eyes. 
 
 "I say! what did you mean by writing to me like 
 that if you weren't on the right side?" 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 "You can't have gone over to Lady Lucy and the 
 Fotheringham woman!" 
 
 Lady Niton looked at him with a queer expression of 
 contempt in her tanned and crumpled face. 
 
 "Is that the only reason you can imagine for my not 
 permitting you to talk of Diana Mallory in this house?" 
 
 Bobbie looked puzzled. Then a light broke. 
 
 "I see! You mean the house isn't good enough? 
 Precisely! What's up. Alicia? No!" 
 
 Lady Niton laughed. 
 
 " He has been practically engaged to her for two years. 
 He didn't know it, of course he hadn't an idea of it. 
 But Alicia knew it. Oh! she allowed him his amuse- 
 ments. The Mallory girl was one of them. If the 
 Sparling story hadn't broken it off, something else would. 
 I don't believe Alicia ever alarmed herself." 
 
 "Are they engaged?" 
 
 " Not formally. I dare say it won't be announced till 
 the autumn," said his companion, indifferently. Then 
 seeing that Bobbie's attention was diverted, she made a 
 dash with one skinny hand at his coat-pocket, abstracted 
 the ball of wool, and triumphantly returned to her knit- 
 ting. 
 
 "Mean!" said Bobbie. "You caught me off guard. 
 
 39 r
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Well, I wish them joy. Of course, I've always liked 
 Marsham, and I'm very sorry he's got himself into such 
 a mess. But as for Alicia, there's no love lost between 
 us. I hear Miss Mallory's at Beechcote." 
 
 Lady Niton replied that she had only been three days 
 in the house, that she had asked ostentatiously for a 
 carriage the day before to take her to call at Beechcote, 
 and had been refused. Everything, it seemed, was 
 wanted for election purposes. But she understood that 
 Miss Mallory was quite well and not breaking her heart 
 at all. At the present moment she was the most popu- 
 lar person in Brookshire, and would be the most petted, 
 if she would allow it. But she and Mrs. Colwood lived a 
 very quiet life, and were never to be seen at the tea and 
 garden parties in which the neighborhood abounded. 
 
 "Plucky of her to come back here!" said Bobbie. 
 "And how's Lady Lucy?" 
 
 Lady Niton moved impatiently. 
 
 "Lucy would be all right if her son wouldn't join a 
 set of traitors in jockeying the man who put him into 
 Parliament, and has been Lucy's quasi-husband for 
 twenty years!" 
 
 "Oh, you think he is in the plot?" 
 
 "Of course, Lucy swears he isn't. But if not why 
 isn't Ferrier here? His own election was over a week 
 ago. In the natural course of things he would have 
 been staying here since then, and speaking for Oliver. 
 Not a word of it! I'm glad he's shown a little spirit at 
 last! He's put up with it about enough." 
 
 "And Lady Lucy's fretting?" 
 
 "She don't like it particularly when he comes to stay 
 with Sir James Chide and not at Tallyn. Such a thing 
 has never happened before." 
 
 392
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "Poor old Ferrier!" said Bobbie, with a shrug of the 
 shoulders. 
 
 Lady Niton drew herself up fiercely. 
 
 "Don't pity your betters, sir! It's disrespectful." 
 
 Bobbie smiled. "You know the Ministry's re- 
 signed?" 
 
 "About time! What have they been hanging on for 
 so long?" 
 
 " Well, it's done at last. I found a wire from the club 
 waiting for me here. The Queen has sent for Broadstone, 
 and the fat's all in the fire." 
 
 The two fell into an excited discussion of the situation. 
 The two rival heroes of the electoral six weeks on the 
 Liberal side had been, of course, Ferrier and Lord Philip. 
 Lord Philip had conducted an astonishing campaign in 
 the Midlands, through a series of speeches of almost 
 revolutionary violence, containing many veiled, or 
 scarcely veiled, attacks on Ferrier. Ferrier, on the whole 
 held the North; but the candidates in the Midlands had 
 been greatly affected by Lord Philip and Lord Philip's 
 speeches, and a contagious enthusiasm had spread 
 through whole districts, carrying in the Liberal candi- 
 dates with a rush. In the West and South, too, where 
 the Darcy family had many friends and large estates, the 
 Liberal nominees had shown a strong tendency to adopt 
 Lord Philip's programme and profess enthusiastic ad- 
 miration for its author. So that there were now two 
 kings of Brentford. Lord Philip's fortunes had risen to 
 a threatening height, and the whole interest of the Cabi- 
 net-making just beginning lay in the contest which it 
 inevitably implied between Ferrier and his new but 
 formidable lieutenant. It was said that Lord Philip had 
 retired to his tent alias, his Northamptonshire house 
 6 393
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 and did not mean to budge thence till he had got all 
 he wanted out of the veteran Premier. 
 
 "As for the papers," said Bobbie, "you see they're 
 already at it hammer and tongs. However, so long as the 
 Herald sticks to Ferrier, he has very much the best of it. 
 This new editor Barrington is an awfully clever fellow." 
 
 "Barrington! Barrington!" said Lady Niton, look- 
 ing up, "That's the man who's coming to-night." 
 
 " Coming here ? Barrington ? Hullo, I wonder what's 
 up?" 
 
 " He proposed himself, Oliver says; he's an old friend." 
 
 " They were at Trinity together. But he doesn't really 
 care much about Oliver. I'm certain he's not coming 
 here for Oliver's beaux yeux, or Lady Lucy's." 
 
 " What does it matter ?" cried Lady Niton, disdainfully. 
 
 " H'm! you think 'em all a poor lot ?" 
 
 " Well, when you've known Dizzy and Peel, Palmer- 
 ston and Melbourne, you're not going to stay awake 
 nights worriting about John Ferrier. In any other house 
 but this I should back Lord Philip. But I like to make 
 Oliver uncomfortable." 
 
 "Upon my word! I have heard you say that Lord 
 Philip's speeches were abominable." 
 
 "So they are. But he ought to have credit for the 
 number of 'em he can turn out in a week." 
 
 "He'll be heard, in fact, for his much speaking?" 
 
 Bobbie looked at his companion with a smile. Sudden- 
 ly his cheek flushed. He sat down beside her and tried 
 to take her hand. 
 
 " Look here, " he said, with vivacity, " I think you 
 were an awful brick to stick up for Miss Mallory as you 
 did." 
 
 Lady Niton withdrew her hand. 
 394
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "I haven't an idea what you're driving at." 
 
 " You really thought that Oliver should have given up 
 all that money?" 
 
 His companion looked at him rather puzzled. 
 
 "He wouldn't have been a pauper," she said, dryly; 
 "the girl had some." 
 
 "Oh, but not much. No ! you took a dear, unworldly 
 generous view of it! a view which has encouraged me 
 immensely!" 
 
 "You!" Lady Niton drew back, and drew up, as 
 though scenting battle, while her wig and cap slipped 
 more astray. 
 
 " Yes me. It's made me think well, that I ought to 
 have told you a secret of mine weeks ago." 
 
 And with a resolute and combative air, Bobbie sud- 
 denly unburdened himself of the story of his engagement 
 to a clergyman's daughter, without a farthing, his 
 distant cousin on his mother's side, and quite unknown 
 to Lady Niton. 
 
 His listener emitted a few stifled cries asked a few 
 furious questions and then sat rigid. 
 
 "Well?" said Bobbie, masking his real anxiety under 
 a smiling appearance. 
 
 With a great effort, Lady Niton composed herself. 
 She stretched out a claw and resumed her work, two 
 red spots on her cheeks. 
 
 " Marry her, if you like," she said, with delusive calm. 
 " I sha'n't ever speak to you again. A scheming minx 
 without a penny ! that ought never to have been allowed 
 out of the school-room." 
 
 Bobbie leaped from his chair. 
 
 " Is that the way you mean to take it?" 
 
 Lady Niton nodded. 
 
 395
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 "That is the way I mean to take it!" 
 
 "What a fool I was to believe your fine speeches 
 about Oliver!" 
 
 "Oliver may go to the devil!" cried Lady Niton. 
 
 " Very well !" Bobbie's dignity was tremendous. " Then 
 I don't mean to be allowed less liberty than Oliver. 
 It's no good continuing this conversation. Why, I de- 
 clare! some fool has been meddling with those books!" 
 
 And rapidly crossing the floor, swelling with wrath 
 and determination, Bobbie opened the bookcase of first 
 editions which stood in this inner drawing-room and 
 began to replace some volumes, which had strayed from 
 their proper shelves, with a deliberate hand. 
 
 "You resemble Oliver in one thing!" Lady Niton 
 threw after him. 
 
 "What may that be?" he said, carelessly. 
 
 "You both find gratitude inconvenient!" 
 
 Bobbie turned and bowed. "I do!" he said, "incon- 
 venient, and intolerable! Hullo! I hear the carriage. 
 I beg you to remark that what I told you was confi- 
 dential. It is not to be repeated in company." 
 
 Lady Niton had only time to give him a fierce look 
 when the door opened, and Lady Lucy came wearily in. 
 
 Bobbie hastened to meet her. 
 
 " My dear Lady Lucy! what news?" 
 
 "Oliver is in!" 
 
 " Hurrah!" Bobbie shook her hand vehemently. " I 
 am glad!" 
 
 Lady Niton, controlling herself with difficulty, rose 
 from her seat, and also offered a hand. 
 
 "There, you see, Lucy, you needn't have been so 
 anxious." 
 
 Lady Lucy sank into a chair. 
 396
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "What's the majority?" said Bobbie, astonished by 
 her appearance and manner. " I say, you know, you've 
 been working too hard." 
 
 " The majority is twenty-four," said Lady Lucy, coldly, 
 as though she had rather not have been asked the ques- 
 tion; and at the same time, leaning heavily back in her 
 chair, she began feebly to untie the lace strings of her 
 bonnet. Bobbie was shocked by her appearance. She 
 had aged rapidly since he had last seen her, and, in par- 
 ticular, a gray shadow had overspread the pink-and- white 
 complexion which had so long preserved her good looks. 
 
 On hearing the figures (the majority five years before 
 had been fifteen hundred), Bobbie could not forbear an 
 exclamation which produced another contraction of Lady 
 Lucy's tired brow. Lady Niton gave a very audible 
 "Whew!" to which she hastened to add: "Well, 
 Lucy, what does it matter? Twenty-four is as good as 
 two thousand." 
 
 Lady Lucy roused herself a little. 
 
 "Of course," she said, languidly, " it is disappointing. 
 But we may be glad it is no worse. For a little while, 
 during the counting, we thought Oliver was out. But 
 the last bundles to be counted were all for him, and we 
 just saved it." A pause, and then the speaker added, 
 with emphasis: "It has been a horrid election! Such 
 ill-feeling and violence such unfair placards! some 
 of them, I am sure, were libellous. But I am told one 
 can do nothing." 
 
 " Well, my dear, this is what Democracy comes to," 
 said Lady Niton, taking up her knitting again with 
 vehemence. "'Tu I' as voulu, Georges Dandin.' You 
 Liberals have opened the gates and now you grumble 
 at the deluge." 
 
 397
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " It has been the injustice shown him by his own side 
 that Oliver minds." The speaker's voice betrayed the 
 bleeding of the inward wound. " Really, to hear some 
 of our neighbors talk, you would think him a Communist. 
 And, on the other hand, he and Alicia only just escaped 
 being badly hurt this morning at the collieries when 
 they were driving round. I implored them not to go. 
 However, they would. There was an ugly crowd, and 
 but for a few mounted police that came up, it might have 
 been most unpleasant." 
 
 " I suppose Alicia has been careering about with him 
 all day?" said Lady Niton. 
 
 " Alicia and Roland Lankester and the chairman of 
 Oliver's committee. Now they've gone off on the coach, 
 to drive round some of the villages, and thank people." 
 Lady Lucy rose as she spoke. 
 
 "Not much to thank for, according to you!" observed 
 Lady Niton, grimly. 
 
 "Oh, well, he's in!" Lady Lucy drew a long breath. 
 "But people have behaved so extraordinarily! That 
 man that clergyman at Beechcote Mr. Lavery. He's 
 been working night and day against Oliver. Really, I 
 think parsons ought to leave politics alone." 
 
 "Lavery?" said Bobbie. "I thought he was a Radi- 
 cal. Weren't Oliver's speeches advanced enough to 
 please him?" 
 
 " He has been denouncing Oliver as a humbug, be- 
 cause of what he is pleased to call the state of the mining 
 villages. I'm sure they're a great, great deal better than 
 they were twenty years ago!" Lady Lucy's voice was 
 almost piteous. "However, he very nearly persuaded 
 the miners to run a candidate of their own, and when 
 that fell through, he advised them to abstain from vot- 
 
 398
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 ing. And they must have done so in several villages. 
 That's pulled down the majority." 
 
 "Abominable!" said Bobbie, who was comfortably 
 conservative. "I always said that man was a fire- 
 brand." 
 
 " I don't know what he expects to get by it," said Lady 
 Lucy, slowly, as she moved toward the door. Her tone 
 was curiously helpless; she was still stately, but it was a 
 ghostly and pallid stateliness. 
 
 "Get by it!" sneered Lady Niton. "After all, his 
 friends are in. They say he's eloquent. His jackass- 
 eries will get him a bishopric in time you'll see." 
 
 "It was the unkindness the ill-feeling I minded," 
 said Lady Lucy, in a low voice, leaning heavily upon her 
 stick, and looking straight before her as though she 
 inwardly recalled some of the incidents of the election. 
 " I never knew anything like it before." 
 
 Lady Niton lifted her eyebrows not finding a suitable 
 response. Did Lucy really not understand what was the 
 matter ? that her beloved Oliver had earned the reputa- 
 tion throughout the division of a man who can propose to 
 a charming girl, and then desert her for money, at the 
 moment when the tragic blow of her life had fallen upon 
 her? and she, that of the mercenary mother who had 
 forced him into it. Precious lucky for Oliver to have 
 got in at all! 
 
 The door closed on Lady Lucy. Forgetting for an 
 instant what had happened before her hostess entered, 
 Elizabeth Niton, bristling with remarks, turned im- 
 petuously toward Forbes. He had gone back to first 
 editions, and was whistling vigorously as he worked. 
 With a start, Lady Niton recollected herself. Her face 
 reddened afresh ; she rose, walked with as much majesty 
 
 399
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 as her station admitted to the door, which she closed 
 sharply behind her. 
 
 As soon as she was gone Bobbie stopped whistling. 
 If she was really going to make a quarrel of it, it would 
 certainly be a great bore a hideous bore. His con- 
 science pricked him for the mean and unmanly depend- 
 ence which had given the capricious and masterful 
 little woman so much to say in his affairs. He must 
 really find fresh work, pay his debts, those to Lady 
 Niton first and foremost, and marry the girl who would 
 make a decent fellow of him. But his heart smote him 
 about his queer old Fairy Blackstick. No surrender! 
 but he would like to make peace. 
 
 It was past eight o'clock when the four-in-hand on 
 which the new member had been touring the constitu- 
 ency drove up to the Tallyn door. Forbes hurried to 
 the steps to greet the party. 
 
 "Hullo, Oliver! A thousand congratulations, old 
 fellow! Never mind the figures. A win's a win! But 
 I thought you would have been dining and junketing in 
 Dunscombe to-night. How on earth did you get them 
 to let you off?" 
 
 Oliver's tired countenance smiled perfunctorily as he 
 swung himself down from the coach. He allowed his 
 hand to be shaken; his lips moved, but only a husky 
 whisper emerged. 
 
 " Lost his voice," Roland Lankester explained. " And 
 so done that we begged him off from the Dunscombe 
 dinner. He's only fit for bed." 
 
 And with a wave of the hand to the company, Mar- 
 sham, weary and worn, mounted the steps, and, passing 
 rapidly through the hall, went up-stairs. Alicia Drake 
 
 400
 
 The Testing of! Diana Mallortj 
 
 and Lankester followed, pausing in the hall to talk with 
 Bobbie. 
 
 Alicia too looked tired out. She was dressed in a 
 marvellous gown of white chiffon, adorned with a large 
 rosette of Marsham's colors red-and-yellow and wore 
 a hat entirely composed of red and yellow roses. The 
 colors were not becoming to her, and she had no air of 
 happy triumph. Rather, both in her and in Marsham 
 there were strong signs of suppressed chagrin and in- 
 dignation. 
 
 f'Well, that's over!" said Miss Drake, throwing down 
 her gloves on the billiard-table with a fierce gesture; 
 " and I'm sure neither Oliver nor I would go through it 
 again for a million of money. How revolting the lower 
 classes are!" 
 
 Lankester looked at her curiously. 
 
 "You've worked awfully hard," he said. "I hope 
 you're going to have a good rest." 
 
 " I wouldn't bother about rest if I could pay out some 
 of the people here," said Alicia, passionately. " I should 
 like to see a few score of them hanged in chains, pour 
 encourager les autres." 
 
 So saying, she gathered up her gloves and parasol, 
 and swept up-stairs declaring that she was too dog-tired 
 to talk. 
 
 Bobbie Forbes and Lankester looked at each other. 
 
 "It's been really a beastly business!" said Lankester, 
 under his breath. "Precious little politics in it, too, as 
 far as I could see. The strong Ferrierites no doubt have 
 held aloof on the score of Marsham's supposed disloyalty 
 to the great man; though, as far as I can make out, he 
 has been careful not to go beyond a certain line in his 
 speeches. Anyway, they have done no work, and a good 
 
 401
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 many of them have certainly abstained from voting. It 
 is our vote that has gone down ; the Tories have scarcely 
 increased theirs at all. But the other side and the 
 Socialists got hold of a lot of nasty little things about 
 the estate and the collieries. The collieries are prac- 
 tically in rebellion, spoiling for a big strike next Novem- 
 ber, if not before. When Miss Drake and Marsham drove 
 round there this morning they were very badly received. 
 Her parasol was broken by a stone, and there was a good 
 deal of mud-throwing." 
 
 Bobbie eyed his companion. 
 
 "Was any of the Opposition personal to her?" 
 
 Lankester nodded. 
 
 "There's an extraordinary feeling all over the place 
 for" 
 
 "Of course there is!" said Bobbie, hotly. "Marsham 
 isn't such a fool as not to know that. Why did he let 
 this aggressive young woman take such a prominent 
 part?" 
 
 Lankester shrugged his shoulders, but did not pursue 
 the subject. The two men went up-stairs, and Lankes- 
 ter parted from his companion with the remark: 
 
 " I must say I hope Marsham won't press for anything 
 in the Government. I don't believe he'll ever get in for 
 this place again." 
 
 Forbes shook his head. 
 
 " Marsham 's got a lot of devil in him somewhere. I 
 shouldn't wonder if this made him set his teeth." 
 
 Lankester opened the door of the ugly yet luxurious 
 room which had been assigned him. He looked round it 
 with fresh distaste, resenting its unnecessary size and 
 its pretentious decoration, resenting also the very care- 
 
 402
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 ful valeting which had evidently been bestowed on his 
 shabby clothes and personal appointments, as though 
 the magnificent young footman who looked after him 
 had been doing his painful best with impossible ma- 
 terials. 
 
 "Why, the idiots have shut the windows!" 
 
 He strode vehemently across the floor, only to find 
 the park outside, as he hung across the sill, even less to 
 his liking than the room within. 
 
 Then, throwing himself into a chair, tired out with the 
 canvassing, speaking, and multifarious business of the 
 preceding days, he fell to wondering what on earth had 
 made him after the fatigues of his own election come 
 down to help Marsham with his. There were scores of 
 men in the House he liked a great deal better, and re- 
 quests for help had been showered upon him. 
 
 He had, no doubt, been anxious, as a keen member of 
 the advanced group, that Marsham should finally commit 
 himself to the programme of the Left Wing, with which he 
 had been so long coquetting. Oliver had a considerable 
 position in the House, and was, moreover, a rich man. 
 Rich men had not, so far, been common in the advanced 
 section of the party. Lankester, in whom the idealist 
 and the wire-puller were shrewdly mixed, was well aware 
 that the reforms he desired could only be got by exten- 
 sive organization; and he knew precisely what the 
 money cost of getting them would be. Rich men, there- 
 fore, were the indispensable tools of his ideas ; and among 
 his own group he who had never possessed a farthing of 
 his own apart from the earnings of his brain and pen was 
 generally set on to capture them. 
 
 Was that really why he had come down? to make 
 sure of this rich Laodicean ? Lankester fell into a reverie. 
 
 403
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 He was a man of curious gifts and double personality. 
 It was generally impossible to lure him, on any pretext, 
 from the East End and the House of Commons. He 
 lived in a block of model dwellings in a street opening 
 out of the East India Dock Road, and his rooms, when- 
 ever he was at home, were overrun by children from the 
 neighboring tenements. To them he was all gentleness 
 and fun, while his command of invective in a public 
 meeting was little short of terrible. Great ladies and the 
 country-houses courted him because of a certain wit, a 
 certain charm above all, a certain spiritual power which 
 piqued the worldling. He flouted and refused the great 
 ladies with a smile, however, which gave no offence; 
 and he knew, notwithstanding, everybody whom he 
 wanted to know. Occasionally he made quiet spaces in 
 his life, and disappeared from London for days or weeks. 
 When he reappeared it was often with a battered and 
 exhausted air, as of one from whom virtue had gone out. 
 He was, in truth, a mystic of a secular kind: very difficult 
 to class religiously, though he called himself a member 
 of the Society of Friends. Lady Lucy, who was of Quaker 
 extraction, recognized in his ways and phrases echoes 
 from the meetings and influences of her youth. But, in 
 reality, he was self-taught and self -formed, on the lines of 
 an Evangelical tradition, which had owed something, a 
 couple of generations back, among his Danish forebears, 
 to the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg. This tradition 
 had not only been conveyed to him by a beloved and 
 saintly mother; it had been appropriated by the man's 
 inmost forces. What he believed in, with all mystics, 
 was prayer an intimate and ineffable communion be- 
 tween the heart and God. Lying half asleep on the 
 House of Commons benches, or strolling on the Terrace, 
 
 404
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 he pursued often an inner existence, from which he could 
 spring in a moment to full mundane life arguing pas- 
 sionately for some Socialist proposal, scathing an op- 
 ponent, or laughing and "ragging" with a group of 
 friends, like a school-boy on an exeat. But whatever he 
 did, an atmosphere went with him that made him be- 
 loved. He was extremely poor, and wrote for his living. 
 His opinions won the scorn of moderate men ; and every 
 year his influence in Parliament on both sides of the 
 House and with the Labor party increased. On his 
 rare appearance in such houses as Tallyn Hall every 
 servant in the house marked and befriended him. The 
 tall footman, for instance, who had just been endeavor- 
 ing to make the threadbare cuffs of Lankester's dress 
 coat present a more decent appearance, had done it in 
 no spirit of patronage, but simply in order that a gentle- 
 man who spoke to him as a man and a brother should 
 not go at a disadvantage among "toffs" who did nothing 
 of the kind. 
 
 But again why had he come down? 
 
 During the last months of Parliament, Lankester had 
 seen a good deal of Oliver. The story of Diana, and of 
 Marsham's interrupted wooing was by that time public 
 property, probably owing to the indignation of certain 
 persons in Brookshire. As we have seen, it had injured 
 the prestige of the man concerned in and out of Parlia- 
 ment. But Lankester, who looked at life intimately 
 and intensely, with the eye of a confessor, had been 
 roused by it to a curiosity about Oliver Marsham whom 
 at the time he was meeting habitually on political affairs 
 which he had never felt before. He, with his brood- 
 ing second sight based on a spiritual estimate of the 
 world he and Lady Lucy alone saw that Marsham was 
 
 405
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 unhappy. His irritable moodiness might , of course , have 
 nothing to do with his failure to play the man in the case 
 of Miss Mallory. Lankester was inclined to think it had 
 Alicia Drake or no Alicia Drake. And the grace of 
 repentance is so rare in mankind that the mystic his 
 own secret life wavering perpetually between repentance 
 and ecstasy is drawn to the merest shadow of it. 
 
 These hidden thoughts on Lankester's side had been 
 met by a new and tacit friendliness on Marsham's. He 
 had shown an increasing liking for Lankester's company, 
 and had finally asked him to come down and help him in 
 his constituency. 
 
 By George, if he married that girl, he would pay his 
 penalty to the utmost! 
 
 Lankester leaned out of window again, his eyes sweep- 
 ing the dreary park. In reality they had before them 
 Marsham's aspect at the declaration of the poll head 
 and face thrown back defiantly, hollow eyes of bitterness 
 and fatigue; and the scene outside in front, a booing 
 crowd and beside the new member, Alicia's angry and 
 insolent look. 
 
 The election represented a set-back in a man's career, 
 in spite of the bare victory. And Lankester did not think 
 it would be retrieved. With a prophetic insight which 
 seldom failed him, he saw that Marsham's chapter of 
 success was closed. He might get some small office out 
 of the Government. Nevertheless, the scale of life had 
 dropped on the wrong side. Through Lankester's 
 thought there shot a pang of sympathy. Defeat was 
 always more winning to him than triumph. 
 
 Meanwhile the new member himself was in no melting 
 mood. 
 
 406
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Forbes was right. Marsham, in his room, looking 
 over the letters which his servant had brought him, was 
 only conscious of two feelings disgust and loathing 
 with regard to the contest just over, and a dogged de- 
 termination with regard to the future. He had been 
 deserted by the moderates by the Ferrierites in spite 
 of all his endeavors to keep within courteous and judicial 
 bounds; and he had been all but sacrificed to a forbear- 
 ance which had not saved him apparently a single 
 moderate vote, and had lost him scores on the advanced 
 side. 
 
 With regard to Ferrier personally, he was extremely 
 sore. A letter from him during the preceding week 
 would certainly have influenced votes. Marsham denied 
 hotly that his speeches had been of a character to 
 offend or injure his old friend and leader. A man must 
 really be allowed some honest latitude of opinion, even 
 under party government! and in circumstances of per- 
 sonal obligation. He had had to steer a most difficult 
 course. But why must he give up his principles not to 
 speak of his chances of political advancement because 
 John Ferrier had originally procured him his seat in 
 Parliament, and had been his parents' intimate friend 
 for many years? Let the Whig deserters answer that 
 question, if they could! 
 
 His whole being was tingling with anger and resent- 
 ment. The contest had steeped him in humiliations 
 which stuck to him like mud-stains. 
 
 The week before, he had written to Ferrier, implor- 
 ing him if possible to come and speak for him or at 
 least to write a letter; humbling his pride; and giving 
 elaborate explanations of the line which he had taken. 
 
 There, on the table beside him, was Ferrier's reply: 
 
 407
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Mr DEAR OLIVER, I don't think a letter would do you much 
 good, and for a speech, I am too tired and I am afraid at the 
 present moment too thin-skinned. Pray excuse me. We shall 
 meet when this hubbub is over. All success to you. 
 
 "Yours ever, J. F." 
 
 Was there ever a more ungracious, a more uncalled-for, 
 letter? Well, at any rate, he was free henceforward to 
 think and act for himself, and on public grounds only; 
 though of course he would do nothing unworthy of an 
 old friendship, or calculated to hurt his mother's feelings. 
 Ferrier, by this letter, and by the strong negative in- 
 fluence he must have exerted in West Brookshire during 
 the election, had himself loosened the old bond; and Mar- 
 sham would henceforth stand on his own feet. 
 
 As to Ferrier's reasons for a course of action so wholly 
 unlike any he had ever yet taken in the case of Lucy 
 Marsham's son, Oliver's thoughts found themselves en- 
 gaged in a sore and perpetual wrangle. Ferrier, he 
 supposed, suspected him of a lack of " straightness " ; 
 and did not care to maintain an intimate relation, which 
 had been already, and might be again, used against him. 
 Marsham, on his side, recalled with discomfort various 
 small incidents in the House of Commons which might 
 have seemed to an enemy to illustrate or confirm such 
 an explanation of the state of things. 
 
 Absurd, of course! He was an old friend of Ferrier's, 
 whose relation to his mother necessarily involved close 
 and frequent contact with her son. And at the same time 
 although in the past Ferrier had no doubt laid him 
 under great personal and political obligations he had 
 by now, in the natural course of things, developed strong 
 opinions of his own, especially as to the conduct of party 
 affairs in the House of Commons; opinions which were 
 
 408
 
 The Testing of Diana Malloftj 
 
 not Ferrier's which were, indeed, vehemently opposed to 
 Ferrier's. In his, Oliver's, opinion, Ferrier's lead in the 
 House on certain questions was a lead of weakness, 
 making for disaster. Was he not even to hold, much less 
 to express such a view, because of the quasi-parental 
 relation in which Ferrier had once stood to him? The 
 whole thing was an odious confusion most unfair to him 
 individually between personal and Parliamentary duty. 
 Frankness? loyalty? It would, no doubt, be said 
 that Ferrier had always behaved with singular generosity 
 both toward opponents and toward dissidents in his 
 own party. Open and serious argument was at no time 
 unwelcome to him. 
 
 All very well! But how was one to argue, beyond 
 a certain point, with a man twenty-five years your senior, 
 who had known you in jackets, and was also your political 
 chief ? 
 
 Moreover, he had argued to the best of his ability. 
 Ferrier had written him a striking series of letters, no 
 doubt, and he had replied to them. As to Ferrier's 
 wish that he should communicate certain points in those 
 letters to Barton and Lankester, he had done it, to some 
 extent. But it was a most useless proceeding. The 
 arguments employed had been considered and rejected 
 a hundred times already by every member of the dissident 
 group. 
 
 And with regard to the meeting, which had apparently 
 roused so sharp a resentment in Ferrier, Marsham main- 
 tained simply that he was not responsible. It was a 
 meeting of the advanced Radicals of the division. Neither 
 Marsham nor his agents had been present. Certain 
 remarks and opinions of his own had been quoted in- 
 deed, even in public, as leading up to it, and justifying it. 
 97 409
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 A great mistake. He had never meant to countenance 
 any personal attack on Ferrier or his leadership. Yet 
 he uncomfortably admitted that the meeting had told 
 badly on the election. In the view of one side, he had 
 not had pluck enough to go to it; in the view of the other, 
 he had disgracefully connived at it. 
 
 The arrival of the evening post and papers did some- 
 thing to brush away these dismal self-communings. 
 Wonderful news from the counties! The success of the 
 latest batch of advanced candidates had been astonish- 
 ing. Other men, it seemed, had been free to liberate 
 their souls! Well, now the arbiter of the situation was 
 Lord Philip, and there would certainly be a strong ad- 
 vanced infusion in the new Ministry. Marsham con- 
 sidered that he had as good claims as any of the younger 
 men; and if it came to another election in Brookshire, 
 hateful as the prospect was, he should be fighting in the 
 open, and choosing his own weapons. No shirking! 
 His whole being gathered itself into a passionate de- 
 termination to retaliate upon the persons who had in- 
 jured, thwarted, and calumniated him during the con- 
 test just over. He would fight again next week, if 
 necessary and he would win! 
 
 As to the particular and personal calumnies with 
 which he had been assailed why, of course, he absolved 
 Diana. She could have had no hand in them. 
 
 Suddenly he pushed his papers from him with a hasty 
 unconscious movement. 
 
 In driving home that evening past the gates and 
 plantations of Beechcote it seemed to him that he had 
 seen through the trees in the distance the fluttering 
 of a white dress. Had the news of his inglorious success 
 
 410
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 just reached her ? How had she received it ? Her face 
 came before him the frank eyes the sweet troubled 
 look. 
 
 He dropped his head upon his arms. A sick distaste 
 for all that he had been doing and thinking rose upon 
 him, wavelike, drowning for a moment the energies of 
 mind and will. Had anything been worth while for 
 him since the day when he had failed to keep the last 
 tryst which Diana had offered him? 
 
 He did not, however, long allow himself a weakness 
 which he knew well he had no right to indulge. He 
 roused himself abruptly, took pen and paper, and wrote 
 a little note to Alicia, sending it round to her through 
 her maid. 
 
 V /Marsham pleaded fatigue, and dined in his room. In 
 the course of the meal he inquired of his servant if Mr. 
 Barrington had arrived. 
 
 "Yes, sir; he arrived in time for dinner." 
 "Ask him to come up afterward and see me here." 
 As he awaited the new-comer, Marsham had time to 
 ponder what this visit of a self-invited guest might mean. 
 The support of the Herald and its brilliant editor had 
 been so far one of Ferrier's chief assets. But there had 
 been some signs of wavering in its columns lately, espe- 
 cially on two important questions likely to occupy the 
 new Ministry in its first session matters on which the 
 opinion of the Darcy, or advanced section, was under- 
 stood to be in violent conflict with that of Ferrier and 
 the senior members of the late Front Opposition Bench 
 in general. 
 
 Barrington, no doubt, wished to pump him one of 
 Ferrier's intimates with regard to the latest phase of 
 
 4U
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 Ferrier's views on these two principal measures. The 
 leader himself was rather stiff and old-fashioned with 
 regard to journalists gave too little information where 
 other men gave too much. 
 
 Oliver glanced in some disquiet at the pile of Ferrier's 
 letters lying beside him. It contained material for which 
 any ambitious journalist, at the present juncture, would 
 give the eyes out of his head. But could Harrington 
 be trusted ? Oliver vaguely remembered some stories to 
 his disadvantage, told probably by Lankester, who in 
 these respects was one of the most scrupulous of men. 
 Yet the paper stood high, and was certainly written with 
 conspicuous ability. 
 
 Why not give him information ? cautiously, of course, 
 and with discretion. What harm could it do to Ferrier 
 or any one else? The party was torn by dissensions; 
 and the first and most necessary step toward reunion 
 was that Ferrier's aims and methods should be thorough- 
 ly understood. No doubt in these letters, as he had 
 himself pointed out, he had expressed himself with com- 
 plete, even dangerous freedom. But there was not go- 
 ing to be any question of putting them into Barrington's 
 hands. Certainly not ! merely a quotation a reference 
 here and there. 
 
 As he began to sketch his own share in the expected 
 conversation, a pleasant feeling of self-importance crept 
 in, soothing to the wounds of the preceding week. Se- 
 cretly Marsham knew that he had never yet made the 
 mark in politics that he had hoped to make, that his 
 abilities entitled him to make. The more he thought 
 of it the more he realized that the coming half-hour 
 might be of great significance in English politics ; he had 
 it in his own power to make it so. He was conscious of 
 
 412
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 a strong wish to impress Harrington perhaps Ferrier 
 also. After all, a man grows up, and does not remain 
 an Eton boy, or an undergraduate, forever. It would 
 be well to make Ferrier more aware than he was of that 
 fact. 
 
 In the midst of his thoughts the door opened, and 
 Barrington a man showing in his dark-skinned, large- 
 featured alertness the signs of Jewish pliancy and in- 
 telligence walked in. 
 
 "Are you up to conversation?" he said, laughing. 
 "You look pretty done!" 
 
 "If I can whisper you what you want," said Oliver, 
 huskily, "it's at your service ! There are the cigarettes." 
 
 The talk lasted long. Midnight was near before the 
 two men separated. 
 
 The news of Marsham's election reached Ferrier 
 under Sir James Chide 's roof, in the pleasant fur- 
 nished house about four miles from Beechcote, of which 
 he had lately become the tenant in order to be near 
 Diana. It was conveyed in a letter from Lady Lucy, of 
 which the conclusion ran as follows: 
 
 "It is so strange not to have you here this evening not to be 
 able to talk over with you all these anxieties and trials. I can't 
 help being a little angry with Sir James. We are the oldest 
 friends. 
 
 " Of course I have often been anxious lately lest Oliver should 
 have done anything to offend you. I have spoken to him about 
 that tiresome meeting, and I think I could prove to you it was 
 not his fault. Do, my dear friend, come here as soon as you can, 
 and let me explain to you whatever may have seemed wrong. 
 You cannot think how much we miss you. I feel it a little hard 
 that there should be strangers here this evening like Mr. 
 Lankester and Mr. Barrington. But it could not be helped. Mr 
 Lankester was speaking for Oliver last night and Mr. Barring- 
 
 413
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 ton invited himself. I really don't know why. Oliver is dread- 
 fully tired and so am I. The ingratitude and ill-feeling of 
 many of our neighbors has tried me sorely. It will be a long 
 time before I forget it. It really seems as though nothing were 
 worth striving for in this very difficult world." 
 
 "Poor Lucy!" said Ferrier to himself, his heart soft- 
 ening, as usual. "Harrington? H'm. That's odd." 
 He had only time for a short reply: 
 
 " MY DEAR LADY LUCY, It's horrid that you are tired and 
 depressed. I wish I could come and cheer you up. Politics 
 are a cursed trade. But never mind, Oliver is safely in, and as 
 soon as the Government is formed, I will come to Tallyn, and we 
 will laugh at these woes. I can't write at greater length now, 
 for Broadstone has just summoned me. You will have seen 
 that he went to Windsor this morning. Now the agony begins. 
 Let's hope it may be decently short. I am just off for town. 
 "Yours ever, JOHN FERRIER." 
 
 Two days passed three days and still the "agony" 
 lasted. Lord Broadstone's house in Portman Square was 
 besieged all day by anxious journalists watching the 
 goings and comings of a Cabinet in the making. But 
 nothing could be communicated to the newspapers 
 nothing, in fact, was settled. Envoys went backward 
 and forward to Lord Philip in Northamptonshire. Ur- 
 gent telegrams invited him to London. He took no 
 notice of the telegrams; he did not invite the envoys, 
 and when they came he had little or nothing of interest 
 to say to them. Lord Broadstone, he declared, was 
 fully in possession of his views. He had nothing more 
 to add. And, indeed, a short note from him laid by in 
 the new Premier's pocket-book was, if the truth were 
 known, the fans et origo of all Lord Broadstone's diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 414
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 Meanwhile the more conservative section exerted it- 
 self, and by the evening of the third day it seemed to 
 have triumphed. A rumor spread abroad that Lord 
 Philip had gone too far. Ferrier emerged from a long 
 colloquy with the Prime Minister, walking briskly across 
 the square with his secretary, smiling at some of the re- 
 porters in waiting. Twenty minutes later, as he stood 
 in the smoking-room of the Reform, surrounded by a 
 few privileged friends, Lankester passed through the 
 room. 
 
 ^'By Jove," he said to a friend with him, "I believe 
 Ferrier's done the trick!" 
 
 In spite, however, of a contented mind, Ferrier was 
 aware, on reaching his own house, that he was far from 
 well. There was nothing very much to account for his 
 feeling of illness. A slight pain across the chest, a 
 slight feeling of faintness, when he came to count up 
 his symptoms ; nothing else appeared. It was a glorious 
 summer evening. He determined to go back to Chide, 
 who now always returned to Lytchett by an evening 
 train, after a working-day in town. Accordingly, the 
 new Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the 
 House dined lightly, and went off to St. Pancras, leav- 
 ing a note for the Prime Minister to say where he was to 
 be found, and promising to come to town again the fol- 
 lowing afternoon. 
 
 The following morning fulfilled the promise of the 
 tranquil evening and starry night, which, amid the deep 
 quiet of the country, had done much to refresh a man, 
 in whom, indeed, a stimulating consciousness of success 
 seemed already to have repaired the ravages of the fight.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Ferrier was always an early riser, and by nine o'clock 
 he and Sir James were pottering and smoking in the 
 garden. A long case in which Chide had been engaged 
 had come to an end the preceding day. The great law- 
 yer sent word to his chambers that he was not coming 
 up to town; Ferrier ascertained that he was only half 
 an hour from a telegraph office, made a special arrange- 
 ment with the local post as to a mid-day delivery of 
 letters, and then gave himself up for the morning to rest, 
 gossip, and a walk. 
 
 By a tiresome contretemps the newspapers did not 
 arrive at breakfast-time. Sir James was but a new-comer 
 in the district, and the parcel of papers due to him had 
 gone astray through the stupidity of a newsboy. A ser- 
 vant was sent into Dunscombe, five miles off; and mean- 
 while Ferrier bore the blunder with equanimity. His 
 letters of the morning, fresh from the heart of things, 
 made newspapers a mere superfluity. They could tell 
 him nothing that he did not know already. And as for 
 opinions, those might wait. 
 
 He proposed, indeed, before the return of the servant 
 from Dunscombe, to walk over to Beechcote. The road 
 lay through woods, two miles of shade. He pined for 
 exercise; Diana and her young sympathy acted as a 
 magnet both on him and on Sir James ; and it was to be 
 presumed she took a daily paper, being, as Ferrier re- 
 called, "a terrible little Tory." 
 
 In less than an hour they were at Beechcote. They 
 found Diana and Mrs. Colwood on the lawn of the old 
 house, reading and working in the shade of a yew hedge 
 planted by that Topham Beauclerk who was a friend of 
 Johnson. The scent of roses and limes; the hum of 
 bees; the beauty of slow-sailing clouds, and of the shad- 
 
 416
 
 The Testing off Diana Mallory 
 
 ows they flung on the mellowed color of the house; com- 
 bined with the figure of Diana in white, her eager eyes, 
 her smile, and her unquenchable interest in all that con- 
 cerned the two friends, of whose devotion to her she was 
 so gratefully and simply proud these things put the 
 last touch to Ferrier's enjoyment. He flung himself on 
 the grass, talking to both the ladies of the incidents and 
 absurdities of Cabinet-making, with a freedom and fun, 
 an abandonment of anxiety and care that made him 
 young again. Nobody mentioned a newspaper. 
 
 Presently Chide, who had now taken the part of gen- 
 eral adviser to Diana, which had once been filled by Mar- 
 sham, strolled off with her to look at a greenhouse in 
 need of repairs. Mrs. Col wood was called in by some 
 household matter. Ferrier was left alone. 
 
 As usual, he had a book in his pocket. This time it 
 was a volume of selected essays, ranging from Bacon to 
 Carlyle. He began lazily to turn the pages, smiling to 
 himself the while at the paradoxes of life. Here, for an 
 hour, he sat under the limes, dxunk with summer breezes 
 and scents, toying with a book, as though he were some 
 "indolent irresponsible reviewer" some college fellow 
 in vacation some wooer of an idle muse. Yet dusk that 
 evening would find him once more in the Babel of Lon- 
 don. And before him lay the most strenuous, and, as 
 he hoped, the most fruitful passage of his political life. 
 Broadstone, too, was an old man; the Premiership itself 
 could not be far away. 
 
 As for Lord Philip Ferrier's thoughts ran upon that 
 gentleman with a good-humor which was not without 
 malice. He had played his cards extremely well, but 
 the trumps in his hand had not been quite strong enough. 
 Well, he was young; plenty of time yet for Cabinet office.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 That he would be a thorn in the side of the new Ministry 
 went without saying. Ferrier felt no particular dismay 
 at the prospect, and amused himself with speculations 
 on the letters which had probably passed that very day 
 between Broadstone and the "iratus Achilles" in North- 
 amptonshire. 
 
 And from Lord Philip, Ferrier's thoughts shrewdly 
 indulgent strayed to the other conspirators, and to 
 Oliver Marsham in particular, their spokesman and in- 
 termediary. Suddenly a great softness invaded him 
 toward Oliver and his mother. After all, had he not 
 been hard with the boy, to leave him to his fight without 
 a word of help ? Oliver's ways were irritating ; he had 
 more than one of the intriguer's gifts; and several times 
 during the preceding weeks Ferrier's mind had recurred 
 with disquiet to the letters in his hands. But, after all, 
 things had worked out better than could possibly have 
 been expected. The Herald, in particular, had done 
 splendid service, to himself personally, and to the mod- 
 erates in general. Now was the time for amnesty and 
 reconciliation all round. Ferrier's mind ran busily on 
 schemes of the kind. As to Oliver, he had already 
 spoken to Broadstone about him, and would speak 
 again that night. Certainly he must have something 
 a Junior Lordship at least. And if he were opposed on 
 re-election, why, he should be helped roundly helped. 
 Ferrier already saw himself at Tally n once more, with 
 Lady Lucy's frail hand in one of his, the other perhaps 
 on Oliver's shoulder. After all, where was he happy 
 or nearly happy but with them? 
 
 His eyes returned to his book. With a mild amuse- 
 ment he saw that it had opened of itself at an essay, 
 
 418
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 by Abraham Cowley, on "Greatness" and its penal- 
 ties: "Out cf these inconveniences arises naturally one 
 more, which is, that no greatness can be satisfied or 
 contented with itself; still, if it could mount up a little 
 higher, it would be happy; if it could not gain that point, 
 it would obtain all its desires; but yet at last, when it is 
 got up to the very top of the peak of Teneriffe, it is in 
 very great danger of breaking its neck downward, but in 
 no possibility of ascending upward into the seat of 
 tranquillity about the moon." 
 
 The new Secretary of State threw himself back in his 
 garden chair, his hands behind his head. Cowley wrote 
 well; but the old fellow did not, after all, know much 
 about it, in spite of his boasted experiences at that sham 
 and musty court of St. -Germain's. Is it true that men 
 who have climbed high are always thirsty to climb high- 
 er? No! "What is my feeling now? Simply a sense 
 of opportunity. A man may be glad to have the chance 
 of leaving his mark on England." 
 
 Thoughts rose in him which were not those of a 
 pessimist thoughts, however, which the wise man will 
 express as little as possible, since talk profanes them. 
 The concluding words of Peel's great Corn Law speech 
 ran through his memory, and thrilled it. He was ac- 
 cused of indifference to the lot of the poor. It was not 
 true. It never had been true. 
 
 "Hullo! who comes?" 
 
 Mrs. Colwood was running over the lawn, bringing 
 apparently a letter, and a newspaper. 
 
 She came up, a little breathless. 
 
 " This letter has just come for you, Mr. Ferrier, by 
 special messenger. And Miss Mallory asked me to bring 
 you the newspaper." 
 
 4*9
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 Ferrier took the letter, which was bulky and addressed 
 in the Premier's handwriting. 
 
 " Kindly ask the messenger to wait. I will come and 
 speak to him." 
 
 He opened the letter and read it. Then, having put 
 it deliberately in his pocket, he sat bending forward, 
 staring at the grass. The newspaper caught his eye. 
 It was the Herald of that morning. He raised it from 
 the ground, read the first leading article, and then a 
 column "from a correspondent" on which the article 
 was based. 
 
 As he came to the end of it a strange premonition 
 took possession of him. He was still himself, but it 
 seemed to him that the roar of some approaching cataract 
 was in his ears. He mastered himself with difficulty, 
 took a pencil from his pocket, and drew, a wavering line 
 beside a passage in the article contributed by the Herald's 
 correspondent. The newspaper slid from his knee to the 
 ground. 
 
 Then, with a groping hand, he sought again for Broad- 
 stone's letter, drew it out of its envelope, and, with a mist 
 before his eyes, felt for the last page which, he seemed to 
 remember, was blank. On this he traced, with difficulty, 
 a few lines, replaced the whole letter in the torn envelope 
 and wrote an address upon it uncertainly crossing 
 out his own name. 
 
 Then, suddenly, he fell back. The letter followed the 
 newspaper to the ground. Deadly weakness was creep- 
 ing upon him, but as yet the brain was clear. Only his 
 will struggled no more; everything had given way, but 
 with the sense of utter catastrophe there mingled neither 
 pain nor bitterness. Some of the Latin verse scattered 
 over the essay he had been reading ran vaguely through 
 
 420
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 his mind then phrases from his last talk with the Prime 
 Minister then remembrances of the night at Assisi 
 and the face of the poet 
 
 A piercing cry rang out close beside him Diana's 
 cry. His life made a last rally, and his eyes opened. 
 They closed again, and he heard no more. 
 
 Sir James Chide stooped over Diana. 
 
 "Run for help! brandy! a doctor! I'll stay with 
 him. Run!" 
 
 Diana ran. She met Mrs. Colwood hurrying, and sent 
 her for brandy. She herself sped on blindly toward the 
 village. 
 
 A few yards beyond the Beechcote gate she was over- 
 taken by a carriage. There was an exclamation, the 
 carriage pulled up sharp, and a man leaped from it. 
 
 "Miss Mallory! what is the matter?" 
 
 She looked up, saw Oliver Marsham, and, in the 
 carriage behind him, Lady Lucy, sitting stiff and pale', 
 with astonished eyes. 
 
 " Mr. Ferrier is ill very ill! Please go for the doctor! 
 He is here at my house." 
 
 The figure in the carriage rose hurriedly. Lady Lucy 
 was beside her. 
 
 "What is the matter?" She laid an imperious hand 
 on the girl's arm. 
 
 "I think he is dying," said Diana, gasping. "Oh, 
 come! come back at once!" 
 
 Marsham was already in the carriage. The horse 
 galloped forward. Diana and Lady Lucy ran toward 
 the house. 
 
 " In the garden," said Diana, breathlessly; and, taking 
 Lady Lucy's hand, she guided her. 
 
 Beside the dying man stood Sir James Chide, Muriel 
 
 421
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Colwood, and the old butler. Sir James looked up, start- 
 ed at the sight of Lady Lucy, and went to meet her. 
 
 "You are just in time," he said, tenderly; "but he is 
 going fast. We have done all we could." 
 
 Ferrier was now lying on the grass, his head supported. 
 Lady Lucy sank beside him. 
 
 "John!" she called, in a voice of anguish "John 
 dear, dear friend!" 
 
 But the dying man made no sign. And as she lifted 
 his hand to her lips the love she had shown him so 
 grudgingly in life speaking now undisguised through her 
 tears and her despair Sir James watched the gentle 
 passage of the last breaths, and knew that all was done 
 the play over and the lights out.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A SAD hurrying and murmuring filled the old rooms 
 and passages of Beechcote. The village doctor 
 had arrived, and under his direction the body of John 
 Ferrier had been removed from the garden to the library 
 of the house. There, amid Diana's books and pictures, 
 Ferrier lay, shut-eyed and serene, that touch of the ugly 
 and the ponderous which in life had mingled with the 
 power and humanity of his aspect entirely lost and 
 drowned in the dignity of death. 
 
 Chide and the doctor were in low-voiced consultation 
 at one end of the room ; Lady Lucy sat beside the body, 
 her face buried in her hands; Marsham stood behind 
 her. 
 
 Brown, the butler, noiselessly entered the room, and 
 approached Chide. 
 
 " Please sir, Lord Broadstone's messenger is here. He 
 thinks you might wish him to take back a letter to his 
 lordship." 
 
 Chide turned abruptly. 
 
 "Lord Broadstone's messenger?" 
 
 " He brought a letter for Mr. Ferrier, sir, half an hour 
 ago." 
 
 Chide's face changed. 
 
 " Where is the letter ?" He turned to the doctor, who 
 shook his head. 
 
 "I saw nothing when we brought him in." 
 
 423
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Marsham, who had overheard the conversation, came 
 forward. 
 
 "Perhaps on the grass- 
 Chide pale, with drawn brows looked at him a mo- 
 ment in silence. 
 
 Marsham hurried to the garden and to the spot under 
 the yews, where the death had taken place. Round the 
 garden chairs were signs of trampling feet the feet of 
 the gardeners who had carried the body. A medley of 
 books, opened letters, and working-materials lay on the 
 grass. Marsham looked through them ; they all belonged 
 to Diana or Mrs. Col wood. Then he noticed a cushion 
 which had fallen beside the chair, and a corner of news- 
 paper peeping from below it. He lifted it up. 
 
 Below lay Broadstone's open letter, in its envelope, 
 addressed first in the Premier's well-known handwriting 
 to "The Right Honble. John Ferrier, M.P." and, sec- 
 ondly, in wavering pencil, to "Lady Lucy Marsham, 
 Tallyn Hall." 
 
 Marsham turned the letter over, while thoughts hur- 
 ried through his brain. Evidently Ferrier had had time 
 to read it. Why that address to his mother? and in 
 that painful hand written, it seemed, with the weak- 
 ness of death already upon him ? 
 
 The newspaper? Ah! the Herald! lying as though, 
 after reading it, Ferrier had thrown it down and let the 
 letter drop upon it, from a hand that had ceased to obey 
 him. As Marsham saw it the color rushed into his 
 cheeks. He stooped and raised it. Suddenly he no- 
 ticed on the margin of the paper a pencilled line, faint 
 and wavering, like the words written on the envelope. 
 It ran beside a passage in the article "from a corre- 
 spondent," and as he looked at it consciousness and 
 
 424
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 pulse paused in dismay. There, under his eye, in that 
 dim mark, was the last word and sign of John Ferrier. 
 
 He was still staring at it when a sound disturbed 
 him. Lady Lucy came to him, feebly, across the grass. 
 Marsham dropped the newspaper, retaining Broadstone's 
 letter. 
 
 "Sir James wished me to leave him a little," she said, 
 brokenly. " The ambulance will be here directly. They 
 will take him to Lytchett. I thought it should have 
 been Tallyn. But Sir James decided it." 
 
 "Mother!" Marsham moved toward her, reluctantly 
 "here is a letter no doubt of importance. And it 
 is addressed to you." 
 
 Lady Lucy gave a little cry. She looked at the 
 pencilled address, with quivering lips; then she opened 
 the envelope, and on the back of the closely written 
 letter she saw at once Ferrier's last words to her. 
 
 Marsham, moved by a son's natural impulse, stooped 
 and kissed her hair. He drew a chair forward, and she 
 sank into it with the letter. While she was reading it 
 he raised the Herald again, unobserved, folded it up 
 hurriedly, and put it in his pocket; then walked away 
 a few steps, that he might leave his mother to her grief. 
 Presently Lady Lucy called him. 
 
 "Oliver!" The voice was strong. He went back to 
 her and she received him with sparkling eyes, her hand 
 on Broadstone's letter. 
 
 "Oliver, this is what killed him! Lord Broadstone 
 must bear the responsibility." 
 
 And hurriedly, incoherently, she explained that the 
 letter from Lord Broadstone was an urgent appeal to 
 Ferrier's patriotism and to his personal friendship for 
 the writer; begging him for the sake of party unity, and 
 
 ? 425
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 for the sake of the country, to allow the Prime Minister 
 to cancel the agreement of the day before; to accept a 
 peerage and the War Office in lieu of the Exchequer 
 and the leadership of the House. The Premier gave a 
 full account of the insurmountable difficulties in the way 
 of the completion of the Government, which had dis- 
 closed themselves during the course of the afternoon 
 and evening following his interview with Ferrier. Re- 
 fusals of the most unexpected kind, from the most un- 
 likely quarters; letters and visits of protest from per- 
 sons impossible to ignore most of them, no doubt, en- 
 gineered by Lord Philip; "finally the newspapers of this 
 morning especially the article in the Herald, which you 
 will have seen before this reaches you all these, taken 
 together, convince me that if I cannot persuade you to 
 see the matter in the same light as I do and I know 
 well that, whether you accept or refuse, you will put the 
 public advantage first I must at once inform her 
 Majesty that my attempt to construct a Government 
 has broken down." 
 
 Marsham followed her version of the letter as well as 
 he could; and as she turned the last page, he too per- 
 ceived the pencilled writing, which was not Broadstone's. 
 This she did not offer to communicate; indeed, she cov- 
 ered it at once with her hand. 
 
 "Yes, I suppose it was the shock," he said, in a low 
 voice. " But it was not Broadstone's fault. It was no 
 one's fault." 
 
 Lady Lucy flushed and looked up. 
 
 " That man Barrington !" she said, vehemently. " Oh, 
 if I had never had him in my house!" 
 
 Oliver made no reply. He sat beside her, staring at 
 the grass. Suddenly Lady Lucy touched him on the knee. 
 
 426
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 'Oliver!" --her voice was gasping and difficult 
 "Oliver! you had nothing to do with that?" 
 
 "With what, mother?" 
 
 "With the Herald article. I read it this morning. 
 But I laughed at it! John's letter arrived at the same 
 moment so happy, so full of plans " 
 
 "Mother! you don't imagine that a man in Ferrier's 
 position can be upset by an article in a newspaper?" 
 
 " I don't know the Herald was so important I have 
 heard John say so. Oliver!" her face worked pain- 
 fully "I know you talked with that man that night. 
 You didn't" 
 
 " I didn't say anything of which I am ashamed," he 
 said, sharply, raising his head. 
 
 His mother looked at him in silence. Their eyes met 
 in a flash of strange antagonism as though each ac- 
 cused the other. 
 
 A sound behind them made Lady Lucy turn round. 
 Brown was coming over the grass. 
 
 "A telegram, sir, for you. Your coachman stopped 
 the boy and sent him here." 
 
 Marsham opened it hastily. As he read it his gray 
 and haggard face flushed again heavily. 
 
 " Awful news just reached me. Deepest sympathy with you 
 and yours. Should be grateful if I might see you to-day. 
 
 " BROADSTONE." 
 
 He handed it to his mother, but Lady Lucy scarcely 
 took in the sense of it. When he left her to write his 
 answer, she sat on in the July sun which had now reached 
 the chairs, mechanically drawing her large country hat 
 forward to shield her from its glare a forlorn figure, 
 with staring absent eyes ; every detail of her sharp slen- 
 
 427
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 dertiess, her blanched and quivering face, the elegance 
 of her black dress, the diamond fastening the black lace 
 hat-strings tied under her pointed chin set in the full 
 and searching illumination of mid-day. It showed her 
 an old woman left alone. 
 
 Her whole being rebelled against what had happened 
 to her. Life without John's letters, John's homage, 
 John's sympathy how was it to be endured ? Dis- 
 guises that shrouded her habitual feelings and instincts 
 even from herself dropped away. That Oliver was left 
 to her did not make up to her in the least for John's 
 death. 
 
 The smart that held her in its grip was a new experi- 
 ence. She had never felt it at the death of the imperious 
 husband, to whom she had been, nevertheless, decorously 
 attached. Her thoughts clung to those last broken words 
 under her hand, trying to wring from them something 
 that might content and comfort her remorse: 
 
 " DEAR LUCY, I feel ill it may be nothing Chide and you 
 may read this letter. Broadstone couldn't help it. Tell him 
 so. Bless you Tell Oliver Yours, J. F." 
 
 The greater part of the letter was all but illegible even 
 by her but the "bless you" and the "J.F." were more 
 firmly written than the rest, as though the failing hand 
 had made a last effort. 
 
 Her spiritual vanity was hungry and miserable. 
 Surely, though she would not be his wife, she had been 
 John's best friend ! his good angel. Her heart clamored 
 for some warmer, gratefuller word that might justify 
 her to herself. And, instead, she realized for the first 
 time the desert she had herself created, the loneliness 
 she had herself imposed. And with prophetic terror she 
 
 428
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 saw in front of her the daily self-reproach that her self- 
 esteem might not be able to kill. 
 
 "Tell Oliver " 
 
 Did it mean " if I die, tell Oliver" ? But John never 
 said anything futile or superfluous in his life. Was it 
 not rather the beginning of some last word to Oliver that 
 he could not finish? Oh, if her son had indeed con- 
 tributed to his death! 
 
 She shivered under the thought; hurrying recollec- 
 tions of Mr. Barrington's visit, of the Herald article of 
 that morning, of Oliver's speeches and doings during the 
 preceding month, rushing through her mind. She had 
 already expressed her indignation about the Herald arti- 
 cle to Oliver that morning, on the drive which had been 
 so tragically interrupted. 
 
 "Dear Lady Lucy!" 
 
 She looked up. Sir James Chide stood beside her. 
 
 The first thing he did was to draw her to her feet, and 
 then to move her chair into the shade. 
 
 " You have lost more than any of us," he said, as she 
 sank back into it, and, holding out his hand, he took 
 hers into his warm compassionate clasp. He had never 
 thought that she behaved well to Ferrier, and he knew 
 that she had behaved vilely to Diana; but his heart 
 melted within him at the sight of a woman and a gray- 
 haired woman in grief. 
 
 " I hear you found Broadstone's letter?" He glanced 
 at it on her lap. " I too have heard from him. The 
 messenger, as soon as he knew I was here, produced a 
 letter for me that he was to have taken on to Lytchett. 
 It is a nice letter a very nice letter, as far as that 
 goes. Broadstone wanted me to use my influence with 
 John described his difficulties " 
 
 429
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Chide's hand suddenly clinched on his knee. 
 
 " If I could only get at that creature, Lord Philip!" 
 
 "You think it was the shock killed him?" The 
 hard slow tears had begun again to drop upon her dress. 
 
 "Oh! he has been an ill man since May," said Chide, 
 evasively. " No doubt there has been heart mischief 
 unsuspected for a long time. The doctors will know 
 presently. Poor Broadstone! it will nearly kill him 
 too." 
 
 She held out the letter to him. 
 
 "You are to read it;" and then, in broken tones, 
 pointing: "look! he said so." 
 
 He started as he saw the writing on the back, and 
 again his hand pressed hers kindly. 
 
 "He felt ill," she said, brokenly; "he foresaw it. 
 Those are his last words his precious last words." 
 
 She hid her face. As Chide gave it back to her, his 
 brow and lip had settled into the look which made him 
 so formidable in court. He looked round him abruptly. 
 
 "Where is the Herald? I hear Mrs. Colwood brought 
 it out." 
 
 He searched the grass in vain, and the chairs. Lady 
 Lucy was silent. Presently she rose feebly. 
 
 "When when will they take him away?" 
 
 " Directly. The ambulance is coming I shall go 
 with him. Take my arm." She leaned on him heavily, 
 and as they approached the house they saw two figures 
 step out of it Marsham and Diana. 
 
 Diana came quickly, in her light white dress. Her 
 eyes were red, but she was quite composed. Chide 
 looked at her with tenderness. In the two hours which 
 had passed since the tragedy she had been the help and 
 the support of everybody, writing, giving directions, 
 
 430
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 making arrangements, under his own guidance, while 
 keeping herself entirely in the background. No parade 
 of grief, no interference with himself or the doctors; 
 but once, as he sat by the body in the darkened room, 
 he was conscious of her coming in, of her kneeling for a 
 little while at the dead man's side, of her soft, stifled 
 weeping. He had not said a word to her, nor she to him. 
 They understood each other. 
 
 And now she came, with this wistful face, to Lady 
 Lucy. She stood between that lady and Marsham, in 
 her own garden, without, as it seemed to Sir James, a 
 thought of herself. As for him, in the midst of his own 
 sharp grief, he could not help looking covertly from one 
 to the other, remembering that February scene in Lady 
 Lucy's drawing-room. And presently he was sure that 
 Lady Lucy too remembered it. Diana timidly begged 
 that she would take some food some milk or wine 
 before her drive home. It was three hours incredible 
 as it seemed since she had called to them in the road. 
 Lady Lucy, looking at her, and evidently but half con- 
 scious at first of what was said, suddenly colored, and 
 refused courteously but decidedly. 
 
 " Thank you. I want nothing. I shall soon be home. 
 Oliver!" 
 
 " I go to Lytchett with Sir James, mother. Miss 
 Mallory begs that you will let Mrs. Colwood take you 
 home." 
 
 " It is very kind, but I prefer to go alone. Is my 
 carriage there?" 
 
 She spoke like the stately shadow of her normal self. 
 The carriage was waiting. Lady Lucy approached Sir 
 James, who was standing apart, and murmured some- 
 thing in his ear, to the effect that she would come to
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Lytchett that evening, and would bring flowers. " Let 
 mine be the first," she said, inaudibly to the rest. Sir 
 James assented. Such observances, he supposed, count 
 for a great deal with women; especially with those who 
 are conscious of having trifled a little with the weightier 
 matters of the law. 
 
 Then Lady Lucy took her leave; Marsham saw her 
 to her carriage. The two left behind watched the reced- 
 ing figures the mother, bent and tottering, clinging to 
 her son. 
 
 "She is terribly shaken," said Sir James; "but she 
 will never give way." 
 
 Diana did not reply, and as he glanced at her, he saw 
 that she was struggling for self-control, her eyes on the 
 ground. 
 
 "And that woman might have had her for daughter!" 
 he said to himself, divining in her the rebuff of some 
 deep and tender instinct. 
 
 Marsham came back. 
 
 "The ambulance is just arriving." 
 
 Sir James nodded, and turned toward the house. 
 Marsham detained him, dropping his voice. 
 
 "Let me go with him, and you take my fly." 
 _Sir James frowned. 
 
 / "That is all settled," he said, peremptorily. Then he 
 looked at Diana. " I will see to everything in-doors. Will 
 you take Miss Mallory into the garden?" 
 
 Diana submitted; though, for the first time, her face 
 reddened faintly. She understood that Sir James wished 
 her to be out of sight and hearing while they moved the 
 dead. 
 
 That was a strange walk together for these two ! Side 
 by side, almost in silence, they followed the garden path 
 
 432
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 which had taken them to the downs, on a certain Fet> 
 ruary evening. The thought of it hovered, a ghost un- 
 laid, in both their minds. Instinctively, Marsham guided 
 her by this path, that they might avoid that spot on the 
 farther lawn, where the scattered chairs, the trampled 
 books and papers still showed where Death and Sleep had 
 descended. Yet, as they passed it from a distance he 
 saw the natural shudder run through her; and, by associa- 
 tion, there flashed through him intolerably the memory 
 of that moment of divine abandonment in their last in- 
 terview, when he had comforted her, and she had clung 
 to him. And now, how near she was to him and yet 
 how infinitely remote! She walked beside him, her step 
 faltering now and then, her head thrown back, as though 
 she craved for air and coolness on her brow and tear- 
 stained eyes. He could not flatter himself that his 
 presence disturbed her, that she was thinking at all about 
 him. As for him, his mind, held as it still was in the 
 grip of catastrophe, and stunned by new compunctions, 
 was still susceptible from time to time of the most dis- 
 cordant and agitating recollections memories glancing, 
 lightning- quick, through the mind, unsummoned and 
 shattering, j Her face in the moonlight, her voice in the 
 great words of her promise "all that a woman can!" 
 that wretched evening in the House of Commons when 
 he had finally deserted her a certain passage with 
 Alicia, in the Tallyn woods these images quivered, as it 
 were, through nerve and vein, disabling and silencing 
 him. 
 
 But presently, to his astonishment, Diana began to 
 talk, in her natural voice, without a trace of preoccupa- 
 tion or embarrassment. She poured out her latest recol- 
 lections of Ferrier. She spoke, brushing away her tears 
 
 433
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 sometimes, of his visit in the morning, and his talk as he 
 lay beside them on the grass his recent letters to her 
 her remembrance of him in Italy. 
 
 Marsham listened in silence. What she said was new 
 to him, and often bitter. He had known nothing of this 
 intimate relation which had sprung up so rapidly be- 
 tween her and Ferrier. While he acknowledged its beauty 
 and delicacy, the very thought of it, even at this moment, 
 filled him with an irritable jealousy. The new bond had 
 arisen out of the wreck of those he had himself broken; 
 Ferrier had turned to her, and she to Ferrier, just as he, 
 by his own acts, had lost them both; it might be right 
 and natural; he winced under it in a sense, resented 
 it none the less. 
 
 And all the time he never ceased to be conscious of 
 the newspaper in his breast-pocket, and of that faint 
 pencilled line that seemed to burn against his heart. 
 
 Would she shrink from him, finally and irrevocably, 
 if she knew it ? Once or twice he looked at her curiously, 
 wondering at the power that women have of filling and 
 softening a situation. Her broken talk of Ferrier was 
 the only possible talk that could have arisen between 
 them at that moment without awkwardness, without 
 risk. To that last ground of friendship she could still 
 admit him, and a wounded self-love suggested that she 
 chose it for his sake as well as Ferrier's. 
 
 Of course, she had seen him with Alicia, and must 
 have drawn her conclusions. Four months after the 
 breach with her! and such a breach! As he walked 
 beside her through the radiant scented garden, with its 
 massed roses and delphiniums, its tangle of poppy and 
 lupin, he suddenly beheld himself as a kind of outcast 
 distrusted and disliked by an old friend like Chide, 
 
 434
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 separated forever from the good opinion of this girl 
 whom he had loved, suspected even by his mother, and 
 finally crushed by this unexpected tragedy, and by the 
 shock of Harrington's unpardonable behavior. 
 
 Then his whole being reacted in a fierce protesting 
 irritation. He had been the victim of circumstance as 
 much as she. His will hardened to a passionate self- 
 defence; he flung off, he held at bay, an anguish that 
 must and should be conquered. He had to live his life. 
 He would live it. 
 
 They passed into the orchard, where, amid the old 
 trees, covered with tiny green apples, some climbing roses 
 were running at will, hanging their trails of blossom, 
 crimson and pale pink, from branch to branch. Linnets 
 and blackbirds made a pleasant chatter; the grass 
 beneath the trees was rich and soft, and through their 
 tops, one saw white clouds hovering in a blazing 
 blue. 
 
 Diana turned suddenly toward the house. 
 
 " I think we may go back now," she said, and her hand 
 contracted and her lip, as though she realized that her 
 dear dead friend had left her roof forever. 
 
 They hurried back, but there was still time for con- 
 versation. 
 
 "You knew him, of course, from a child?" she said to 
 him, glancing at him with timid interrogation. 
 
 In reply he forced himself to play that part of Fer- 
 rier's intimate almost son which, indeed, she had given 
 him, by implication, throughout her own talk. In this 
 she had shown a tact, a kindness for which he owed her 
 gratitude. She must have heard the charges brought 
 against him by the Ferrier party during the election, yet, 
 noble creature that she was, she had not believed them. 
 
 435
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 He could have thanked her aloud, till he remembered 
 that marked newspaper in his pocket. 
 
 Once a straggling rose branch caught in her dress. 
 He stooped to free it. Then for the first time he saw her 
 shrink. The instinctive service had made them man and 
 woman again not mind and mind; and he perceived, 
 with a miserable throb, that she could not be so uncon- 
 scious of his identity, his presence, their past, as she had 
 seemed to be. 
 
 She had lost he realized it the bloom of first youth. 
 How thin was the hand which gathered up her dress! 
 the hand once covered with his kisses. Yet she seemed 
 to him lovelier than ever, and he divined her more wom- 
 an than ever, more instinct with feeling, life, and passion. 
 
 Sir James's messenger met them half-way. At the 
 door the ambulance waited. 
 
 Chide, bareheaded, and a group of doctors, gardeners, 
 and police stood beside it. 
 
 "I follow you," said Marsham to Sir James. '.'There 
 is a great deal to do." 
 
 Chide assented coldly. "I have written to Broad- 
 stone, and I have sent a preliminary statement to the 
 papers." 
 
 "I can take anything you want to town," said Mar- 
 sham, hastily. "I must go up this evening." 
 
 He handed Broadstone's telegram to Sir James. 
 
 Chide read it and returned it in silence. Then he 
 entered the ambulance, taking his seat beside the shroud- 
 ed form within. Slowly it drove away, mounted police 
 accompanying it. It took a back way from Beechcote, 
 thus avoiding the crowd, which on the village side had 
 gathered round the gates. 
 
 436
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Diana, on the steps, saw it go, following it with her 
 eyes; standing very white and still. Then Marsham 
 lifted his hat to her, conscious through every nerve of 
 the curiosity among the little group of people standing 
 by. Suddenly, he thought, she too divined it. For 
 she looked round her, bowed to him slightly, and dis- 
 appeared with Mrs. Colwood. 
 
 He spent two or three hours at Lytchett, making the 
 first arrangements for the funeral, with Sir James. It 
 was to be at Tallyn, and the burial in the church-yard 
 of the old Tallyn church. Sir James gave a slow and 
 grudging assent to this; but in the end he did assent, 
 after the relations between him and Marsham had be- 
 come still more strained. 
 
 Further statements were drawn up for the newspa- 
 pers. As the afternoon wore on the grounds and hall 
 of Lytchett betrayed the presence of a number of re- 
 porters, hurriedly sent thither by the chief London and 
 provincial papers. By now the news had travelled 
 through England. 
 
 Marsham worked hard, saving Sir James all he could. 
 Another messenger arrived from Lord Broadstone, with 
 a pathetic letter for Sir James. Chide's face darkened 
 over it. "Broadstone must bear up," he said to Mar- 
 sham, as they stood together in Chide's sanctum. "It 
 was not his fault, and he has the country to think of. 
 You tell him so. Now, are you off?" 
 
 Marsham replied that his fly had been announced. 
 
 "What '11 they offer you?" said Chide, abruptly. 
 
 "Offer me? It doesn't much matter, does it? on 
 a day like this?" Marsham's tone was equally curt. 
 Then he added: "I shall be here again to-morrow." 
 
 437
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Chide acquiesced. When Marsham had driven off, 
 and as the sound of the wheels died away, Chide uttered 
 a fierce inarticulate sound. His hot Irish heart swelled 
 within him. He walked hurriedly to and fro, his hands 
 in his pockets. 
 
 "John! John!" he groaned. "They'll be dancing 
 and triumphing on your grave to-night, John ; and that 
 fellow you were a father to like the rest. But they 
 shall do it without me, John they shall do it without 
 me!" 
 
 And he thought, with a grim satisfaction, of the note 
 he had just confided to the Premier's second messenger 
 refusing the offer of the Attorney-Generalship. He was 
 sorry for Broadstone; he had done his best to comfort 
 him; but he would serve in no Government with John's 
 supplanters. 
 
 Meanwhile Marsham was speeding up to town. At 
 every way-side station, under the evening light, he saw 
 the long lines of placards: "Sudden death of Mr. Fer- 
 rier. Effect on the new Ministry." Every paper he 
 bought was full of comments and hasty biographies. 
 There was more than a conventional note of loss in them. 
 Ferrier was not widely popular, in the sense in which 
 many English statesmen have been popular, but there 
 was something in his personality that had long since 
 won the affection and respect of all that public, in all 
 classes, which really observes and directs English affairs. 
 He was sincerely mourned, and he would be practically 
 missed. 
 
 But the immediate effect would be the triumph of 
 the Cave, a new direction given to current politics. 
 That no one doubted. 
 
 438
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Marsham was lost in tumultuous thought. The truth 
 was that the two articles in the Herald of that morning, 
 which had arrived at Tallyn by nine o'clock, had struck 
 him with nothing less than consternation. 
 
 Ever since his interview with Barrington, he had per- 
 suaded himself that in it he had laid the foundations of 
 party reunion; and he had since been eagerly scanning 
 the signs of slow change in the attitude of the party 
 paper, combined as they had been up to this very day 
 with an unbroken personal loyalty to Ferrier. But 
 the article of this morning had shown a complete and 
 in Oliver's opinion, as he read it at the breakfast-table 
 an extravagant volte-face. It amounted to nothing less 
 than a vehement appeal to the new Prime Minister to 
 intrust the leadership of the House of Commons, at so 
 critical a moment, to a man more truly in sympathy 
 with the forward policy of the party. 
 
 "We have hoped against hope," said the Herald; 
 "we have supported Mr. Ferrier against all opposition; 
 but a careful reconsideration and analysis of his latest 
 speeches taken together with our general knowledge 
 public and private, of the political situation have con- 
 vinced us, sorely against our will, that while Mr. Ferrier 
 must, of course, hold one of the most important offices in 
 the new Cabinet, his leadership of the Commons in view 
 of the two great measures to which the party is prac- 
 tically pledged could only bring calamity. He will not 
 oppose them;" that, of course, we know; but is it possible 
 that he can -fight them through with success ? We appeal 
 to his patriotism, which has never yet failed him or us. 
 If he will only accept the peerage he has so amply earned, 
 together with either the War Office or the Admiralty, 
 and represent the Government in the Lords, where it is 
 
 439
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 sorely in need of strength, all will be well. The leader- 
 ship of the Commons must necessarily fall to that sec- 
 tion of the party which, through Lord Philip's astonish- 
 ing campaign, has risen so rapidly in public favor. Lord 
 Philip himself, indeed, is no more acceptable to the 
 moderates than Mr. Ferrier to the Left Wing. Heat of 
 personal feeling alone would prevent his filling the part 
 successfully. But two or three men are named, under 
 whom Lord Philip would be content to serve, while the 
 moderates would have nothing to say against them." 
 
 This was damaging enough. But far more serious 
 was the "communicated" article on the next page 
 "from a correspondent" on which the "leader" was 
 based. 
 
 Marsham saw at once that the "correspondent" was 
 really Barrington himself, and that the article was wholly 
 derived from the conversation which had taken place at 
 Tallyn, and from the portions of Ferrier's letters, which 
 Marsham had read or summarized for the journalist's 
 benefit. 
 
 The passage in particular which Ferrier's dying hand 
 had marked he recalled the gleam in Barrington 's black 
 eyes as he had listened to it, the instinctive movement 
 in his powerful hand, as though to pounce, vulturelike, 
 on the letter and his own qualm of anxiety his sud- 
 den sense of having gone too far his insistence on dis- 
 cretion. 
 
 Discretion indeed! The whole thing was monstrous 
 treachery. He had warned the man that these few 
 sentences were not to be taken literally that they were, 
 in fact, Ferrier's caricature of himself and his true 
 opinion. "You press on me a particular measure," 
 they said, in effect, "you expect the millennium from 
 
 440
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 it. Well, I'll tell you what you'll really get by it'" 
 and then a forecast of the future, after the great Bill was 
 passed, in Ferrier's most biting vein. 
 
 The passage in the Herald was given as a paraphrase, 
 or, rather, as a kind of reductio ad absurdum of one of 
 Ferrier's last speeches in the House. It was, in truth, a 
 literal quotation from one of the letters. Barrington 
 had an excellent memory. He had omitted nothing. 
 The stolen sentences made the point, the damning point, 
 of the article. They were not exactly quoted as Fer- 
 rier's, but they claimed to express Ferrier more closely 
 than he had yet expressed himself. ' ' We have excellent 
 reason to believe that this is, in truth, the attitude of 
 Mr. Ferrier." How, then, could a man of so cold and 
 sceptical a temper continue to lead the young reformers 
 of the party? The Herald, with infinite regret, made 
 its bow to its old leader, and went over bag and baggage 
 to the camp of Lord Philip, who, Marsham could not 
 doubt, had been in close consultation with the editor 
 through the whole business. 
 
 Again and again, as the train sped on, did Marsham 
 go back over the fatal interview which had led to these 
 results. His mind, full of an agony of remorse he could 
 not still, was full also of storm and fury against Barring- 
 ton. Never had a journalist made a more shameful use 
 of a trust reposed in him. 
 
 With torturing clearness, imagination built up the 
 scene in the garden: the arrival of Broadstone's letter; 
 the hand of the stricken man groping for the news- 
 paper; the effort of those pencilled lines; and, final- 
 ly, that wavering mark, John Ferrier's last word on 
 earth. 
 
 If it had, indeed, been meant for him, Oliver well, 
 
 *9 441
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 he had received it; the dead man had reached out and 
 touched him; he felt the brand upon him; and it was a 
 secret forever between Ferrier and himself. 
 
 The train was nearing St. Pancras. Marsham roused 
 himself with an effort. After all, what fault was it of 
 his this tragic coincidence of a tragic day ? If Ferrier 
 had lived, all could have been explained; or if not all, 
 most. And because Ferrier had died of a sudden ail- 
 ment, common among men worn out with high respon- 
 sibilities, was a man to go on reproaching himself eter- 
 nally for another man's vile behavior for the results 
 of an indiscretion committed with no ill-intent what- 
 ever? With miserable self-control, Oliver turned his 
 mind to his approaching interview with the Prime 
 Minister. Up to the morning of this awful day he had 
 been hanging on the Cabinet news from hour to hour. 
 The most important posts would, of, course be filled first. 
 Afterward would come the minor appointments and 
 then! 
 
 Marsham found the Premier much shaken. He was 
 an old man; he had been a warm personal friend of 
 Ferrier's; and the blow had hit him hard. 
 
 Evidently for a few hours he had been determined to 
 resign ; but strong influences had been brought to bear, 
 and he had wearily resumed his task. 
 
 Reluctantly, Marsham told the story. Poor Lord 
 Broadstone could not escape from the connection be- 
 tween the arrival of his letter and the seizure which had 
 killed his old comrade. He sat bowed beneath it for a 
 while; then, with a fortitude and a self-control which 
 never fails men of his type in times of public stress 
 and difficulty, he roused himself to discuss the political 
 
 442
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 situation which had arisen so far, at least, as was neces- 
 sary and fitting in the case of a man not in the inner 
 circle. 
 
 As the two men sat talking the messenger arrived 
 from Beechcote with Sir James Chide's letter. From 
 the Premier's expression as he laid it down Marsham 
 divined that it contained Chide's refusal to join the 
 Government. Lord Broadstone got up and began to 
 move to and fro, wrapped in a cloud of thought. He 
 seemed to forget Marsham's presence, and Marsham 
 made a movement to go. As he did so Lord Broadstone 
 looked up and came toward him. 
 
 "I am much obliged to you for having come so 
 promptly," he said, with melancholy courtesy. " I 
 thought we should have met soon on an occasion 
 more agreeable to us both. As you are here, forgive 
 me if I talk business. This rough-and-tumble world 
 has to be carried on, and if it suits you, I shall be happy 
 to recommend your appointment to her Majesty as a 
 Junior Lord of the Treasury carrying with it, as of 
 course you understand, the office of Second Whip." 
 
 Ten minutes later Marsham left the Prime Minister's 
 house. As he walked back to St. Pancras, he was con- 
 scious of yet another smart added to the rest. If any- 
 thing were offered to him, he had certainly hoped for 
 something more considerable. 
 
 It looked as though while the Ferrier influence had 
 ignored him, the Darcy influence had not troubled itself 
 to do much for him. That he had claims could not be 
 denied. So this very meagre bone had been flung him. 
 But if he had refused it, he would have got nothing else. 
 
 The appointment would involve re-election. All that 
 infernal business to go through again! probably in 
 
 443
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 the very midst of disturbances in the mining district. 
 The news from the collieries was as bad as it could be. 
 
 He reached home very late close on midnight. His 
 mother had gone to bed, ill and worn out, and was not 
 to be disturbed. Isabel Fotheringham and Alicia await- 
 ed him in the drawing-room. 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham had arrived in the course of the 
 evening. She herself was peevish with fatigue, incurred 
 in canvassing for two of Lord Philip's most headlong 
 supporters. Personally, she had broken with John 
 Ferrier some weeks before the election; but the fact had 
 made more impression on her own mind than on his. 
 
 "Well, Oliver, this is a shocking thing! However, 
 of course, Ferrier had been unhealthy for a long time; 
 any one could see that. It was really better it should 
 end so." 
 
 "You take it calmly!" he said, scandalized by her 
 manner and tone. 
 
 " I am sorry, of course. But Ferrier had outlived him- 
 self. The people I have been working among felt him 
 merely in the way. But, of course, I am sorry mamma is 
 dreadfully upset. That one must expect. Well, now 
 then you have seen Broadstone?" 
 
 She rose to question him, the political passion in her 
 veins asserting itself against her weariness. She was 
 still in her travelling dress. From her small, haggard 
 face the reddish hair was drawn tightly back; the 
 spectacled eyes, the dry lips, expressed a woman whose 
 life had hardened to dusty uses. Her mere aspect chilled 
 and repelled her brother, and he answered her questions 
 shortly. 
 
 " Broadstone has treated you shabbily!" she remarked, 
 444
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 with decision; "but I suppose you will have to put up 
 with it. And this terrible thing that has happened to-day 
 may tell against you when it comes to the election. 
 Ferrier will be looked upon as a martyr, and we shall 
 suffer." 
 
 Oliver turned his eyes for relief to Alicia. She, in a 
 soft black dress, with many slender chains, studded with 
 beautiful turquoises, about her white neck, rested and 
 cheered his sight. The black was for sympathy with the 
 family sorrow; the turquoises were there because he 
 specially admired them; he understood them both. The 
 night was hot, and without teasing him with questions 
 she had brought him a glass of iced lemonade, touching 
 him caressingly on the arm while he drank it. 
 
 "Poor Mr. Ferrier! It was terribly, terribly sad!" 
 Her voice was subtly tuned and pitched. It made no 
 fresh claim on emotion, of which, in his mental and moral 
 exhaustion, he had none to give ; but it more than met 
 the decencies of the situation, which Isabel had flouted. 
 
 " So there will be another election ?" she said, presently, 
 still standing in front of him, erect and provocative, her 
 eyes fixed on his. 
 
 "Yes; but I sha'n't be such a brute as to bother you 
 with it this time." 
 
 "I shall decide that for myself," she said, lightly. 
 Then after a pause: "So Lord Philip has won! all 
 along the line! I should like to know that man!" 
 
 "You do know him." 
 
 "Oh, just to pass the time of day. That's nothing. 
 But I am to meet him at the Treshams' next week." 
 Her eyes sparkled a little. Marsham glanced at his 
 sister, who was gathering up some small possessions at 
 the end of the room. 
 
 445
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Don't try and make a fool of him!" he said, in a low 
 voice. "He's not your sort." 
 
 "Isn't he?" She laughed. " I suppose he's one of the 
 biggest men in England now. And somebody told me 
 the other day that, after losing two or three fortunes, he 
 had just got another." 
 
 Marsham nodded. 
 
 " Altogether, an excellent parti" 
 
 Alicia's infectious laugh broke out. She sat down 
 beside him, with her hands round her knees. 
 
 " You look miles better than when you came in. But 
 I think you'd better go to bed." 
 
 As Marsham, in undressing, flung his coat upon a 
 chair, the copy of the Herald which he had momentarily 
 forgotten fell out of the inner pocket. He raised it 
 irresolute. Should he tear it up, and throw the frag- 
 ments away? 
 
 No. He could not bring himself to do it. It was as 
 though Ferrier, lying still and cold at Lytchett, would 
 know of it as though the act would do some roughness 
 to the dead. 
 
 He went into his sitting-room, found an empty drawer 
 in his writing-table, thrust in the newspaper, and closed 
 the drawer.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 " T REGARD this second appeal to West Brookshire as 
 
 1 an insult! " said the Vicar of Beechcote, hotly. " If 
 Mr. Marsham must needs accept an office that involved 
 re-election he might have gone elsewhere. I see there is 
 already a vacancy by death and a Liberal seat, too 
 in Sussex. We told him pretty plainly what we thought 
 of him last time." 
 
 " And now I suppose you will turn him out ?" asked the 
 doctor, lazily. In the beatitude induced by a completed 
 article and an afternoon smoke, he was for the moment 
 incapable of taking a tragic view either of Marsham 's 
 shortcomings or his prospects. 
 
 " Certainly, we shall turn him out." 
 
 "Ah! a Labor candidate?" said the doctor, showing 
 a little more energy. 
 
 Whereupon the Vicar, with as strong a relish for the 
 primeur of an important piece of news as any secular 
 fighter, described a meeting held the night before in one 
 of the mining villages, at which he had been a speaker. 
 The meeting had decided to run a miners' candidate; 
 expenses had been guaranteed; and the resolution passed 
 meant, according to Lavery, that Marsham would be 
 badly beaten, and that Colonel Simpson, his Conservative 
 opponent, would be handsomely presented with a seat 
 in Parliament, to which his own personal merits had no 
 claim whatever. 
 
 447
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 "But that we put up with," said the Vicar, grimly. 
 "The joy of turning out Marsham is compensation." 
 
 The doctor turned an observant eye on his com- 
 panion's clerical coat. 
 
 "Shall we hear these sentiments next Sunday from 
 the pulpit?" he asked, mildly. 
 
 The Vicar had the grace to blush slightly. 
 
 " I say, no doubt, more than I should say," he ad- 
 mitted. Then he rose, buttoning his long coat down his 
 long body deliberately, as though by the action he tried 
 to restrain the surge within; but it overflowed all the 
 same. "I know now," he said, with a kindling eye, 
 holding out a gaunt hand in farewell, "what our Lord 
 meant by sending, not peace but a sword!" 
 
 "So, no doubt, did Torquemada!" replied the doctor, 
 surveying him. 
 
 The Vicar rose to the challenge. 
 
 " I will be no party to the usual ignorant abuse of 
 the Inquisition," he said, firmly. "We live in days of 
 license, and have no right to sit in judgment on our 
 forefathers." 
 
 " Your forefathers," corrected the doctor. "Mine 
 burned." 
 
 The Vicar first laughed; then grew serious. " Well, I'll 
 allow you two opinions on the Inquisition, but not^ ' 
 he lifted a gesticulating hand "not two opinions on 
 mines which are death-traps for lack of a little money to 
 make them safe not on the kind of tyranny which says 
 to a man: ' Strike if you like, and take a week's notice at 
 the same time to give up your cottage, which belongs to 
 the colliery ' or, ' Make a fuss about allotments if 
 you dare, and see how long you keep your berth in my 
 employment: we don't want any agitators here' or 
 
 448
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 maintains, against all remonstrance, a brutal manager in 
 office, whose rule crushes out a man's self-respect, and 
 embitters his soul!" 
 
 "You charge all these things against Marsham?" 
 
 " He or, rather, his mother has a large holding in 
 collieries against which I charge them." 
 
 "H'm. Lady Lucy isn't standing for West Brook- 
 shire." 
 
 "No matter. The son's teeth are set on edge. Mar- 
 sham has been appealed to, and has done nothing 
 attempted nothing. He makes eloquent Liberal speeches, 
 and himself spends money got by grinding the poor!" 
 
 " You make him out a greater fool than I believe him," 
 said the doctor. " He has probably attempted a great 
 deal, and finds his power limited. Moreover, he has 
 been eight years member here, and these charges are 
 quite new." 
 
 "Because the spirit abroad is new!" cried the Vicar. 
 " Men will no longer bear what their fathers bore. The 
 old excuses, the old pleas, serve no longer. I tell you the 
 poor are tired of their patience ! The Kingdom of Heav- 
 en, in its earthly aspect, is not to be got that way no ! 
 'The violent take it by force!' And as to your remark 
 about Marsham, half the champions of democracy in 
 this country are in the same box: prating about liberty 
 and equality abroad ; grinding their servants and under- 
 paying their laborers at home. I know scores of them; 
 and how any of them keep a straight face at a public 
 meeting I never could understand. There is a French 
 proverb that exactly expresses them 
 
 "I know," murmured the doctor, "I know. ' Joie de 
 rue, douleur de maison.' Well, and so, to upset Marsham, 
 you are going to let the Tories in, eh? with all the old 
 
 449
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 tyrannies and briberies on their shoulders? naked and 
 unashamed. Hullo!" he looked round him "don't 
 tell Patricia I said so or Hugh." 
 
 "There is no room for a middle party," was the 
 Vicar's fierce reply. " Socialists on the one side, Tories 
 on the other! that '11 be the Armageddon of the future." 
 
 The doctor, declining to be drawn, nodded placidly 
 through the clouds of smoke that enwrapped him. The 
 Vicar hurried away, accompanied, however, furtively to 
 the door, even to the gate of the drive, by Mrs. Rough- 
 sedge, who had questions to ask. 
 
 She came back presently with a thoughtful counte- 
 nance. 
 
 " I asked him what he thought I ought to do about 
 those tales I told you of." 
 
 "Why don't you settle for yourself?" cried the doc- 
 tor, testily. "That is the way you women flatter the 
 pride of tnese priests!" 
 
 " Not at all. You make him talk nonsense ; I find 
 him a fount of wisdom." 
 
 " I admit he knows some moral theology," said Rough- 
 sedge, thoughtfully. " He has thought a good deal about 
 'sins' and 'sin.' Well, what was his view about these 
 particular ' sinners ' ?" 
 
 "He thinks Diana ought to know." 
 
 " She can't do any good, and it will keep her awake 
 at nights. I object altogether." 
 
 However, Mrs. Roughsedge, having first dropped a 
 pacifying kiss on her husband's gray hair, went up-stairs 
 to put on her things, declaring that she was going there 
 and then to Beechcote. 
 
 The doctor was left to ponder over the gossip in ques- 
 tion, and what Diana could possibly do to meet it. Poor
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 child! was she never to be free from scandal and pub- 
 licity ? 
 
 As to the couple of people involved Fred Birch and 
 that odious young woman Miss Fanny Merton he did 
 not care in the least what happened to them. And he 
 could not see, for the life of him, why Diana should care 
 either. But of course she would. In her ridiculous 
 way, she would think she had some kind of responsibility, 
 just because the girl's mother and her mother happened 
 to have been brought up in the same nursery. 
 
 "A plague on Socialist vicars, and a plague on dear 
 good women!" thought the doctor, knocking out his 
 pipe. "What with philanthropy and this delicate al- 
 truism that takes the life out of women, the world be- 
 comes a kind of impenetrable jungle, in which every- 
 body's business is intertwined with everybody else's, 
 and there is nobody left with primitive brutality enough 
 to hew a way through ! And those of us that might lead 
 a decent life on this ill-arranged planet are all crippled 
 and hamstrung by what we call unselfishness." The 
 doctor vigorously replenished his pipe. " I vow I will 
 go to Greece next spring, and leave Patricia behind!" 
 
 Meanwhile, Mrs. Roughsedge walked to Beechcote 
 in meditation. The facts she pondered were these, to 
 put them as shortly as possible. Fred Birch was fast 
 becoming the mauvais sujet of the district. His practice }/ 
 was said to be gone, his money affairs were in a desperate 
 condition, and his mother and sister had already taken 
 refuge with relations. He had had recourse to the time- 
 honored expedients of his type: betting on horses and 
 on stocks with other people's money. It was said that 
 he had kept on the safe side of the law; but one or 
 two incidents in his career had emerged to light quite 
 
 45*
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 recently, which had led all the scrupulous in Duns- 
 combe to close their doors upon him; and as he had no 
 means of bribing the unscrupulous, he had now become 
 a mere object-lesson for babes as to the advantages of 
 honesty. 
 
 At the same time Miss Fanny Merton, first introduced 
 to Brookshire by Brookshire's favorite, Diana Mallory, 
 was constantly to be seen in the black sheep's company. 
 They had been observed together, both in London and 
 the country at race-meetings and theatres ; and a brawl 
 in the Dunscombe refreshment-room, late at night, in 
 which Birch had been involved, brought out the scan- 
 dalous fact that Miss Merton was in his company. Birch 
 was certainly not sober, and it was said by the police 
 that Miss Merton also had had more port wine than was 
 good for her. 
 
 All this Brookshire knew, and none of it did Diana 
 know. Since her return she and Mrs. Colwood had lived 
 so quietly within their own borders that the talk of the 
 neighborhood rarely reached her, and those persons who 
 came in contact with her were far too deeply touched 
 by the signs of suffering in the girl's face and manner to 
 breathe a word that might cause her fresh pain. Brook- 
 shire knew, through one or other of the mysterious chan- 
 nels by which such news travels, that the two cousins 
 were uncongenial; that it was Fanny Merton who had 
 revealed to Diana her mother's history, and in an abrupt, 
 unfeeling way; and that the two girls were not now in 
 communication. Fanny had been boarding with friends 
 in Bloomsbury, and was supposed to be returning to her 
 family in Barbadoes in the autumn. 
 
 The affair at the refreshment-room was to be heard of 
 at Petty Sessions, and would, therefore, get into the local 
 
 452
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 papers. Mrs. Roughsedge felt there was nothing for it; 
 Diana must be told. But she hated her task. 
 
 On reaching Beechcote she noticed a fly at the door, 
 and paused a moment to consider whether her visit 
 might not be inopportune. It was a beautiful day, and 
 Diana and Mrs. Colwood were probably to be found in 
 some corner of the garden. Mrs. Roughsedge walked 
 round the side of the house to reconnoitre. 
 
 As she reached the beautiful old terrace at the back of 
 the house, on which the drawing-room opened, suddenly 
 a figure came flying through the drawing-room window 
 the figure of a girl in a tumbled muslin dress, with a 
 large hat, and a profusion of feathers and streamers 
 fluttering about her. In her descent upon the terrace 
 she dropped her gloves; stooping to pick them up, she 
 dropped her boa; in her struggle to recapture that, she 
 trod on and tore her dress. 
 
 "Damn!" said the young lady, furiously. 
 
 And at the voice, the word, the figure, Mrs. Rough- 
 sedge stood arrested and open-mouthed, her old wom- 
 an's bonnet slipping back a little on her gray curls. 
 
 The young woman was Fanny Merton. She had 
 evidently just arrived, and was in search of Diana. Mrs. 
 Roughsedge thought a moment, and then turned and 
 sadly walked home again. No good interfering now! 
 Poor Diana would have to tackle the situation for her- 
 self. 
 
 Diana and Mrs. Colwood were on the lawn, surrep- 
 titiously at work on clothes for the child in the spinal 
 jacket, who was soon going away to a convalescent 
 home, and had to be rigged out. The grass was strewn 
 with pieces of printed cotton and flannel, with books 
 
 453
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 and work-baskets. But they were not sitting where 
 Ferrier had looked his last upon the world three weeks 
 before. There, under the tall limes, across the lawn, on 
 that sad and sacred spot, Diana meant in the autumn 
 to plant a group of cypresses (the tree of mourning) 
 "for remembrance." 
 
 "Fanny!" cried Diana, in amazement, rising from 
 her chair. 
 
 At her cousin's voice, Fanny halted, a few yards away. 
 
 "Well," she said, defiantly, "of course I know you 
 didn't expect to see me!" 
 
 Diana had grown very pale. Muriel saw a shiver 
 run through her the shiver of the victim brought once 
 more into the presence of the torturer. 
 
 "I thought you were in London," she stammered, 
 moving forward and holding out her hand mechanically. 
 "Please come and sit down." She cleared a chair of 
 the miscellaneous needlework upon it. 
 
 "I want to speak to you very particularly," said 
 Fanny. "And it's private!" She looked at Mrs. Col- 
 wood, with whom she had exchanged a frosty greeting. 
 Diana made a little imploring sign, and Muriel un- 
 willingly moved away toward the house. 
 
 "Well, I don't suppose you want to have anything to 
 do with me," said Fanny, after a moment, in a sulky 
 voice. "But, after all, you're mother's niece. I'm in a 
 pretty tight fix, and it mightn't be very pleasant for you 
 if things came to the worst." 
 
 She had thrown off her hat, and was patting and 
 pulling the numerous puffs and bandeaux, in which her 
 hair was arranged, with a nervous hand. Diana was 
 aghast at her appearance. The dirty finery of her dress 
 had sunk many degrees in the scale of decency and 
 
 454
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 refinement since February. Her staring brunette color 
 had grown patchy and unhealthy, her eyes had a fur- 
 tive audacity, her lips a coarseness, which might have 
 been always there; but in the winter, youth and high 
 spirits had to some extent disguised them. 
 
 "Aren't you soon going home?" asked Diana, looking 
 at her with a troubled brow. 
 
 "No, I'm I'm engaged. I thought you might have 
 known that!" The girl turned fiercely upon her. 
 
 "No I hadn't heard" 
 
 "Well, I don't know where you live all your time!" 
 said Fanny, impatiently. "There's heaps of people at 
 Dunscombe know that I've been engaged to Fred Birch 
 for three months. I wasn't going to write to you, of 
 course, because I well! I knew you thought I'd been 
 rough on you about that you know." 
 
 "Fred Birch ! " Diana's voice was faltering and amazed. 
 
 Fanny twisted her hat in her hands. 
 
 "He's all right," she said, angrily, "if his business 
 hadn't been ruined by a lot of nasty crawling tale-tellers. 
 If people 'd only mind their own business! However, 
 there it is he's ruined he hasn't got a penny piece 
 and, of course, he can't marry me, if well, if somebody 
 don't help us out." 
 
 Diana's face changed. 
 
 "Do you mean that I should help you out?" 
 
 "Well, there's no one else!" said Fanny, still, as it 
 seemed, defying something or some one. 
 
 "I gave you a thousand pounds." 
 
 " You gave it mother! I got precious little of it. I've 
 had to borrow, lately, from people in the boarding-house. 
 And I can't get any more there! I'm just broke- 
 stony." 
 
 455
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 She was still looking straight before her, but her lip 
 trembled. 
 
 Diana bent forward impetuously. 
 
 "Fanny!" she said, laying her hand on her cousin's, 
 "do go home!" 
 
 Fanny's lip continued to tremble. 
 
 "I tell you I'm engaged," she repeated, in a muffled 
 voice. 
 
 " Don't marry him !" cried Diana, imploringly. " He's 
 not he's not a good man." 
 
 "What do you know about it? He's well enough, 
 though I dare say he's not your sort. He'd be all right 
 if somebody would just lend a hand help him with the 
 debts, and put him on his feet again. He suits me, any- 
 way. I'm not so thin-skinned." 
 
 Diana stiffened. Fanny's manner as of old was 
 almost incredible, considered as the manner of one in 
 difficulties asking for help. The sneering insolence of it 
 inevitably provoked the person addressed. 
 
 "Have you told Aunt Bertha?" she said, coldly 
 "asked her consent?" 
 
 " Mother? Oh, I've told her I'm engaged. She knows 
 very well that I manage my own business." 
 
 Diana withdrew her chair a little. 
 
 "When are you going to be married? Are you still 
 with those friends?" 
 
 Fanny laughed. 
 
 " Oh, Lord, no! I fell out with them long ago. They 
 were a wretched lot! But I found a girl I knew, and 
 we set up together. I've been in a blouse-shop earn- 
 ing thirty shillings a week there! And if I hadn't, 
 I'd have starved!" 
 
 Fanny raised her head. Their eyes met: Fanny's 
 456
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 full of mingled bravado and misery; Diana's suddenly 
 stricken with deep and remorseful distress. 
 
 "Fanny, I told you to write to me if there was 
 anything wrong! Why didn't you?" 
 
 "You hated me!" said Fanny, sullenly. 
 
 "I didn't!" cried Diana, the tears rising to her eyes. 
 "But you hurt me so!" Then again she bent forward, 
 laying her hand on her cousin's, speaking fast and low. 
 "Fanny, I'm very sorry! if I'd known you were in 
 trouble I'd have come or written I thought you were 
 with friends, and I knew the money had been paid. But, 
 Fanny, I implore you! give up Mr. Birch! Nobody 
 speaks well of him! You'll be miserable! you must 
 be!" 
 
 "Too late to think of that!" said Fanny, doggedly. 
 
 Diana looked up in sudden terror. Fanny tried to 
 brazen it out. But all the patchy color left her cheeks, 
 and, dropping her head on her hands, she began to sob. 
 Yet even the sobs were angry. 
 
 "I can go and drown myself!" she said, passionately, 
 "and I suppose I'd better. Nobody cares whether I 
 do or not! He's made a fool of me I don't suppose 
 mother '11 take me home again. And if he doesn't 
 marry me, I'll kill myself somehow it don't matter 
 how before I've got to!" 
 
 Diana had dropped on her knees beside her visitor. 
 Unconsciously pitifully she breathed her cousin's 
 name. Fanny looked up. She wrenched herself vio- 
 lently away. 
 
 "Oh, it's all very well! but we can't all be such 
 saints as you. It 'd be all right if he married me direct- 
 ly directly," she repeated, hurriedly. 
 
 Diana knelt still immovable. In her face was that 
 30 457
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 agonized shock and recoil with which the young and 
 pure, the tenderly cherished and guarded, receive the 
 first withdrawal of the veil which hides from them the 
 more brutal facts of life. But, as she knelt there, gaz- 
 ing at Fanny, another expression stole upon and effaced 
 the first. Taking shape and body, as it were, from the 
 experience of the moment, there rose into sight the new 
 soul developed in her by this tragic year. Not for her 
 not for Juliet Sparling's daughter the plea of cloist- 
 ered innocence! By a sharp transition her youth had 
 passed from the Chamber of Maiden Thought into the 
 darkened Chamber of Experience. She had steeped her 
 heart in the waters of sin and suffering; she put from 
 her in an instant the mere maiden panic which had 
 drawn her to her knees. 
 
 "Fanny, I'll help you!" she said, in a- low voice, 
 putting her arms round her cousin. "Don't cry I'll 
 help you." 
 
 Fanny raised her head. In Diana's face there was 
 something which, for the first time, roused in the other 
 a nascent sense of shame. The color came rushing into 
 her cheeks; her eyes wavered painfully. 
 
 "You must come and stay here," said Diana, almost 
 in a whisper. "And where is Mr. Birch? I must see 
 him." 
 
 She rose as she spoke; her voice had a decision, a 
 sternness, that Fanny for once did not resent. But she 
 shook her head despairingly. 
 
 " I can't get at him. He sends my letters back. He'll 
 not marry me unless he's paid to." 
 
 " When did you see him last ?" 
 
 Gradually the whole story emerged. The man had 
 behaved as the coarse and natural man face to face with 
 
 458
 
 The Testing of Diana Maliory 
 
 temptation and opportunity is likely to behave. The 
 girl had been the victim first and foremost of her own 
 incredible folly. And Diana could not escape the idea 
 that on Birch's side there had not been wanting from 
 the first an element of sinister calculation. If her rela- 
 tions objected to the situation, it could, of course, be made 
 worth his while to change it. All his recent sayings and 
 doings, as Fanny reported them, clearly bore this inter- 
 pretation. 
 
 As Diana sat, dismally pondering, an idea flashed 
 upon her. Sir James Chide was to dine at Beechcote that 
 night. He was expected early, would take in Beech- 
 cote, indeed, on his way from the train to Lytchett. Who 
 else should advise her if not he? In a hundred ways, 
 practical and tender, he had made her understand that, 
 for her mother's sake and her own, she was to him as a 
 daughter. 
 
 She mentioned him to Fanny. 
 
 "Of course" she hurried over the words "we need 
 only say that you have been engaged. We must con- 
 sult him, I suppose, about about breach of promise of 
 marriage." 
 
 The odious, hearsay phrase came out with difficulty. 
 But Fanny's eyes glistened at the name of the great 
 lawyer. 
 
 Her feelings toward the man who had betrayed her 
 were clearly a medley of passion and of hatred. She 
 loved him as she was able to love; and she wished, at 
 the same time, to coerce and be revenged on him. The 
 momentary sense of shame had altogether passed. It 
 was Diana who, with burning cheeks, stipulated that 
 while Fanny must not return to town, but must stay at 
 Beechcote till matters were arranged, she should not 
 
 459
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 appear during Sir James's visit; and it was Fanny who 
 said, with vindictive triumph, as Diana left her in her 
 room; "Sir James '11 know well enough what sort of 
 damages I could get!" 
 
 After dinner Diana and Sir James walked up and 
 down the lime -walk in the August moonlight. His 
 affection, as soon as he saw her, had been conscious of 
 yet another strain upon her, but till she began to talk 
 to him teie-h-teie he got no clew to it; and even then 
 what he guessed had very little to do with what she said. 
 She told her cousin's story so far as she meant to tell it 
 with complete self-possession. Her cousin was in love 
 with this wretched man, and had got herself terribly 
 talked about. She could not be persuaded to give him 
 up, while he could only be induced to marry her by the 
 prospect of money. Could Sir James see him and find 
 out how much would content him, and whether any 
 decent employment could be found for him? 
 
 Sir James held his peace, except for the " Yeses" and 
 " Noes " that Diana's conversation demanded. He would 
 certainly interview the young man; he was very sorry 
 for her anxieties; he would see what could be done. 
 
 Meanwhile, he never communicated to her that he had 
 travelled down to Beechcote in the same carriage with 
 Lady Felton, the county gossip, and that in addition to 
 other matters of which more anon the refreshment- 
 room story had been discussed between them, with ad- 
 ditions and ramifications leading to very definite con- 
 clusions in any rational mind as to the nature of the 
 bond between Diana's cousin and the young Dunscombe 
 solicitor. Lady Felton had expressed her concern for 
 Miss Mallory. "Poor thing! do you think she knows? 
 
 460
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Why on earth did she ever ask him to Beechcote ! Alicia 
 Drake told me she saw him there." 
 
 These things Sir James did not disclose. He played 
 Diana's game with perfect discretion. He guessed, even 
 that Fanny was in the house, but he said not a word. 
 No need at all to question the young woman. If in such 
 a case he could not get round a rascally solicitor, what 
 could he do ? and what was the good of being the leader 
 of the criminal Bar? 
 
 Only when Diana, at the end of their walk, shylv 
 remarked that money was not to stand in the way; that 
 she had plenty; that Beechcote was no doubt too ex- 
 pensive for her, but that the tenancy was only a yearly 
 one, and she had but to give notice at Michaelmas, which 
 she thought of doing only then did Sir James allow 
 himself a laugh. 
 
 " You think I am going to let this business turn you 
 out of Beechcote eh? you preposterous little angel!" 
 
 "Not this business," stammered Diana; "but I am 
 really living at too great a rate." 
 
 Sir James grinned, patted her ironically on the shoul- 
 der, told her to be a good girl, and departed. 
 
 Fanny stayed for a week at Beechcote, and at the 
 end of that time Diana and Mrs. Colwood accompanied 
 her on a Saturday to town, and she was married, to a 
 sheepish and sulky bridegroom, by special license, at a 
 Marylebone church Sir James Chide, in the background, 
 looking on. They departed for a three days' holiday 
 to Brighton, and on the fourth day they were due to 
 sail by a West Indian steamer for Barbadoes, where Sir 
 James had procured for Mr. Frederick Birch a post in 
 the office of a large sugar estate, in which an old friend 
 
 461
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 of Chide's had an interest. Fanny showed no rapture 
 in the prospect of thus returning to the bosom of her 
 family. But there was no help for it. 
 
 By what means the transformation scene had been 
 effected it would be waste of time to inquire. Much to 
 Diana's chagrin, Sir James entirely declined to allow her 
 to aid in it financially, except so far as equipping her 
 cousin with clothes went, and providing her with a small 
 sum for her wedding journey. Personally, he considered 
 that the week during which Fanny stayed at Beechcote 
 was as much as Diana could be expected to contribute, 
 and that she had indeed paid the lion's share. 
 
 Yet that week if he had known was full of strange 
 comfort to Diana. Often Muriel, watching her, would 
 escape to her own room to hide her tears. Fanny's second 
 visit was not as her first. The first had seen the outraging 
 and repelling of the nobler nature by the ignoble. Diana 
 had frankly not been able to endure her cousin. There 
 was not a trace of that now. Her father's papers had 
 told her abundantly how flimsy, how nearly fraudulent, 
 was the financial claim which Fanny and her belongings 
 had set up. The thousand pounds had been got practi- 
 cally on false pretences, and Diana knew it now, in every 
 detail. Yet neither toward that, nor toward Fanny's 
 other and worse lapses, did she show any bitterness, any 
 spirit of mere disgust and reprobation. The last vestige 
 of that just, instinctive pharisaism which clothes an un- 
 stained youth had dropped from her. As the heir of 
 her mother's fate, she had gone down into the dark sea 
 of human wrong and misery, and she had emerged 
 transformed, more akin by far to the wretched and the 
 unhappy than to the prosperous and the untempted, so 
 that, through all repulsion and shock, she took Fanny 
 
 462
 
 "SIR JAMES PLAYED DIANA'S GAME WITH PERFECT DISCRETION"
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 now as she found her bearing with her accepting her 
 loving her, as far as she could. At the last even that 
 stubborn nature was touched. When Diana kissed her 
 after the wedding, with a few tremulous good wishes, 
 Fanny's gulp was not all excitement. Yet it must 
 still be recorded that on the wedding-day Fanny was 
 in the highest spirits, only marred by some annoy- 
 ance that she had let Diana persuade her out of a white 
 satin wedding-dress. 
 
 Diana's preoccupation with this matter carried her 
 through the first week of Marsham's second campaign, 
 and deadened so far the painful effect of the contest now 
 once more thundering through the division. For it was 
 even a more odious battle than the first had been. In the 
 first place, the moderate Liberals held a meeting very 
 early in the struggle, with Sir William Felton in the 
 chair, to protest against the lukewarm support which 
 Marsham had given to the late leader of the Opposition, 
 to express their lamentation for Ferrier, and their dis- 
 trust of Lord Philip ; and to decide upon a policy. 
 
 At the meeting a heated speech was made by a gray- 
 haired squire, an old friend and Oxford contemporary of 
 John Ferrier's, who declared that he had it on excellent 
 authority that the communicated article in the Herald, 
 which had appeared on the morning of Ferrier's sudden 
 death, had been written by Oliver Marsham. 
 
 This statement was reported in the newspapers of the 
 following morning, and was at once denied by Marsham 
 himself, in a brief letter to the Times. 
 
 It was this letter which Lady Felton discussed hotly 
 with Sir James Chide on the day when Fanny Merton's 
 misdemeanors also came up for judgment. 
 
 463
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " He says he didn't write it. Sir William declares a 
 mere quibble! He has it from several people that 
 Harrington was at Tallyn two days before the article 
 appeared, and that he spoke to one or two friends next 
 day of an 'important' conversation with Marsham, and 
 of the first-hand information he had got from it. Nobody 
 was so likely as Oliver to have that intimate knowledge 
 of poor Mr. Ferrier's intentions and views. William 
 believes that he gave Harrington all the information in 
 the article, and wrote nothing himself, in order that he 
 might be able to deny it'." 
 
 Sir James met these remarks with an impenetrable 
 face. He neither defended Marsham, nor did he join in 
 Lady Felton's denunciations. But that good lady, who 
 though voluble was shrewd, told her husband afterward 
 that she was certain Sir James believed Marsham to be 
 responsible for the Herald article. 
 
 A week later the subject was renewed at a very heated 
 and disorderly meeting at Dunscombe. A bookseller's 
 assistant, well known as one of the leading Socialists of 
 the division, got up and in a suave mincing voice accused 
 Marsham of having not written, but " communicated" 
 the Herald article, and so dealt a treacherous blow at his 
 old friend and Parliamentary leader a blow which had 
 no doubt contributed to the situation culminating in 
 Mr. Ferrier's tragic death. 
 
 Marsham, very pale, sprang up at once, denied the 
 charge, and fiercely attacked the man who had made it. 
 But there was something so venomous in the manner of 
 his denial, so undignified in the personalities with which 
 it was accompanied, that the meeting suddenly took 
 offence. The attack, instead of dying down, was renew- 
 ed. Speaker after speaker got up and heckled the 
 
 464
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 candidate. Was Mr. Marsham aware that the editor of 
 the Herald had been staying at Tallyn two days before 
 the article appeared ? Was he also aware that his name 
 had been freely mentioned, in the Herald office, in con- 
 nection with the article? 
 
 Marsham in vain endeavored to regain sang-froid and 
 composure under these attacks. He haughtily repeated 
 his denial, and refused to answer any more questions 
 on the subject. 
 
 The local Tory paper rushed into the fray, and had 
 presently collected a good deal of what it was pleased 
 to call evidence on the matter, mainly gathered from 
 London reporters. The matter began to look serious. 
 Marsham appealed to Barrington to contradict the 
 rumor publicly, as "absurd and untrue." But, unfortu- 
 nately, Barrington, who was a man of quick and gusty 
 temper, had been nettled by an incautious expression of 
 Marsham's with regard to the famous article in his 
 Dunscombe speech " if I had had any intention what- 
 ever of dealing a dishonorable blow at my old friend and 
 leader, I could have done it a good deal more effect- 
 ively, I can assure you; I should not have put what 
 I had to say in a form so confused and contradictory." 
 
 This together with the general denial happened to 
 reach Barrington, and it rankled. When, therefore, 
 Marsham appealed to him, he brusquely replied: 
 
 "DEAR MR. MARSHAM, You know best what share you had 
 in the Herald article. You certainly did not write it. But 
 to my mind it very faithfully reproduced the gist of our con- 
 versation on a memorable evening. And, moreover, I believe 
 and still believe that you intended the reproduction. Be- 
 lieve me, Yours faithfully, ERNEST BARRINGTON." 
 
 To this Marsham returned a stiff answer, giving his 
 
 465
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 own account of what had taken place, and regretting 
 that even a keen journalist should have thought it con- 
 sistent with his honor to make such injurious and unfair 
 use of "my honest attempt to play the peacemaker" 
 between the different factions of the party. 
 
 To this letter Harrington made no reply. Marsham, 
 sore and weary, yet strung by now to an obstinacy and 
 a fighting passion which gave a new and remarkable 
 energy to his personality, threw himself fresh into a 
 hopeless battle. For a time, indeed, the tide appeared to 
 turn. He had been through two Parliaments a popular 
 and successful member; less popular, no doubt, in the 
 second than in the first, as the selfish and bitter strains 
 in his character became more apparent. Still he had 
 always commanded a strong personal following, espe- 
 cially among the younger men of the towns and villages, 
 who admired his lithe and handsome presence, and ap- 
 preciated his reputation as a sportsman and volunteer. 
 Lady Lucy's subscriptions, too, were an element in the 
 matter not to be despised. . 
 
 A rally began in the Liberal host, which had felt itself 
 already beaten. Marsham's meetings improved, the 
 Herald article was apparently forgotten. 
 
 The anxiety now lay chiefly in the mining villages, 
 where nothing seemed to affect the hostile attitude of the 
 inhabitants. A long series of causes had led up to it, to 
 be summed up perhaps in one the harsh and domineer- 
 ing temper of the man who had for years managed the 
 three Tallyn collieries, and who held Lady Lucy and her 
 co-shareholders in the hollow of his hand. Lady Lucy, 
 whose curious obstinacy had been roused, would not dis- 
 miss him, and nothing less than his summary dismissal 
 would have appeased the dull hatred of six hundred miners. 
 
 466
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Marsham had indeed attempted to put through a num- 
 ber of minor reforms, but the effect on the temper of the 
 district had been, in the end, little or nothing. The 
 colliers, who had once fervently supported him, thought 
 of him now, either as a fine gentleman profiting pecuni- 
 arily by the ill deeds of a tyrant, or as sheltering behind 
 his mother's skirts; the Socialist Vicar of Beechcote 
 thundered against him; and for some time every meeting 
 of his in the colliery villages was broken up. But in the 
 more hopeful days of the last week, when the canvassing 
 returns, together with Marsham's astonishing energy 
 and brilliant speaking, had revived the failing heart of 
 the party, it was resolved to hold a final meeting, on the 
 night before the poll, at Hartingfield-on- the- Wold, the 
 largest of the mining villages. 
 
 Marsham left Dunscombe for Hartingfield about six 
 o'clock on an August evening, driving the coach, with its 
 superb team of horses, which had become by now so 
 familiar an object in the division. He was to return in 
 time to make the final speech in the concluding Liberal 
 meeting of the campaign, which was to be held that 
 night, with the help of some half-dozen other members 
 of Parliament, in the Dunscombe Corn Exchange. 
 
 A body of his supporters, gathered in the market- 
 place, cheered him madly as the coach set off. Marsham 
 stopped the horses for a minute outside the office of the 
 local paper. The weekly issue came out that afternoon. 
 It was handed up to him, and the coach rattled on. 
 
 McEwart, who was sitting beside him, opened it, and 
 presently gave a low involuntary whistle of dismay. 
 Marsham looked round. 
 
 "What's the matter?" 
 
 467
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 McEwart would have gladly flung the paper away. 
 But looking round him he saw that several other persons 
 on the top of the coach had copies, and that whispering 
 consternation had begun. 
 
 He saw nothing for it but to hand the paper to 
 Marsham. "This is playing it pretty low down!" he 
 said, pointing to an item in large letters on the first page, 
 i Marsham handed the reins to the groom beside him 
 and took the paper. He saw, printed in full, Barring- 
 ton's curt letter to himself on the subject of the Herald 
 article, and below it the jubilant and scathing comments 
 of the Tory editor. 
 
 He read both carefully, and gave the paper back to 
 McEwart. "That decides the election," he said, calmly. 
 Me E wart's face assented. 
 
 Marsham, however, never showed greater pluck than 
 at the Hartingfield meeting. It was a rowdy and dis- 
 graceful business, in which from beginning to end he 
 scarcely got a hearing for more than three sentences at 
 a time. A shouting mob of angry men, animated by 
 passions much more than political, held him at bay. 
 But on this occasion he never once lost his temper; he 
 caught the questions and insults hurled at him, and 
 threw them back with unfailing skill; and every now 
 and then, at some lull in the storm, he made himself 
 heard, and to good purpose. His courage and coolness 
 propitiated some and exasperated others. 
 
 A group of very rough fellows pursued him, shouting 
 and yelling, as he left the school -room where the meeting 
 was held. 
 
 "Take care!" said McEwart, hurrying him along. 
 "They are beginning with stones, and I see no police about." 
 
 468
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 The little party of visitors made for the coach, pro- 
 tected by some of the villagers. But in the dusk the 
 stones came flying fast and freely. Just as Marsham 
 was climbing into his seat he was struck. McEwart saw 
 him waver, and heard a muttered exclamation. 
 
 "You're hurt!" he said, supporting him. "Let the 
 groom drive." 
 
 Marsham pushed him away. 
 
 " It's nothing." He gathered up the reins, the grooms 
 who had been holding the horses' heads clambered into 
 their places, a touch of the whip, and the coach 
 was off, almost at a gallop, pursued by a shower of 
 missiles. 
 
 After a mile at full speed Marsham pulled in the 
 horses, and handed the reins to the groom. As he did so 
 a low groan escaped him. 
 
 "You are hurt!" exclaimed McEwart. "Where did 
 they hit you?" 
 
 Marsham shook his head. 
 
 "Better not talk," he said, in a whisper. "Drive 
 home." 
 
 An hour afterward, it was announced to the crowded 
 gathering in the Dunscombe Corn Exchange that Mr. 
 Marsham had been hurt by a stone at Hartingfield, and 
 could not address the meeting. The message was received 
 with derision rather than sympathy. It was universally 
 believed that the injury was a mere excuse, and that the 
 publication of that most damning letter, on the very eve 
 of the poll, was the sole and only cause why the Junior 
 Lord of the Treasury failed on this occasion to meet the 
 serried rows of his excited countrymen, waiting for him 
 in the packed and stifling hall. 
 
 It was the Vicar who took the news to Beechcote. 
 
 469
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 As in the case of Diana herself, the misfortune of the 
 enemy instantly transformed a roaring lion into a suck- 
 ing dove. Some instinct told him that she must hear 
 it gently. He therefore invented an errand, saw Muriel 
 Col wood, and left the tale with her both of the blow and 
 the letter. 
 
 V Muriel, trembling inwardly, broke it as lightly and 
 casually as she could. An injury to the spine so it was 
 reported. No doubt rest and treatment would soon amend 
 it. A London surgeon had been sent for. Meanwhile 
 the election was said to be lost. Muriel reluctantly pro- 
 duced the letter in the West Brookshire Gazette, knowing 
 that in the natural course of things Diana must see it 
 on the morrow. 
 
 Diana sat bowed over the letter and the news, and 
 presently lifted up a white face, kissed Muriel, who was 
 hovering round her, and begged to be left alone. 
 
 She went to her room. The windows were wide open 
 to the woods, and the golden August moon shone above 
 the down in its bare full majesty. Most of the night 
 she sat crouched beside the window, her head resting on 
 the ledge. Her whole nature hungered and hungered 
 for Oliver. As she lifted her eyes, she saw the little 
 dim path on the hill-side; she felt his arms round about 
 her, his warm life against hers. Nothing that he had 
 done, nothing that he could do, had torn him, or would 
 2ver tear him, from her heart. And now he was wounded 
 defeated perhaps disgraced; and she could not help 
 him, could not comfort him. 
 
 She supposed Alicia Drake was with him. For the 
 first time a torment of fierce jealousy ran through her 
 nature, like fire through a forest glade, burning up its 
 sweetness, 
 
 470
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 WHAT time is the carriage ordered for Mr. Nixon ?" 
 asked Marsham of his servant. 
 
 " Her ladyship, sir, told me to tell the stables four- 
 twenty at Dunscombe." 
 
 "Let me hear directly the carriage arrives. And, 
 Richard, go and see if the Dunscombe paper is come, 
 and bring it up." 
 
 The footman disappeared. As soon as the door was 
 shut Marsham sank back into his cushions with a stifled 
 groan. He was lying on a sofa in his own sitting-room. 
 A fire burned in the grate, and Marsham's limbs were 
 covered with a rug. Yet it was only the first week of 
 September, and the afternoon was warm and sunny. 
 The neuralgic pain, however, from which he had suffered 
 day and night since the attack upon him made him 
 susceptible to the slightest breath of chill. 
 
 The footman returned with the newspaper. 
 
 " Is her ladyship at home?" 
 
 " I think not, sir. I saw her ladyship go out a little 
 while ago with Miss Drake. Is there anything else I can 
 get for you?" 
 
 "Make up the fire, please. Put the cigarettes here, 
 and don't come till I ring." 
 
 Marsham, left alone, lit a cigarette, and fell hungrily 
 upon the paper, his forehead and lips still drawn with 
 pain. The paper contained an account of the stone-
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 throwing at Hartingfield, and of the injury to himself; a 
 full record of the last five or six days of the election, and 
 of the proceedings at the declaration of the poll ; a report, 
 moreover, of the " chivalrous and sympathetic references " 
 made by the newly elected Conservative member to the 
 "dastardly attack" upon his rival, which the "whole of 
 West Brookshire condemns and deplores." 
 
 The leading article "condemned" and "deplored," at 
 considerable length and in good set terms, through two 
 paragraphs. In the third it "could not disguise from 
 itself or its readeis" that Mr. Marsham's defeat by so 
 large a majority had been a strong probability from the 
 first, and had been made a certainty by the appearance 
 on the eve of the poll of " the Barrington letter." " No 
 doubt, some day, Mr. Marsham will give his old friends 
 and former constituents in this division the explanations 
 in regard to this letter taken in connection with his own 
 repeated statements at meetings and in the press which 
 his personal honor and their long fidelity seem to 
 demand. Meanwhile we can only express to our old 
 member our best wishes both for his speedy recovery 
 from the effects of a cowardly and disgraceful attack, 
 and for the restoration of a political position which 
 only a few months ago seemed so strong and so full 
 of promise." 
 
 Marsham put down the paper. He could see the 
 whipper-snapper of an editor writing the lines, with a 
 wary eye both to the past and future of the Marsham 
 influence in the division. The self-made, shrewd little 
 man had been Oliver's political slave and henchman 
 through two Parliaments; and he had no doubt reflected 
 that neither the Tallyn estates, nor the Marsham wealth 
 had been wiped out by the hostile majority of last 
 
 472
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Saturday. At the same time, the state of feeling in the 
 division was too strong; the paper which depended en- 
 tirely on local support could not risk its very existence 
 by countering it. 
 
 Marsham's keen brain spared him nothing. His anal- 
 ysis of his own situation, made at leisure during the 
 week which had elapsed since the election, had been as 
 pitiless and as acute as that of any opponent could have 
 been. He knew exactly what he had lost, and why. 
 
 A majority of twelve hundred against him, in a con- 
 stituency where, up to the dissolution, he had commanded 
 a majority for him of fifteen hundred. And that at 
 a general election, when his party was sweeping the 
 country ! 
 
 He had, of course, resigned his office, and had received 
 a few civil and sympathetic words from the Premier 
 words which but for his physical injury, so the recipient 
 of them suspected, might have been a good deal less 
 civil and less sympathetic. No effort had been made 
 to delay the decision. For a Cabinet Minister, defeated 
 at a bye-election, a seat must be found. For a Junior 
 Lord and a Second Whip nobody will put themselves 
 out. 
 
 He was, therefore, out of Parliament and out of office; 
 estranged from multitudes of old friends; his name 
 besmirched by some of the most damaging accusa- 
 tions that can be brought against a man's heart and 
 honor. 
 
 He moved irritably among his cushions, trying to ar- 
 range them more comfortably. This infernal pain! It 
 was to be hoped Nixon would be able to do more for it 
 than that ass, the Dunscombe doctor. Marsham thought, 
 with resentment, of all his futile drugs and expedients. 
 
 31 473
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 According to the Dunscombe man, the stone had done no 
 vital injury, but had badly bruised one of the lower 
 vertebrae, and jarred the nerves of the spine generally. 
 Local rest, various applications, and nerve - soothing 
 drugs all these had been freely used, and with no result. 
 The pain had been steadily growing worse, and in the 
 last twenty-four hours certain symptoms had appeared, 
 which, when he first noticed them, had roused in Mar- 
 sham a gust of secret terror; and Nixon, a famous spe- 
 cialist in nerve and spinal disease, had been summoned 
 forthwith. 
 
 To distract his thoughts, Marsham took up the paper 
 again. 
 
 What was wrong with the light? He looked at the 
 clock, and read it with some difficulty. Close on four 
 only, and the September sun was shining brightly outside. 
 It was his eyes, he supposed, that were not quite normal. 
 Very likely. A nervous shock must, of course, show 
 itself in a variety of ways. At any rate, he found read- 
 ing difficult, and the paper slid away. 
 
 The pain, however, would not let him doze. He 
 looked helplessly round the room, feeling depressed and 
 wretched. Why were his mother and Alicia out so long ? 
 They neglected and forgot him. Yet he could not but 
 remember that they had both devoted themselves to him 
 in the morning, had read to him and written for him, 
 and he had not been a very grateful patient. He re- 
 called, with bitterness, the look of smiling relief with 
 which Alicia had sprung up at the sound of the luncheon- 
 bell, dropping the book from which she had been reading 
 aloud, and the little song he had heard her humming in 
 the corridor as she passed his door on her way down- 
 stairs. 
 
 474
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 She was in no pain physical or mental, and she had 
 probably no conception of what he had endured these six 
 days and nights. But one would have thought that mere 
 instinctive sympathy with the man to whom she was 
 secretly engaged. 
 
 For they were secretly engaged. It was during one 
 of their early drives, in the canvassing of the first 
 election, that he had lost his head one June afternoon, as 
 they found themselves alone, crossing a beech wood on 
 one of the private roads of the Tallyn estate; the groom 
 having been despatched on a message to a farm-house. 
 AUcia was in her most daring and provocative mood, 
 tormenting and flattering him by turns; the reflections 
 from her rose-colored parasol dappling her pale skin 
 with warm color; her beautiful ungloved hands and 
 arms, bare to the elbow, teasing the senses of the man 
 beside her. Suddenly he had thrown his arm round her, 
 and crushed her to him, kissing the smooth cool face and 
 the dazzling hair. And she had nestled up to him and 
 laughed not the least abashed or astonished; so that 
 even then, through his excitement, there had struck a 
 renewed and sharp speculation as to her twenty-four 
 hours' engagement to the Curate, in the spring of the 
 year; as to the privileges she must have allowed him; 
 and no doubt to others before him. 
 
 At that time, it was tacitly understood between them 
 that no engagement could be announced. Alicia was 
 well aware that Brookshire was looking on; that Brook- 
 shire was on the side of Diana Mallory, the forsaken, 
 and was not at all inclined to forgive either the deserting 
 lover or the supplanting damsel; so that while she was 
 not loath to sting and mystify Brookshire by whatever 
 small signs of her power over Oliver Marsham she could 
 
 475
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 devise; though she queened it beside him on his coach, 
 and took charge with Lady Lucy of his army of women 
 canvassers; though she faced the mob with him at Hart- 
 ingfield, on the occasion of the first disturbance there 
 in June, and had stood beside him, vindictively trium- 
 phant on the day of his first hard -won victory, she 
 would wear no ring, and she baffled all inquiries, whether 
 of her relations or her girl friends. Her friendship with 
 her cousin Oliver was nobody's concern but her own, she 
 declared, and all they both wanted was to be let alone. 
 Meanwhile she had been shaken and a little frightened 
 by the hostile feeling shown toward her, no less than 
 Oliver, in the first election. She had taken no part in 
 the second, although she had been staying at Tallyn all 
 through it, and was present when Oliver was brought in, 
 halt tainting and agonized with pain, after the Harting- 
 field riot. 
 
 Oliver, now lying with closed eyes on his sofa, lived 
 again through the sensations and impressions of that first 
 hour: the pain the arrival of the doctor the injection 
 of morphia the blessed relief stealing through his being 
 and then Alicia's face beside him. Delivered from the 
 obsession of intolerable anguish, he had been free to 
 notice with a kind of exultation the tears in the girl's 
 eyes, her pale tremor and silence. Never yet had Alicia 
 wept for him or anything that concerned him. Never, 
 indeed, had he seen her weep in his whole life before. 
 He triumphed in her tears. 
 
 Since then, however, their whole relation had insen- 
 sibly and radically changed; their positions toward each 
 other were reversed. Till the day of his injury and his 
 defeat, Marsham had been in truth the wooed and Alicia 
 
 476
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 the wooer. Now it seemed to him as though, through 
 his physical pain, he were all the time clinging to some- 
 thing that shrank away and resisted him something 
 that would ultimately elude and escape him. 
 
 He knew well that Alicia liked sickness and melan- 
 choly no more than he did; and he was constantly torn 
 between a desire to keep her near him and a perception 
 that to tie her to his sick-room was, in fact, the worst 
 of policies. 
 
 Persistently, in the silence of the hot room, there 
 rang through his brain the questions: " Do I really care 
 whether she stays or goes? do I love her? shall I 
 ever marry her?" Questions that were immediately 
 answered, it seemed, by the rise of a wave of desolate 
 and desperate feeling. He was maimed and ruined; 
 life had broken under his feet. What if also he were 
 done forever with love and marriage ? 
 
 There were still some traces in his veins of the seda- 
 tive drug which had given him a few hours' sleep during 
 the night. Under its influence a feverish dreaminess 
 overtook him, alive with fancies and images. Ferrier 
 and Diana were among the phantoms that peopled the 
 room. He saw Ferrier come in, stoop over the news- 
 paper on the floor, raise it, and walk toward the fire 
 with it. The figure stood with its back to him; then 
 suddenly it turned, and Marsham saw the well-known 
 face, intent, kindly, a little frowning, as though in 
 thought, but showing no consciousness of his, Oliver's, 
 presence or plight. He himself wished to speak, but 
 was only aware of useless effort and some intangible 
 hinderance. Then Ferrier moved on toward a writing- 
 table with drawers that stood beyond the fireplace. 
 He stooped, and touched a handle. " No!" cried Oliver, 
 
 477
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 triolently "no!" He woke with shock and distress, his 
 pulse racing. But the feverish state began again, and 
 dreams with it of the House of Commons, the election, 
 the faces in the Hartingfield crowd. Diana was among 
 the crowd looking on vaguely beautiful and remote. 
 Yet as he perceived her a rush of cool air struck on his 
 temples, he seemed to be walking down a garden, 
 there was a scent of limes and roses. 
 
 "Oliver!" said his mother's voice beside him "dear 
 Oliver!" 
 
 He roused himself to find Lady Lucy bending over him. 
 The pale dismay in her face excited and irritated him. 
 
 He turned away from her. 
 
 "Is Nixon come?" 
 
 " Dearest, he has just arrived. Will you see him at 
 once?" 
 
 "Of course!" he said, angrily. "Why doesn't Rich- 
 ard do as he's told?" 
 
 He raised himself into a sitting posture, while Lady 
 Lucy went to the door. The local doctor entered a 
 stranger behind him. Lady Lucy left her son and the 
 great surgeon together. 
 
 Nearly an hour later, Mr. Nixon, waylaid by Lady 
 Lucy, was doing his best to compromise, as doctors 
 must, between consideration for the mother and truth as 
 to the son. There was, he hoped, no irreparable injury. 
 But the case would be long, painful, trying to everybody 
 concerned. Owing to the mysterious nerve-sympathies 
 of the body, the sight was already affected and would be 
 more so. Complete rest, certain mechanical applica- 
 tions, certain drugs he ran through his recommenda- 
 tions. 
 
 478
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Avoid morphia, I implore you," he said, earnestly, 
 " if you possibly can. Here a man's friends can be of 
 great help to him. Cheer him and distract him in every 
 way you can. I think we shall be able to keep the pain 
 within bounds." 
 
 Lady Lucy looked piteously at the speaker. 
 
 "And how long?" she said, trembling. 
 
 Mr. Nixon hesitated. "I am afraid I can hardly 
 answer that. The blow was a most unfortunate one. 
 It might have done a worse injury. Your son might be 
 now a paralyzed invalid for life. But the case is very 
 serious, nor is it possible yet to say what all the conse- 
 quences of the injury may be. But keep your own 
 courage up and his. The better his general state, the 
 more chance he has." 
 
 A few minutes more, and the brougham had carried 
 him away. Lady Lucy, looking after it from the window 
 of her sitting-room, knew that for her at last what she 
 had been accustomed to describe every Sunday as "the 
 sorrows of this transitory life " had begun. Till now they 
 had been as veiled shapes in a misty distance. She had 
 accepted them with religious submission, as applying to 
 others. Her mind, resentful and astonished, must now 
 admit them pale messengers of powers unseen and 
 pitiless! to its own daily experience; must look unpro- 
 tected, unscreened, into their stern faces. 
 
 "John! John!" cried the inner voice of agonized 
 regret. And then: "My boy! my boy!" 
 
 "What did he say?" asked Alicia's voice, beside her. 
 
 The sound the arm thrown round her were not 
 very welcome to Lady Lucy. Her nature, imperious and 
 jealously independent, under all her sweetness of manner, 
 
 479
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 set itself against pity, especially from her juniors. She 
 composed herself at once. 
 
 "He does not give a good account," she said, with- 
 drawing herself gently but decidedly. "It may take a 
 long time before Oliver is quite himself again." 
 
 Alicia persisted in a few questions, extracting all the 
 information she could. Then Lady Lucy sat down at 
 her writing -table and began to arrange some letters. 
 Alicia's presence annoyed her. The truth was that she 
 was not as fond of Alicia as she had once been. These 
 misfortunes, huddling one on another, instead of drawing 
 them together, had in various and subtle ways produced 
 a secret estrangement. To neither the older nor the 
 younger woman could the familiar metaphor have been 
 applied which compares the effects of sorrow or sym- 
 pathy on fine character to the bruising of fragrant herbs. 
 Ferrier's death, sorely and bitterly lamented though it 
 was, had not made Lady Lucy more lovable. Oliver's 
 misfortune had not toward Lady Lucy, at any rate 
 liberated in Alicia those hidden tendernesses that may 
 sometimes transmute and glorify natures apparently 
 careless or stubborn, brought eye to eye with pain. Lady 
 Lucy also resented her too long exclusion from Alicia's 
 confidence. Like all the rest of the world, she believed 
 there was an understanding between Oliver and Alicia. 
 Of course, there were reasons for not making anything of 
 the sort public at present. But a mother, she thought, 
 ought to have been told. 
 
 "Does Mr. Nixon recommend that Oliver should go 
 abroad for the winter?" asked Alicia, after a pause. She 
 was sitting on the arm of a chair, her slender feet hang- 
 ing, and the combination of her blue linen dress with the 
 fiery gold of her hair reminded Lady Lucy of the evening 
 
 480
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 in the Eaton Square drawing-room, when she had first 
 entertained the idea that Alicia and Oliver might marry. 
 Oliver, standing erect in front of the fire looking down 
 upon Alicia in her blue tulle his young vigor and dis- 
 tinction the carriage of his handsome head was she 
 never to see that sight again never? Her heart flut- 
 tered and sank; the prison of life contracted round her. 
 She answered, rather shortly. 
 
 " He made no plan of the kind. Travelling, in fact, is 
 absolutely forbidden for the present." 
 
 "Poor Oliver!" said Alicia, gently, her eyes on the 
 ground. "How horrid it is that I have to go away!" 
 
 "You! When?" Lady Lucy turned sharply to look 
 at the speaker. 
 
 "Oh! not till Saturday," said Alicia, hastily; "and 
 of course I shall come back again if you want me." 
 She looked up with a smile. 
 
 "Oliver will certainly want you; I don't know whom 
 he could possibly want so much." Lady Lucy 
 spoke the words with slow emphasis. 
 
 "Dear old boy! I know," murmured Alicia. "I 
 needn't be long away." 
 
 "Why must you go at all? I am sure the Treshams 
 Lady Evelyn would understand 
 
 "Oh, I promised so faithfully!" pleaded Alicia, joining 
 her hands. "And then, you know, I should be able to 
 bring all sorts of gossip back to Oliver to amuse him." 
 
 Lady Lucy pressed her hand to her eyes in a miser- 
 able bewilderment. "I suppose it will be an immense 
 party. You told me, I think, that Lady Evelyn had 
 asked Lord Philip Darcy. I should be glad if you would 
 make her understand that neither I, nor Sir James Chide, 
 nor any other old friend of Mr. Ferrier can ever meet 
 
 481
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 that man on friendly terms again." She looked up, her 
 wrinkled cheeks flushed with color, her aspect threaten- 
 ing and cold. 
 
 "Of course!" said Alicia, soothingly. "Hateful man! 
 I too loathe the thought of meeting him. But you know 
 how delicate Evelyn is, and how she has been depending 
 on me to help her. Now, oughtn't we to go back to 
 Oliver?" She rose from her chair. 
 
 "Mr. Nixon left some directions to which I must 
 attend," said Lady Lucy, turning to her desk. "Will 
 you go and read to him?" 
 
 Alicia moved away, but paused as she neared the 
 door. 
 
 "What did Mr. Nixon say about Oliver's eyes? He 
 has been suffering from them dreadfully to-day." 
 
 "Everything is connected. We can only wait." 
 
 "Are you are you thinking of a nurse?" 
 
 "No," said Lady Lucy, decidedly. "His man Rich- 
 ard is an excellent nurse. I shall never leave him and 
 you say" she turned pointedly to look at Alicia "you 
 say you will come back?" 
 
 "Of course! of course I will come back!" cried Alicia. 
 Then, stepping up briskly to Lady Lucy, she stooped and 
 kissed her. "And there is you to look after, too!" 
 
 Lady Lucy allowed the kiss, but made no reply to the 
 remark. Alicia departed. 
 
 She went slowly up the wide oak staircase. How 
 stifling the house was on this delicious afternoon ! Sud- 
 denly, in the distance, she heard the sound of guns 
 a shooting-party, no doubt, in the Melford woods. Her 
 feet danced under her, and she gave a sigh of longing for 
 the stubbles and the sunny fields, and the companionship 
 
 482
 
 The Testing of Diana ' Mallory 
 
 of handsome men, of health and vigor as flawless and 
 riotous as her own. 
 
 Oliver was lying still, with closed eyes, when she re- 
 joined him. He made no sign as she opened the door, 
 and she sank down on a stool beside him and laid her 
 head against his shoulder. 
 
 "Dear Oliver, you must cheer up," she said, softly. 
 " You'll be Well soon quite soon if you are only pa- 
 tient." 
 
 He made no reply. 
 
 "Did you like Mr. Nixon?" she asked, in the same 
 caressing voice, gently rubbing her cheek against his arm. 
 
 "One doesn't exactly like one's executioner," he said, 
 hoarsely and suddenly, but without opening his eyes. 
 
 "Oliver! dearest!" She dropped a protesting kiss 
 on the sleeve of his coat. 
 
 Silence for a little. Alicia felt as if she could hardly 
 breathe in the hot room. Then Oliver raised himself. 
 
 " I am going blind!" he said, violently. "And noth- 
 ing can be done. Did that man tell my mother that?" 
 
 "No, no! Oliver!" She threw her arm round him, 
 hastily repeating and softening Nixon's opinion. 
 
 He sank back on his cushions, gloomily listening 
 without assent. Presently he shook his head. 
 
 "The stuff that doctors talk when they can do no 
 good, and want to get comfortably out of the house! 
 Alicia!" 
 
 She bent forward startled. 
 
 "Alicia! are you going to stick to me?" 
 
 His eyes held her. 
 
 "Oliver! what a cruel question!" 
 
 " No, it is not cruel." He spoke with a decision which 
 took no account of her caresses, " I ought to give you 
 
 483
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 up I know that perfectly well. But I tell you frankly 
 I shall have no motive to get well if you leave me. I 
 think that man told me the truth I did my best to 
 make him. There is a chance of my getting well the 
 thing is not hopeless. If you'll stand by me, I'll fight 
 through. Will you?" He looked at her with a threat- 
 ening and painful eagerness. 
 
 " Of course I will," she said, promptly. 
 
 " Then let us tell my mother to-night that we are en- 
 gaged? Mind, I am not deceiving you. I would give 
 you up at once if I were hopelessly ill. I am only ask- 
 ing you to bear a little waiting and wretchedness for 
 my sake." 
 
 "I will bear anything. Only, dear Oliver for your 
 sake for mine wait a little longer! You know what 
 horrible gossip there's been!" She clung to him, mur- 
 muring: " I couldn't bear that anybody should speak 
 or think harshly of you now. It can make no difference 
 to you and me, but two or three months hence every- 
 body would take it so differently. You know we said in 
 June six months." 
 
 Her voice was coaxing and sweet. He partly with- 
 drew himself from her, however. 
 
 " At least, you can tell my mother," he said, insisting. 
 " Of course, she suspects it all." 
 
 "Oh, but, dear Oliver 1" she brought her face nearer 
 to his, and he saw the tears in her eyes "one's own 
 mother ought to know first of all. Mamma would be so 
 hurt she would never forgive me. Let me pay this 
 horrid visit and then go home and tell my people if 
 you really, really wish it. Afterward of course, I shall 
 come back to you and Cousin Lucy shall know and 
 at Christmas everybody." 
 
 484
 
 The Testing o Diana Mallorg 
 
 "What visit? You are going to Eastham? to the 
 Tresham's ?" It was a cry of incredulous pain. 
 
 " How can I get out of it, dear Oliver ? Evelyn has 
 been so, ill! and she's been depending on me and I 
 owe her so much. You know how good she was to me 
 in the Season." 
 
 He lifted himself again on his cushions, surveying 
 her ironically his eyes sunken and weak his aspect 
 ghastly. 
 
 "Well, how long do you mean to stay? Is Lord 
 Philip going to be there?" 
 
 "What do I care whether he is or not!" 
 
 " You said you were longing to know him." 
 
 "That was before you were ill." 
 
 " I don't see any logic in that remark." He lay look- 
 ing at her. Then suddenly he put out an arm, pulled 
 her down to him feebly, and kissed her. But the move- 
 ment hurt him. He turned away with some broken 
 words or, rather, moans stifled against his pillows. 
 
 " Dear, do lie still. Shall I read to you?" 
 
 He shook his head. 
 
 " Don't stay with me. I shall be better after dinner." 
 
 She rose obediently, touched him caressingly with her 
 hand, drew a light shawl over him, and stole away. 
 
 When she reached her own room she stood a moment, 
 frowning and absorbed, beside the open window. Then 
 some one knocked at her door. It was her maid, who 
 came in carrying a large light box. 
 
 Alicia flew toward her. 
 
 "From Cosette! Heavens I Oh, Benson, quick! Put 
 it down. I'll help you." 
 
 The maid obeyed, and ran to the dressing-table for 
 
 485
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 scissors. Cords and tapes were soon cut in the hurry of 
 unpacking, and from the crackling tissue-paper there 
 emerged an evening gown of some fresh snowy stuff, 
 delicately painted and embroidered, which drew from the 
 maid little shrieks of admiration. 
 
 Alicia looked at it more critically. 
 
 "The lace is not good enough," she said, twisting her 
 lip, "and I shall make her give me some more em- 
 broidery than that on the bodice for the money I can 
 tell her! However, it is pretty much prettier, isn't it,. 
 Benson, than that gown of Lady Evelyn's I took it 
 from? She'll be jealous!" The girl laughed trium- 
 phantly. " Well, now, look here, Benson, we're going on 
 Saturday, and I want to look through my gowns. Get 
 them out, and I'll see if there's anything I can send 
 home." 
 
 The maid's face fell. 
 
 " I packed some of them this morning, miss in the 
 large American trunk. I thought they'd keep better 
 there than anywhere. It took a lot of time." 
 
 " Oh, never mind. You can easily pack them again. 
 I really must go through them." 
 
 The maid unwillingly obeyed; and soon the room 
 bed, sofa, chairs was covered with costly gowns, 
 for all hours of the day and night: walking- dresses, in 
 autumn stuffs and colors, ready for the moors and stub- 
 bles; afternoon frocks of an elaborate simplicity, expen- 
 sively girlish ; evening dresses in an amazing variety of 
 hue and fabric; with every possible adjunct in the way 
 of flowers, gloves, belt, that dressmakers and customer 
 could desire. 
 
 Alicia looked at it all with glowing cheeks. She re- 
 flected that she had really spent the last check she had 
 
 486
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 made her father give her to very great advantage. There 
 were very few people of her acquaintance, girls or mar- 
 ried women, who knew how to get as much out of money 
 as she did. 
 
 In her mind she ran over the list of guests invited to 
 the Eastham party, as her new friend Lady Evelyn had 
 confided it to her. Nothing could be smarter, but the 
 competition among the women would be terribly keen. 
 "Of course, I can't touch duchesses," she thought, 
 laughing to herself, "or American millionaires. But I 
 shall do!" 
 
 And her mind ran forward in a dream of luxury and 
 delight. She saw herself sitting or strolling in vast 
 rooms amid admiring groups; mirrors reflected her; she 
 heard the rustle of her gowns on parquet or marble, the 
 merry sound of her own laughter; other girls threw her 
 the incense of their envy and imitation; and men, fresh 
 and tanned from shooting, breathing the joy of physical 
 life, devoted themselves to her pleasure, or encircled her 
 with homage. Not always chivalrous, or delicate, or 
 properly behaved these men of her imagination ! What 
 matter? She loved adventures! And moving like a 
 king among the rest, she saw the thin, travel-beaten, ec- 
 centric form of Lord Philip the hated, adored, pursued; 
 Society's idol and bugbear all in one; Lord Philip, who 
 shunned and disliked women; on whom, nevertheless, 
 the ambitions and desires of some of the loveliest women 
 in England were, on that account alone, and at this 
 moment of his political triumph, the more intently and 
 the more greedily fixed. 
 
 A flash of excitement ran through her. In Lady 
 Evelyn's letter of that morning there was a mention 
 of Lord Philip. " I told him you were to be here. He 
 
 487
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 made a note of it, and I do at last believe he won't throw 
 us over, as he generally does." 
 
 She dressed, still in a reverie, speechless under her 
 maid's hands. Then, as she emerged upon the gallery, 
 looking down upon the ugly hall of Tallyn, she remem- 
 bered that she had promised to go back after dinner 
 and read to Oliver. Her nature rebelled in a moral and 
 physical nausea, and it was all she could do to meet 
 Lady Lucy at their solitary dinner with her usual good 
 temper.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 SIR JAMES CHIDE was giving tea to a couple of 
 guests at Lytchett Manor. It was a Saturday in 
 late September. The beech-trees visible through the 
 drawing-room windows were still untouched and heav- 
 ily green; but their transformation was approaching. 
 Soon, steeped in incredible splendors of orange and gold, 
 they would stand upon the leaf-strewn grass, waiting 
 for the night of rain or the touch of frost which should 
 at last disrobe them. 
 
 "If you imagine, Miss Ettie," said Sir James, se- 
 verely, to a young lady beside him, " that I place the 
 smallest faith in any of Bobbie's remarks or protesta- 
 tions " 
 
 The girl addressed smiled into his face, undaunted. 
 She was a small elfish creature with a thin face, on the 
 slenderest of necks. But in her queer little countenance 
 a pair of laughing eyes, out of all proportion to the rest 
 of her for loveliness and effect, gave her and kept her the 
 attention of the world. They lent distinction fascina- 
 tion even to a character of simple virtues and girlish 
 innocence. 
 
 Bobbie lounged behind her chair, his arms on the 
 back of it. He took Sir James's attack upon him with 
 calm. " Shall I show him the letter of my beastly chair- 
 man?" he said, in the girl's ear. 
 
 She nodded, and Bobbie drew from his breast-pocket 
 3 489
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 a folded sheet of blue paper, and pompously handed 
 it to Sir James. 
 
 The letter was from the chairman of a leading bank in 
 Berlin a man well known in European finance. It was 
 couched in very civil terms, and contained the offer to 
 Mr. Robert Forbes of a post in the Lindner bank, as an 
 English correspondence clerk, at a salary in marks which, 
 when translated, meant about .140 a year. 
 
 Sir James read it, and handed it back. " Well, what's 
 the meaning of that?" 
 
 "I'm giving up the Foreign Office," said Bobbie, with 
 an engaging openness of manner. " It's not a proper 
 place for a young man. I've learned nothing there but 
 a game we do with Blue-Books, and things you throw 
 at the ceiling where they stick I'll tell you about it 
 presently. Besides, you see, I must have some money, 
 and it don't grow in the Foreign Office for people like 
 me. So I went to my uncle, Lord Forestier " 
 
 "Of course!" growled Sir James. "I thought we 
 should come to the uncles before long. Miss Wilson, I 
 desire to warn you against marrying a young man of 
 'the classes.' They have no morals, but they have 
 always uncles." 
 
 Miss Wilson's eyes shot laughter at her fiancj. " Go 
 on, Bobbie, and don't make it too long!" 
 
 "I decline to be hustled." Bobbie's tone was firm, 
 though urbane. "I repeat: I went to my uncle. And 
 I said to him, like the unemployed: ' Find me work, 
 and none of your d d charity!'" 
 
 "Which means, I suppose, that the last time you 
 went to him, you borrowed fifty pounds?" said Sir 
 James. 
 
 11 1 shouldn't dream, sir, of betraying my uncle's af- 
 490
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 fairs. On this occasion for an uncle he behaved well. 
 He lectured me for twenty-seven minutes and a half I 
 had made up my mind beforehand not to let it go over 
 the half-hour and then he came to business. After a 
 year's training and probation in Berlin he thought he 
 could get me a post in his brother-in-law's place in the 
 City. Awfully warm thing, you know," said Bobbie, 
 complacently; "worth a little trouble. So I told him, 
 kindly, I'd think of it. Ecco!" He pointed to the 
 letter. " Of course, I told my uncle I should permit him 
 to continue my allowance, and in a year I shall be a 
 merchant prince in the egg; I shall be worth marrying; 
 and I shall allow Ettie two hundred a year for her 
 clothes." 
 
 "And Lady Niton?" 
 
 Bobbie sat down abruptly; the girl stared at the carpet. 
 
 " I don't see the point of your remark," said Bobbie 
 at last, with mildness. " When last I had the honor of 
 hearing of her, Lady Niton was taking the air or the 
 waters at Strathpeffer." 
 
 "As far as I know," remarked Sir James, "she is 
 staying with the Feltons, five miles off, at this moment." 
 
 Bobbie whistled. "Close quarters!" He looked at 
 Miss Ettie Wilson, and she at him. " May I ask whether, 
 as soon as Ettie and I invited ourselves for the day, you 
 asked Lady Niton fo come to tea?" 
 
 " Not at all. I never play Providence unless I'm told 
 to do so. Only Miss Mallory is coming to tea." 
 
 Bobbie expressed pleasure at the prospect; then his 
 amiable countenance the face of an " Idle Apprentice," 
 whom no god has the heart to punish sobered to a 
 real concern as the association of ideas led him to in- 
 quire what the latest news might be of Oliver Marsham. 
 
 491
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 Sir James shook his head; his look clouded. He 
 understood from Lady Lucy that Oliver was no better; 
 the accounts, in fact, were very bad. 
 
 "Did they arrest anybody?" asked Bobbie. 
 
 "At Hartingfield ? Yes two lads. But there was 
 not evidence enough to convict. They were both re- 
 leased, and the village gave them an ovation." 
 
 Bobbie hesitated. 
 
 " What do you think was the truth about that article ?" 
 
 Sir James frowned and rose. 
 
 " Miss Wilson, come and see my garden. If you don't 
 fall down and worship the peaches on my south wall, I 
 shall not pursue your acquaintance." 
 
 It was a Saturday afternoon. Briefs were forgotten. 
 The three strolled down the garden. Sir James, in a 
 disreputable shooting-coat and cap, his hands deep in his 
 pockets, took the middle of the path the two lovers 
 on either side. Chide made himself delightful to them. 
 On that Italian journey of which he constantly thought, 
 Ferrier had been amused and cheered all through by 
 Bobbie's nonsense ; and the young fellow had loyally felt 
 his death and shown it. Chide's friendly eye would be 
 on him and his Ettie henceforward. 
 
 Five or ten minutes afterward, a brougham drove up 
 to the door of Lytchett, and a small lady emerged. She 
 had rung the bell, and was waiting on the steps, when a 
 pony-carriage also turned into the Lytchett avenue and 
 drew near rapidly. 
 
 A girl in a shady hat was driving it. 
 
 "The very creature!" cried Lady Niton, under her 
 breath, smartly tapping her tiny boot with the black 
 cane she carried, and referring apparently to some train 
 
 492
 
 SIR JAMES MADE HIMSELF DELIGHTFUL Tp THEM
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 of meditation in which she had been just engaged. She 
 waved to her own coachman to be off, and stood await- 
 ing Diana. 
 
 "How do you do, Miss Mallory? Are you invited? 
 I'm not." 
 
 Diana descended, and they shook hands. They had 
 not met since the evening at Tallyn when Diana, in her 
 fresh beauty, had been the gleaming princess, and Lady 
 Niton the friendly godmother, of so promising a fairy 
 tale. The old woman looked at her curiously, as they 
 stood in the drawing-room together, while the footman 
 went off to find Sir James. Frail dark lines under the 
 eyes a look as of long endurance a smile that was a 
 mere shield and concealment for the heart beneath alack ! 
 
 And there was no comfort to be got out of calling 
 down fire from heaven on the author of this change, 
 since it had fallen so abundantly already! 
 
 " Sit down; you look tired," said the old lady, in her 
 piping, peremptory voice. " Have you been here all the 
 summer?" 
 
 " Yes since June." 
 
 "Through the election?" 
 
 "Yes." Diana turned her face away. Lady Niton 
 could see the extreme delicacy to which the profile had 
 fined down, the bluish or purple shadows here and there 
 on the white skin. Something glittered in the old wom- 
 an's eyes. She put out a hand from the queer flounced 
 mantle, made out of an ancient evening dress, in which 
 she was arrayed, and touched Diana's. 
 
 "You know you've heard about those poor things 
 at Tallyn?" 
 
 Diana made a quick movement. Her eyes were on 
 the speaker. 
 
 493
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "How is Mr. Marsham?" 
 
 Lady Niton shook her head. She opened a hand-bag 
 on her wrist, took out a letter, and put on her eye-glasses. 
 
 " This is Lucy arrived this morning. It don't sound 
 well. 'Come when you can, my dear Elizabeth you 
 will be very welcome. But I do not know how I have 
 the courage to ask you. We are a depressing pair, 
 Oliver and I. Oliver has been in almost constant pain 
 this last week. If it goes on we must try morphia. 
 But before that we shall see another doctor. I dread 
 to think of morphia. Once begin it, and what will be 
 the end ? I sit here alone a great deal thinking. How 
 long did that stone take to throw ? a few seconds, per- 
 haps ? And here is my son my poor son ! broken and 
 helpless perhaps for life. We have been trying a sec- 
 retary to write for him and read to him, for the blind- 
 ness increases, but it has not been a success.' " 
 
 Diana rose abruptly and walked to the window, where 
 she stood, motionless looking out her back turned to 
 Lady Niton. Her companion glanced at her lifted her 
 eyebrows hesitated and finally put the letter back 
 into her pocket. There was an awkward silence, when 
 Diana suddenly returned to Lady Niton's side. 
 
 "Where is Miss Drake?" she said, sharply. "Is the 
 marriage put off?" 
 
 " Marriage !" Lady Niton laughed. " Alicia and Oli- 
 ver ? H'm. I don't think we shall hear much more of 
 that!" 
 
 "I thought it was settled." 
 
 " Well as soon as I heard of the accident and Oliver's 
 condition, I wondered to myself how long that young 
 woman would keep it up. I have no doubt the situation 
 gave her a disturbed night or two, Alicia never can have 
 
 494
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 had the smallest intention of spending her life, or the 
 best years of it, in nursing a sick husband. On the 
 other hand, money is money. So she went off to the 
 Treshams', to see if there was no third course that's 
 how I read it." 
 
 "The Treshams'? a visit? since the accident?" 
 
 " Don't look so astonished, my dear. You don't know 
 the Alicias of this world. But I admit we should be dull 
 without them. There's a girl at the Feltons' who has 
 just come down from the Treshams', and I wouldn't have 
 missed her stories of Alicia for a great deal. She's been 
 setting her cap, it appears, at Lord Philip. However" 
 (Lady Niton chuckled), " iliere she's met her match." 
 
 "But they are engaged?" said Diana, in bewildered 
 interrogation. 
 
 The little lady's laugh rang out shrill and cracked 
 like the crow of a bantam. 
 
 "She and Lord Philip? Trust Lord Philip!" 
 
 "No, I didn't mean that!" 
 
 " She and Oliver ? I've no doubt Oliver thinks or 
 thought they were. What view he takes now, poor 
 fellow, I'm sure I don't know. But I don't somehow 
 think Alicia will be able to carry on the game indefi- 
 nitely. Lady Lucy is losing patience." 
 
 Diana sat in silence. Lady Niton could not exactly 
 decipher her. But she guessed at a conflict between a 
 scrupulous or proud unwillingness to discuss the matter 
 at all or hear it discussed, and some motive deeper still 
 and more imperative. 
 
 " Lady Lucy has been ill too ?" Diana inquired at last, 
 in the same voice of constraint. 
 
 "Oh, very unwell indeed. A poor, broken thing! 
 And there don't seem to be anybody to look after them. 
 
 495
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Mrs. Fotheringham is about as much good as a broom- 
 stick. Every family ought to keep a supply of super- 
 fluous girls. They're like the army useless in peace 
 and indispensable in war. Ha! here's Sir James." 
 
 Both ladies perceived Sir James, coming briskly up 
 the garden path. As she saw him a thought struck 
 Diana a thought which concerned Lady Niton. It 
 broke down the tension of her look, and there was the 
 gleam of a smile sad still, and touching in the glance 
 she threw at her companion. She had been asked to tea 
 to meet a couple of guests from London with whose 
 affairs she was well acquainted; and she too thought 
 Sir James had been playing Providence. 
 
 Sir James, evidently conscious, saw the raillery in her 
 face, pinched her fingers as she gave him her hand, and 
 Diana, passing him, escaped to the garden, very certain 
 that she should find the couple in question somewhere 
 among its shades. 
 
 Lady Niton examined Sir James looked after Diana. 
 
 "Look here!" she said, abruptly; "what's up? You 
 two understand something I don't. Out with it!" 
 
 Sir James, who could always blush like a girl, blushed. 
 
 "I vow that I am as innocent as a babe unborn!" 
 
 "What of?" The tone of the demand was like that 
 of a sword in the drawing. 
 
 "I have some guests here to-day." 
 
 "Who are they?" 
 
 " A young man you know a young woman you would 
 like to know." 
 
 Silence. Lady Niton sat down again. 
 
 "Kindly ring the bell," she said, lifting a peremp- 
 tory hand, "and send for my carriage." 
 
 "Let me parley an instant," said Sir James, moving 
 496
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 between her and the bell. "Bobbie is just off to Berlin. 
 Won't you say good-bye to him?" 
 
 "Mr. Forbes's movements are entirely indifferent to 
 me ring!" Then, shrill-voiced and with sudden fury, 
 like a bird ruffling up: "Berlin, indeed! More waste 
 more shirking! He needn't come to me! I won't give 
 him another penny." 
 
 "I don't advise you to offer it," said Sir James, with 
 suavity. "Bobbie has got a post in Berlin through his 
 uncle, and is going off for a twelvemonth to learn 
 banking." 
 
 Lady Niton sat blinking and speechless. Sir James 
 drew the muslin curtain back from the window. 
 
 "There they are, you see Bobbie and the Explana- 
 tion. And if you ask me, I think the Explanation ex- 
 plains." 
 
 Lady Niton put up her gold-rimmed glasses. 
 "She is not in the least pretty!" she said, with hasty 
 venom, her old hand shaking. 
 
 "No, but fetching and a good girl. She worships 
 her Bobbie, and she's sending him away for a year." 
 " I won't allow it !" cried Lady Niton. " He sha'n't go." 
 Sir James shrugged his shoulders. 
 "These are domestic brawls I decline them. Ah!" 
 He turned to the window, opening it wide. She did not 
 move. He made a sign, and two of the three persons 
 who had just appeared on the lawn came running tow- 
 ard the house. Diana loitered behind. 
 
 Lady Niton looked at the two young faces as they 
 reached her side the mingling of laughter and anxiety 
 in the girl's, of pride and embarrassment in Bobbie's. 
 
 "You sha'n't go to Berlin!" she said to him, vehe- 
 mently, as she just allowed him to take her hancj. 
 
 497
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Dear Lady Niton! I must." 
 
 "You sha'n't! I tell you! I've got you a place in 
 London a thousand times better than your fool of an 
 uncle could ever get you. Uncle, indeed! Read that 
 letter!" She tossed him one from her bag. 
 
 Bobbie read, while Lady Niton stared hard at the 
 girl. Presently Bobbie began to gasp. 
 
 "Well, upon my word!" he put the letter down 
 "upon my word!" He turned to his sweetheart. " Et- 
 tie! you marry me in a month! mind that! Hang 
 Berlin ! I scorn their mean proposals. London requires 
 me." He drew himself up. "But first" (he looked at 
 Lady Niton, his flushed face twitching a little) "jus- 
 tice!" he said, peremptorily "justice on the chief of- 
 fender." 
 
 And walking across to her, he stooped and kissed her. 
 Then he beckoned to Ettie to do the same. Very shyly 
 the girl ventured; very stoically the victim submitted. 
 Whereupon, Bobbie subsided, sitting cross-legged on the 
 floor, and a violent quarrel began immediately between 
 him and Lady Niton on the subject of the part of London 
 in which he and Ettie were to live. Fiercely the conflict 
 waxed and waned, while the young girl's soft irrepressi- 
 ble laughter filled up all the gaps, and like a rushing 
 stream carried away the detritus the tempers and 
 rancors and scorns left by former convulsions. 
 
 Meanwhile, Diana and Sir James paced the garden. 
 He saw that she was silent and absent-minded, and 
 guessed uneasily at the cause. It was impossible that 
 any woman of her type, who had gone through the ex- 
 perience that she had, should remain unmoved by the 
 accounts now current as to Oliver Marsham's state. 
 
 498
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 As they returned across the lawn to the house the 
 two lovers came out to meet them. Sir James saw the 
 look with which Diana watched them coming. It seemed 
 to him one of the sweetest and one of the most piteous 
 he had ever seen on a human face. 
 
 "I shall descend upon you next week," said Lady 
 Niton, abruptly, as Diana made her farewells. " I shall 
 be at Tallyn." 
 
 Diana did not reply. The little fiancee insisted on the 
 right to take her to her pony-carriage, and kissed her 
 tenderly before she let her go. Diana had already be- 
 come as a sister to her and Bobbie, trusted in their 
 secrets and advising in their affairs. 
 
 Lady Niton, standing by Sir James, looked after her. 
 
 "Well, there's only one thing in the world that girl 
 wants, and I suppose nobody in their senses ought to 
 help her to it." 
 
 "What do you mean?" 
 
 She murmured a few words in his ear. 
 
 "Not a bit of it!" said Sir James, violently. "I for- 
 bid it. Don't you go and put anything of the sort into 
 her head. The young man I mean her to marry comes 
 back from Nigeria this very day." 
 
 "She won't marry him!" 
 
 "We shall see." 
 
 Diana drove home through lanes suffused with sun- 
 set and rich with autumn. There had been much rain 
 through September, and the deluged earth steamed under 
 the return of the sun. Mists were rising from the stub- 
 bles, and wrapping the woods in sleep and purple. To her 
 the beauty of it all was of a mask or pageant seen from 
 a distance across a plain or through a street-opening 
 
 499
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 lovely and remote. All that was real all that lived 
 was the image within the mind; not the great earth- 
 show without. 
 
 As she passed through the village she fell in with the 
 Roughsedges: the doctor, with his wide-awake on the 
 back of his head, a book and a bulging umbrella under 
 his arm; Mrs. Roughsedge, in a new shawl, and new 
 bonnet-strings, with a prodigal flutter of side curls be- 
 side her ample countenance. Hugh, it appeared, was 
 expected by an evening train. Diana begged that he 
 might be brought up to see her some time in the course 
 of the following afternoon. Then she drove on, and 
 Mrs. Roughsedge was left staring discontentedly at her 
 husband. 
 
 "I think she was glad, Henry?" 
 
 "Think it, my dear, if it does you any good," said the 
 doctor, cheerfully. 
 
 When Diana reached home night had fallen a moon- 
 lit night, through which all the shapes and even the 
 colors of day were still to be seen or divined in a softened 
 and pearly mystery. Muriel Colwood was not at home. 
 She had gone to town, on one of her rare absences, to 
 meet some relations. Diana missed her, and yet was 
 conscious that even the watch of those kind eyes would 
 to-night have added to the passionate torment of 
 thought. 
 
 As she sat alone in the drawing-room after her short 
 and solitary meal her nature bent and trembled under 
 the blowing of those winds of fate, which, like gusts 
 among autumn trees, have tested or strained or despoiled 
 the frail single life since time began; winds of love and 
 pity, of desire and memory, of anguish and of longing. 
 
 500
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Only her dog kept her company. Sometimes she rose 
 out of restlessness, and moved about the room, and the 
 dog's eyes would follow her, dumbly dependent. The 
 room was dimly lit; in the mirrors she saw now and then 
 the ghostly passage of some one who seemed herself and 
 not herself. The windows were open to a misty garden, 
 waiting for moonrise; in the house all was silence; only 
 from the distant road and village came voices sometimes 
 of children, or the sounds of a barrel-organ, fragmentary 
 and shrill. 
 
 Loneliness ached in her heart spoke to her from the 
 future. And five miles away Oliver, too, was lonely 
 and in pain. Pain! the thought of it, as of something 
 embodied and devilish, clutching and tearing at a man 
 already crushed and helpless gave her no respite. The 
 tears ran down her cheeks as she moved to and fro, her 
 hands at her breast. 
 
 Yet she was helpless. What could she do? Even if 
 he were free from Alicia, even if he wished to recall her, 
 how could he maimed and broken take the steps that 
 could alone bring her to his side ? If their engagement 
 had subsisted, horror, catastrophe, the approach of death 
 itself, could have done nothing to part them. Now, how 
 was a man in such a plight to ask from a woman what 
 yet the woman would pay a universe to give? And in 
 the face of the man's silence, how could the woman 
 speak ? 
 
 No! she began to see her life as the Vicar saw it: 
 pledged to large causes, given to drudgeries necessary, 
 perhaps noble, for which the happy are not meant. This 
 quiet shelter of Beechcote could not be hers much longer. 
 If she was not to go to Oliver, impossible that she could 
 live on in this rose-scented stillness of the old house
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 and garden, surrounded by comfort, tranquillity, beau- 
 ty, while the agony of the world rang in her ears wild 
 voices! speaking universal, terrible, representative 
 things, yet in tones piteously dear and familiar, close, 
 close to her heart. No; like Marion Vincent, she must 
 take her life in her hands, offering it day by day to this 
 hungry human need, not stopping to think, accepting the 
 first task to her hand, doing it as she best could. Only 
 so could she still her own misery; tame, silence her own 
 grief; grief first and above all for Oliver, grief for her 
 own youth, grief for her parents. She must turn to the 
 poor in that mood she had in the first instance refused 
 to allow the growth of in herself the mood of one seeking 
 an opiate, an anaesthetic. The scrubbing of hospital 
 floors ; the pacing of dreary streets on mechanical errands ; 
 the humblest obedience and routine ; things that must be 
 done, and in the doing of them deaden thought these 
 were what she turned to as the only means by which 
 life could be lived. 
 
 Oliver ! No hope for him ? at thirty-six ! His career 
 broken his ambition defeated. Nothing before him 
 but the decline of power and joy; nights of barren en- 
 durance, separating days empty and tortured; all natural 
 pleasures deadened and destroyed; the dying down of 
 all the hopes and energies that make a man. 
 
 She threw herself down beside the open window, bury- 
 ing her face on her knees. Would they never let her go 
 to him ? never let her say to him: " Oliver, take me! 
 you did love me once what matters what came between 
 us ? That was in another world. Take my life crush out 
 of it any drop of comfort or of ease it can give you ! Cruel, 
 cruel to refuse ! It is mine to give and yours to spend !" 
 
 Juliet Sparling's daughter. There was the great con- 
 502
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 secrating, liberating fact! What claim had she to the 
 ordinary human joys ? What could the ordinary stand- 
 ards and expectations of life demand from her? Noth- 
 ing! nothing that could stem this rush of the heart 
 to the beloved the forsaken and suffering and over- 
 shadowed beloved. Her future? she held it dross 
 apart from Oliver. Dear Sir James ! but he must learn 
 to bear it to admit that she stood alone, and must judge 
 for herself. What possible bliss or reward could there 
 ever be for her but just this: to be allowed to watch 
 and suffer with Oliver to bring him the invention, the 
 patience, the healing divination of love ? And if it were 
 not to be hers, then what remained was to go down 
 into the arena, where all that is ugliest and most piteous 
 in life bleeds and gasps, and throw herself blindly into 
 the fight. Perhaps some heavenly voice might still 
 speak through it ; perhaps, beyond its jar, some ineffable 
 reunion might dawn 
 
 " First a peace out of pain then a light then thy breast! ..." 
 
 She trembled through and through. Restraining her- 
 self, she rose, and went to her locked desk, taking from 
 it the closely written journal of her father's life, which 
 had now been for months the companion of her thoughts, 
 and of the many lonely moments in her days and nights. 
 She opened on a passage tragically familiar to her: 
 
 "It is an April day. Everything is very still and balmy. 
 The clouds are low, yet suffused with sun. They seem to be 
 tangled among the olives, and all the spring green and flowering 
 fruit trees are like embroidery on a dim yet shining background 
 of haze, silvery and glistening in the sun, blue and purple in the 
 shadows. The peach-trees in the olive garden throw up their 
 pink spray among the shimmering gray leaf and beside the 
 
 53
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 gray stone walls. Warm breaths steal to me over the grass 
 and through the trees; the last brought with it a strong scent of 
 narcissus. A goat tethered to a young tree in the orchard has 
 reared its front feet against the stem, and is nibbling at the 
 branches. His white back shines amid the light spring shade. 
 
 " Far down through the trees I can see the sparkle of the 
 waves beyond, the broad plain of blue; and on the headland, 
 a mile away, white foam is dashing. 
 
 " It is the typical landscape of the South, and of spring, the 
 landscape, with only differences in detail, of Theocritus or 
 Vergil, or the Greek anthologists, those most delicate singers of 
 nature and the South. From the beginning it has filled man 
 with the same joy, the same yearning, the same despair. 
 
 " In youth and happiness we are the spring the young green 
 the blossom the plashing waves. Their life is ours and one 
 with ours. 
 
 "But in age and grief? There is no resentment, I think; no 
 anger, as though a mourner resented the gayety around him; 
 but, rather, a deep and melancholy wonder at the chasm that 
 has now revealed itself between our life and nature. What 
 does the breach mean? the incurable dissonance and aliena- 
 tion? Are we greater than nature, or less? Is the opposition 
 final, the prophecy of man's ultimate and hopeless defeat at 
 the hands of nature? or is it, in the Hegelian sense, the mere 
 development of a necessary conflict, leading to a profounder 
 and intenser unity? The old, old questions stock possessions 
 of the race, yet burned anew by life into the blood and brain 
 of the individual. 
 
 "I see Diana in the garden with her nurse. She has been 
 running to and fro, playing with the dog, feeding the goat. 
 Now I see her sitting still, her chin on her hands, looking out 
 to sea. She seems to droop; but I am sure she is not tired. It 
 is an attitude not very natural to a child, especially to a child 
 so ( [uU of physical health and vigor; yet she often falls into it. 
 
 " When I see it I am filled with dread. She knows nothing, 
 yet the cloud seems to be upon her. Does she already ask her- 
 self questions about her father about this solitary life? 
 
 "Juliet was not herself not in her full sane mind when I 
 promised her. That I know. But I could no more have re- 
 fused the promise than water to her dying lips. One awful 
 evening of fever and hallucination I had been sitting by her for 
 a long time. Her thoughts, poor sufferer, had been full of 
 it is hard to write it but there is the truth a physical 
 horror of blood the blood in which her dress the dress they 
 
 504
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 took from her, her first night in prison was once steeped. She 
 saw it everywhere, on her hands, the sheets, the walls; it was a 
 nausea, an agony of brain and flesh; and yet it was, of course, but 
 a mere symbol and shadow of the manifold agony she had gone 
 through. I will not attempt to describe what I felt what the 
 man who knows that his neglect and selfishness drove her the 
 first steps along this infernal road must feel to his last hour. 
 But at last we were able the nurse and I to soothe her a little. 
 The nightmare lifted, we gave her food, and the nurse brushed 
 her poor brown hair, and tied round it, loosely, the little black 
 scarf she likes to wear. We lifted her on her pillows, and her 
 white face grew calm, and so lovely though, as we thought, very 
 near to death. Her hair, which was cut in prison, had grown 
 again a little to her neck, and could not help curling. It made 
 her look a child again poor, piteous child! so did the little 
 scarf, tied under her chin and the tiny proportions to which 
 all her frame had shrunk. 
 
 " She lifted her face to mine, as I bent over her, kissed me, and 
 asked for you. You were brought, and I took you on my knee, 
 showing you pictures, to keep you quiet. But every other 
 minute, almost, your eyes looked away from the book to her, 
 with that grave considering look, as though a question were 
 behind the look, to which your little brain could not yet give 
 shape. My strange impression was that the question was there 
 in the mind fully formed, like the Platonic 'ideas' in 
 heaven; but that, physically, there was no power to make the 
 word-copy that could have alone communicated it to us. Your 
 mother looked at you in return, intently quite still. When 
 you began to get restless, I lifted you up to kiss her; you were 
 startled, perhaps, by the cold of her face, and struggled away. 
 A little color came into her cheeks; she followed you hungrily 
 with her eyes as you were carried off; then she signed to me, and 
 it was my hand that brushed away her tears. 
 
 "Immediately afterward she began to speak, with wonderful 
 will and self-control, and she asked me that till you were grown 
 up and knowledge became inevitable, I should tell you nothing. 
 There was to be no talk of her, no picture of her, no letters. As 
 far as possible, during your childhood and youth, she was to be 
 to you as though she had never existed. What her thought was 
 exactly she was too feeble to explain; nor was her mind strong 
 enough to envisage all the consequences to me, as well as to 
 you of what she proposed. No doubt it tortured her to think 
 of you as growing up under the cloud of her name and fate, and 
 with her natural and tragic impetuosity she asked what she did. 
 
 33 55
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " ' One day there will come some one who will love her in 
 spite of me. Then you and he shall tell her.' 
 
 " I pointed out to her that such a course would mean that I 
 must change my name and live abroad. Her eyes assented, 
 with a look of relief. She knew that I had already developed 
 the tastes of the nomad and the sun-worshipper, that I was a 
 student, happy in books and solitude; and I have no doubt that 
 the picture her mind formed at the moment of some such hidden 
 life together, as we have actually led, you and I, since her death, 
 soothed and consoled her. With her intense and poetic imagina- 
 tion, she knew well what had happened to us, as well as to herself. 
 
 " So here we are in this hermitage; and except in a few passing 
 perfunctory words, I have never spoken to you of her. Whether 
 what I have done is wise I cannot tell. I could not help it ; and 
 if I had broken my word, remorse would have killed me. I 
 shall not die, however, without telling you if only I have warn- 
 ing enough. 
 
 " But supposing there is no warning then all that I write 
 now, and much else, will be in your hands some day. There are 
 moments when I feel a rush of comfort at the notion that I may 
 never have to watch your face as you hear the story; there are 
 others when the longing to hold you child as you still are 
 against my heart, and feel your tears your tears for her 
 mingling with mine, almost sweeps me off my feet. 
 
 "And when you grow older my task in all its aspects will be 
 harder still. You have inherited her beauty on a larger, ampler 
 scale, and the time will come for lovers. You will hear of your 
 mother then for the first time; my mind trembles even now at 
 the thought of it.' For the story may work out ill, or well, in a 
 hundred different ways; and what we did in love may one day 
 be seen as an error and folly, avenging itself not on us, but on 
 our child. 
 
 "Nevertheless, my Diana, if it had to be done again, it 
 must still be done. Your mother, before she died, was tortured 
 by no common pains of body and spirit. Yet she never thought 
 of herself she was tormented for us. If her vision was clouded, 
 her prayer unwise in that hour, no argument, no resistance was 
 possible. 
 
 "The man who loves you will love you well, my child. You 
 are not made to be lightly or faithlessly loved. He will carry 
 you through the passage perilous if I arn no longer there to help. 
 To him in the distant years I commit you. On him be my 
 blessing, and the blessing, too, of that poor ghost whose hands I 
 seem to hold in mine as I write. Let him not be too proud to take it !" 
 
 506
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Diana put down the book with a low sob that sounded 
 through the quiet room. Then she opened the garden 
 door and stepped on to the terrace. The night was cold 
 but not frosty; there was a waning moon above the 
 autumnal fulness of the garden and the woods. 
 
 A " spirit in her feet " impelled her. She went back to 
 the house, found a cloak and hat, put out the lamps, and 
 sent the servants to bed. Then noiselessly she once more 
 undid the drawing-room door, and stole out into the gar- 
 den and across the lawn. Soon she was in the lime- 
 walk, the first yellow leaves crackling beneath her feet; 
 then in the kitchen garden, where the apples shone dimly 
 on the laden boughs, where sunflowers and dahlias and 
 marigolds, tall white daisies and late roses the ghosts 
 of their daylight selves dreamed and drooped under 
 the moon; where the bees slept and only great moths 
 were abroad. And so on to the climbing path and the 
 hollows of the down. She walked quickly along the edge 
 of it, through hanging woods of beech that clothed the 
 hill-side. Sometimes the trees met in majestic darkness 
 above her head, and the path was a glimmering mystery 
 before her. Sometimes the ground broke away on her 
 left abruptly in great chasms, torn from the hill-side, 
 stripped of trees, and open to the stars. Down rushed 
 the steep slopes to the plain, clad in the decaying leaf 
 and mast of former years, and at the edges of these pre- 
 cipitous glades, or scattered at long intervals across them, 
 great single trees emerged, the types and masters of the 
 forest, their trunks, incomparably tall, and all their 
 noble limbs, now thinly veiled by a departing leafage, 
 drawn sharp, in black and silver, on the pale back- 
 ground of the chalk plain. Nothing so grandiose as 
 these climbing beech woods of middle England ! by day, 
 
 507
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 as it were, some vast procession marching joyously over 
 hill and dale to the music of the birds and the wind; and 
 at night, a brooding host, silent yet animate, waiting 
 the signal of the dawn. 
 
 Diana passed through them, drinking in the exaltation 
 of their silence and their strength, yet driven on by the 
 mere weakness and foolishness of love. By following the 
 curve of the down she could reach a point on the hill- 
 side whence, on a rising ground to the north, Tallyn was 
 visible. She hastened thither through the night. Once 
 she was startled by a shot fired from a plantation near 
 the path, trees began to rustle and dogs to bark, and she 
 fled on, in terror lest the Tallyn keepers might discover 
 her. Alack! for whose pleasure were they watching 
 now? 
 
 The trees fell back. She reached the bare shoulder of 
 the down. Northward and eastward spread the plain; 
 and on the low hill in front her eyes discerned the pale 
 patch of Tallyn, flanked by the darkness of the woods. 
 And in that dim front, a light surely a light? in an 
 upper window. She sank down in a hollow of the chalk, 
 her eyes upon the house, murmuring and weeping. 
 
 So she watched with Oliver, as once at the moment 
 of her sharpest pain he had watched with her. But 
 whereas in that earlier night everything was in the man's 
 hands to will or to do, the woman felt herself now help- 
 less and impotent. His wealth, his mother hedged him 
 from her. And if not, he had forgotten her altogether for 
 Alicia ; he cared for her no more ; it would merely add to 
 his burden to be reminded of her. As to Alicia the girl 
 who could cruelly leave him there, in that house of 
 torture, to go and dance and amuse herself leave him in 
 his pain, his mother in her sorrow Diana's whole being 
 
 508
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 was shaken first with an anguish of resentful scorn, in 
 which everything personal to herself disappeared. Then 
 by an immediate revulsion the thought of Alicia was 
 a thought of deliverance. Gone? gone from between 
 them? the flaunting, triumphant, heartless face? 
 
 Suddenly it seemed to Diana that she was there beside 
 him, in the darkened room that he heard her, and 
 looked up. 
 
 "Diana!" 
 
 " Oliver!" She knelt beside him she raised his head 
 on her breast she whispered to him; and at last he 
 slept. Then hostile forms crowded about her, forbidding 
 her, driving her away even Sir James Chide in the 
 name of her own youth. And she heard her own answer: 
 "Dear friend! think! remember! Let me stay! let 
 me stay! Am I not the child of sorrow? Here is my 
 natural place my only joy." 
 
 And she broke down into bitter helpless tears, pleading, 
 it seemed, with things and persons inexorable. 
 
 Meanwhile, in Beechcote village, that night, a man 
 slept lightly, thinking of Diana. Hugh Roughsedge, 
 bronzed and full of honors, a man developed and ma- 
 tured, with the future in his hands, had returned that 
 afternoon to his old home.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 HOW is she?" 
 Mrs. Colwood shook her head sadly. 
 
 "Not well and not happy." 
 
 The questioner was Hugh Roughsedge. The young 
 soldier had walked up to Beechcote immediately after 
 luncheon, finding it impossible to restrain his impatience 
 longer. Diana had not expected him so soon, and had 
 slipped out for her daily half-hour with Betty Dyson, 
 who had had a slight stroke, and was failing fast. So 
 that Mrs. Colwood was at Roughsedge's discretion. But 
 he was not taking all the advantage of it that he might 
 have done. The questions with which his mind was 
 evidently teeming came out but slowly. 
 
 Little Mrs. Colwood surveyed him from time to time 
 with sympathy and pleasure. Her round child-like eyes 
 under their long lashes told her everything that as a 
 woman she wanted to know. What an improvement 
 in looks and manner what indefinable gains in signifi- 
 cance and self-possession! Danger, command, respon- 
 sibility, those great tutors of men, had come in upon 
 the solid yet malleable stuff of which the character was 
 made, moulding and polishing, striking away defects, 
 disengaging and accenting qualities. Who could ever 
 have foreseen that Hugh might some day be described as 
 " a man of the world" ? Yet if that vague phrase were to 
 be taken in its best sens^, as describing a personality both
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorij 
 
 tempered and refined by the play of the world's forces 
 upon it, it might certainly be now used of the man 
 before her. 
 
 He was handsomer than ever; bronzed by Nigerian 
 sun, all the superfluous flesh marched off him; every 
 muscle in his frame taut and vigorous. And at the same 
 time a new self-confidence apparently quite unconscious, 
 and the inevitable result of a strong and testing ex- 
 perience was enabling him to bring his powers to bear 
 and into play, as he had never yet done. 
 
 She recalled, with some confusion, that she and 
 Diana'? had tacitly thought of him as good, but stupid. 
 On the contrary, was she, perhaps, in the presence of 
 some one destined to do great things for his country ? to 
 lay hold without intending it, as it were, and by the left 
 hand on high distinction ? Were women, on the whole, 
 bad judges of young men? She recalled a saying of 
 Dr. Roughsedge, that " mothers never know how clever 
 their sons are." Perhaps the blindness extends to other 
 eyes than mothers? 
 
 Meanwhile, she got from him all the news she could. 
 He had been, it seemed, concerned in the vast operation 
 of bringing a new African Empire into being. She lis- 
 tened, dazzled, while in the very simplest, baldest phrases 
 he described the curbing of slave-raiders, the winning of 
 populations, the grappling with the desert, the opening 
 out of river highways, whereof in his seven months he 
 had been the fascinated beholder. As to his own ex- 
 ploits, he was ingeniously silent; but she knew them 
 already. A military expedition against two revolted 
 and slave-raiding emirs, holding strong positions on the 
 great river; a few officers borrowed from home to stiffen 
 a local militia; hot fighting against great odds; half a
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 million of men released from a reign of hell; tyranny 
 broken, and the British pax extended over regions a 
 third as large as India smiling prosperity within its 
 pale, bestial devastation and cruelty without these 
 things she knew, or had been able to imagine from the 
 newspapers. According to him, it had been all the 
 doing of other men. She knew better; but soon found 
 it of no use to interrupt him. 
 
 Meanwhile she dared not ask him why he had come 
 home. The campaign, indeed, was over ; but he had been 
 offered, it appeared, an administrative appointment. 
 
 "And you mean to go back?" 
 
 "Perhaps." He colored and looked restlessly out of 
 the window. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood understood the look, and felt it was, 
 indeed, hard upon him that he must put up with her so 
 long. In reality, he too was conscious of new pleasure 
 in an old acquaintance. He had forgotten what a dear 
 little thing she was: how prettily round-faced, yet deli- 
 cate ethereal in all her proportions, with the kindest 
 eyes. She too had grown by the mere contact with 
 Diana's fate. Within her tiny frame the soul of her 
 had risen to maternal heights, embracing and sustaining 
 Diana. 
 
 He would have given the world to question her. But 
 after her first answer to his first inquiry he had fallen 
 tongue-tied on the subject of Diana, and Nigeria had 
 absorbed conversation. She, on her side, wished him to 
 know many things, but did not see how to begin upon 
 them. 
 
 At last she attempted it. 
 
 "You have heard of our election? And what hap- 
 pened?" 
 
 512
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 He nodded. His mother had kept him informed. 
 He understood Marsham had been badly hurt. Was it 
 really so desperate? 
 
 In a cautious voice, watching the window, Muriel 
 told what she knew. The recital was pitiful; but Hugh 
 Roughsedge sat impassive, making no comments. She 
 felt that in this quarter the young man was adamant. , 
 
 "I suppose" he turned his face from her "Miss"1 
 Mallory does not now go to Tallyn." 
 
 "No." She hesitated, looking at her companion, a 
 score of feelings mingling in her mind. Then she broke 
 out: "But she would like to!" 
 
 His startled look met hers; she was dismayed at 
 what she had done. Yet, how not to give him warning ? 
 this loyal young fellow, feeding himself on futile 
 hopes! 
 
 " You mean she still thinks of Marsham ?" 
 
 "Of nothing else," she said, impetuously "of noth- 
 ing else!" 
 
 He frowned and winced. 
 
 She resumed: " It is like her so like her! isn't it?" 
 
 Her soft pitiful eyes, into which the tears had sprung, 
 pressed the question on him. 
 
 " I thought there was a cousin Miss Drake ?" he said, 
 roughly. 
 
 Mrs. Colwood hesitated. 
 
 " It is said that all that is broken off." 
 
 He was silent. But his watch was on the garden. 
 And suddenly, on the long grass path, Diana appeared, 
 side by side with the Vicar. Roughsedge sprang up. 
 Muriel was arrested by Diana's face, and by something 
 rigid in the carriage of the head. What had the Vicar 
 been saying to her ? she asked herself, angrily. Never
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 was there anything less discreet than the Vicar's handling 
 of human nature! female human nature, in particular. 
 
 Hugh Roughsedge opened the glass door, and went to 
 meet them. Diana, at sight of him, gave a bewildered 
 look, as though she scarcely knew him then a per- 
 functory hand. 
 
 "Captain Roughsedge! They didn't tell me 
 
 "I want to speak to you," said the Vicar, peremp- 
 torily, to Mrs. Colwood ; and he carried her off round the 
 corner of the house. 
 
 Diana gazed after them, and Roughsedge thought he 
 saw her totter. 
 
 " You look so ill!" he said, stooping over her. " Come 
 and sit down." 
 
 His boyish nervousness and timidity left him. The 
 strong man emerged and took command. He guided 
 her to a garden seat, under a drooping lime. She sank 
 upon the seat, quite unable to stand, beckoning him to 
 stay by her. So he stood near, reluctantly waiting, 
 his heart contracting at the sight of her. 
 
 At last she recovered herself and sat up. 
 
 " It was some bad news," she said, looking at him 
 piteously, and holding out her hand again. " It is too 
 bad of me to greet you like this." 
 
 He took her hand, and his own self-control broke 
 down. He raised it to his lips with a stifled cry. 
 
 "Don't! don't!" said Diana, helplessly. "Indeed- 
 there is nothing the matter I am only foolish. It is so 
 so good of you to care." She drew her hand from 
 his, raised it to her brow, and, drawing a long breath, 
 pushed back the hair from her face. She was like a 
 person struggling against some torturing restraint, not 
 knowing where to turn for help. 
 
 514
 
 ROUGHSEDGE STOOD NEAR, RELUCTANTLY WAITING
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 But at the word "care" he pulled himself together. 
 He sat down beside her, and plunged straight into his 
 declaration. He went at it with the same resolute 
 simplicity that he was accustomed to throw into his 
 military duty, nor could she stop him in the least. His 
 unalterable affection; his changed and improved pros- 
 pects; a staff appointment at home if she accepted him; 
 the Nigerian post if she refused him these things he 
 put before her in the natural manly speech of a young 
 Englishman sorely in love, yet quite incapable of " high 
 flights." It was very evident that he had pondered 
 what he was to say through the days and nights of his 
 exile; that he was doing precisely what he had always 
 planned to do, and with his whole heart in the business. 
 She tried once or twice to interrupt him, but he did not 
 mean to be interrupted, and she was forced to hear it 
 out. 
 
 At the end she gave a little gasp. 
 
 " Oh, Hugh!" His name, given him for the first time, 
 fell so forlornly it was such a breathing out of trouble 
 and pity and despair that his heart took another and a 
 final plunge downward. He had known all through 
 that there was no hope for him; this tone, this aspect 
 settled it. But she stretched out her hands to him, ten- 
 derly appealing. "Hugh I shall have to tell you 
 but I am ashamed." 
 
 He looked at her in silence a moment, then asked 
 her why. The tears rose brimming in her eyes her 
 hands still in his. 
 
 " Hugh I I have always loved Oliver Marsham 
 and I cannot think of any one else. You know what 
 has happened?" 
 
 He saw the sob swelling in her white throat.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Yes!" he said, passionately. "It is horrible. But 
 you cannot go to him you cannot marry him. He 
 was a coward when he should have stood by you. He 
 cannot claim you now." 
 
 She withdrew her hands. 
 
 "No!" The passion in her voice matched his own. 
 "But I would give the world if he could and would!" 
 
 There was a pause. Steadily the woman gained upon 
 her own weakness and beat it down. She resumed: 
 
 " I must tell you because it is the only way for 
 us two to be real friends again and I want a friend 
 so much. The news of Oliver is is terrible. The 
 Vicar had just seen Mr. Lankester who is staying 
 there. He is nearly blind and the pain!" Her hand 
 clinched she threw her head back. " Oh ! I can't speak 
 of it! And it may go on for years. The doctors seem to 
 be all at sea. They say he ought to recover but they 
 doubt whether he will. He has lost all heart and hope 
 he can't help himself. He lies there like a log all day 
 despairing. And, please what am 7 doing here?" 
 She turned upon him impetuously, her cheeks flaming. 
 " They want help there is no one. Mrs. Fotheringham 
 hardly ever comes. They think Lady Lucy is in a criti- 
 cal state of health too. She won't admit it she does 
 everything as usual. But she is very frail and ill, and 
 it depresses Oliver. And I am here ! useless and help- 
 less. Oh, why can't I go? why can't I go ?" She laid 
 her face upon her arms, on the bench, hiding it from 
 him; but he saw the convulsion of her whole frame. 
 
 Beside a passion so absolute and so piteous he felt, 
 his own claim shrink into nothingness impossible, even, 
 to give it voice again. He straightened himself in silence , 
 with an effort of the whole man, the lover put on the friend.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Bat you can go," he caid, a little hoarsely, "if you 
 feel like that." 
 
 She raised herself suddenly. 
 
 " How do I know that he wants me ? how do I know 
 that he would even see me?" 
 
 Once more her cheeks were crimson. She had shown 
 him her love unveiled ; now he was to see her doubt the 
 shame that tormented her. He felt that it was to heal 
 him she had spoken, and he could do nothing to repay 
 her. He could neither chide her for a quixotic self-sac- 
 rifice, which might never be. admitted or allowed; nor 
 protest, on Marsham's behalf, against it, for he knew, in 
 truth, nothing of the man; least of all could he plead for 
 himself. He could only sit, staring like a fool, tongue- 
 tied; till Diana, mastering, for his sake, the emotion to 
 which, partly also for his sake, she had given rein, grad- 
 ually led the conversation back to safer and cooler 
 ground. All the little involuntary arts came in by which 
 a woman regains command of herself, and thereby of her 
 companion. Her hat tired her head; she removed it, 
 and the beautiful hair underneath, falling into confusion, 
 must be put in its place by skilled instinctive fingers, 
 every movement answering to a similar self-restraining 
 effort in the mind within. She dried her tears; she drew 
 closer the black scarf round the shoulders of her white 
 dress; she straightened the violets at her belt Muriel's 
 mid-day gift till he beheld her, white and suffering 
 indeed, but lovely and composed queen of herself. 
 
 She made him talk of his adventures, and he obeyed 
 her, partly to help her in the struggle he perceived, part- 
 ly because in the position beneath and beyond all hope 
 to which she had reduced him, it was the only way by 
 which he could save anything out of the wreck. And
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 she bravely responded. She could and did lend him 
 enough of her mind to make it worth his while. A friend 
 should not come home to her from perils of land and sea, 
 and find her ungrateful a niggard of sympathy and 
 praise. 
 
 So that when Dr. and Mrs. Roughsedge appeared, and 
 Muriel returned with them, Mrs. Roughsedge, all on 
 edge with anxiety, could make very little of what had 
 what must have occurred. Diana, carved in white wax, 
 but for the sensitive involuntary movements of lip and 
 eyebrow, was listening to a description of an English 
 embassy sent through the length and breadth of the 
 most recently conquered province of Nigeria. The em- 
 bassy took the news of peace and Imperial rule to a 
 country devastated the year before by the most hideous 
 of slave-raids. The road it marched by was strewn with 
 the skeletons of slaves had been so strewn probably 
 for thousands of years. " One night my horse trod un- 
 awares on two skeletons women locked in each other's 
 arms," said Hugh; "scores of others round them. In 
 the evening we camped at a village where every able- 
 bodied male had been killed the year before." 
 
 "Shot?" asked the doctor. 
 
 " Oh, dear, no ! That would have been to waste ammu- 
 nition. A limb was hacked off, and they bled to death." 
 
 His mother was looking at the speaker with all her 
 eyes, but she did not hear a word he said. Was he pale 
 or not? 
 
 Diana shuddered. 
 
 "And that is stopped forever?" Her eyes were on 
 the speaker. 
 
 "As long as our flag flies there," said the soldier, 
 simply.
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Her look kindled. For a moment she was the shadow, 
 the beautiful shadow, of her old Imperialist self the 
 proud, disinterested lover of her country. 
 
 The doctor shook his head. 
 
 " Don't forget the gin, and the gin-traders on the 
 other side, Master Hugh." 
 
 "They don't show their noses in the new provinces," 
 said the young man, quietly; "we shall straighten that 
 out too, in the long run -you'll see." 
 
 But Diana had ceased to listen. Mrs. Roughsedge, 
 turning toward her, and with increasing foreboding, saw, 
 as it were, the cloud of an inward agony, suddenly re- 
 called, creep upon the fleeting brightness of her look, as 
 the evening shade mounts upon and captures a sunlit 
 hill-side. The mother, in spite of her native optimism, 
 had never cherished any real hope of her son's success. 
 But neither had she expected, on the other side, a cer- 
 tainty so immediate and so unqualified. She saw be- 
 fore her no settled or resigned grief. The Tallyn tragedy 
 had transformed what had been almost a recovered se- 
 renity, a restored and patient equilibrium, into some- 
 thing violent, tumultuous, unstable prophesying action. 
 But what poor child! could the action be? 
 
 "Poor Hugh!" said Mrs. Roughsedge to her husband 
 on their return, as she stood beside him, in his study. 
 Her voice was low, for Hugh had only just gone up-stairs, 
 and the little house was thinly built. 
 
 The doctor rubbed his nose thoughtfully, and then 
 looked round him for a cigarette. 
 
 "Yes," he said, slowly; "but he enjoyed his walk 
 home." 
 
 "Henry!"
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Hugh had walked back to the village with Mrs. Col- 
 wood, who had an errand there, and it was true that he 
 had talked much to her out of earshot of his parents, 
 and had taken a warm farewell of her at the end. 
 
 "Why am I to be ' Henry '-ed?" inquired the doc- 
 tor, beginning on his cigarette. 
 
 "Because you must know," said his wife, in an ener- 
 getic whisper, "that Hugh had almost certainly pro- 
 posed to Miss Mallory before we arrived, and she had 
 refused him!" 
 
 The doctor meditated. 
 
 " I still say that Hugh enjoyed his walk," he repeated; 
 "I trust he will have others of the same kind with 
 the same person." 
 
 "Henry, you are really incorrigible!" cried his wife. 
 " How can you make jokes on such a thing with that 
 girl's face before you!" 
 
 " Not at all," said the doctor, protesting. " I am not 
 making jokes, Patricia. But what you women never 
 will understand is, that it was not a woman but a man 
 that wrote 
 
 " ' If she be not fair for me 
 What care I '" 
 
 "Henry!" and his wife, beside herself, tried to stop 
 his mouth with her hand. 
 
 "All right, I won't finish," said the doctor, placidly, 
 disengaging himself. " But let me assure you, Patricia, 
 whether you like it or not, that that is a male sentiment. 
 I quite agree that no nice woman could have written it. 
 But, then, Hugh is not a nice woman nor am I." 
 
 "I thought you were so fond of her!" said his wife, 
 reproachfully. 
 
 520
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "Miss Mallory? I adore her. But, to tell the truth, 
 Patricia, I want a daughter-in-law and and grand- 
 children," added the doctor, deliberately, stretching out 
 his long limbs to the fire. " I admit that my remarks 
 may be quite irrelevant and ridiculous but I repeat 
 that in spite of everything Hugh enjoyed his walk." 
 
 One October evening, a week later, Lady Lucy sat 
 waiting for Sir James Chide at Tallyn Hall. Sir James 
 had invited himself to dine and sleep, and Lady Lucy 
 was expecting him in the up-stairs sitting-room, a 
 medley of French clocks and china figures, where she 
 generally sat now, in order to be within quick and easy 
 reach of Oliver. 
 
 She was reading, or pretending to read, by the fire, 
 listening all the time for the sound of the carriage 
 outside. Meanwhile, the silence of the immense house 
 oppressed her. It was broken only by the chiming of a 
 carillon clock in the hall below. The little tune it played, 
 fatuously gay, teased her more insistently each time she 
 heard it. It must really be removed. She wondered 
 Oliver had not already complained of it. 
 
 A number of household and estate worries oppressed 
 her thoughts. How was she to cope with them? Ca- 
 pable as she was, "John" had always been there to ad- 
 vise her, in emergency or Oliver. She suspected the 
 house - steward of dishonesty. And the agent of the 
 estate had brought her that morning complaints of 
 the head game-keeper that were most disquieting. What 
 did they want with game-keepers now? Who would 
 ever shoot at Tallyn again? With impatience she felt 
 herself entangled in the endless machinery of wealth and 
 the pleasures of wealth, so easy to set in motion, and so 
 
 34 521
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 difficult to stop, even when all the savor has gone out 
 of it. She was a tired, broken woman, with an invalid 
 son ; and the management of her great property, in which 
 her capacities and abilities had taken for so long an 
 imperious and instinctive delight, had become a mere 
 burden. She longed to creep into some quiet place, 
 alone with Oliver, out of reach of this army of servants 
 and dependents, these impassive and unresponsive faces. 
 
 The crunching of the carriage wheels on the gravel 
 outside gave her a start of something like pleasure. 
 Among the old friends there was no one now she cared 
 so much to see as Sir James Chide. Sir James had lately 
 left Parliament and politics, and had taken a judgeship. 
 She understood that he had lost interest in politics after 
 and in consequence of John Ferrier's death; and she 
 knew, of course, that he had refused the Attorney-Gen- 
 eralship, on the ground of the treatment meted out 
 to his old friend and chief. During the month of Oliver's 
 second election, moreover, she had been very conscious 
 of Sir James's hostility to her son. Intercourse between 
 him and Tallyn had practically ceased. 
 
 Since the accident, however, he had been kind -very 
 kind. 
 
 The door opened, and Sir James was announced. 
 She greeted him with a tremulous and fluttering warmth 
 that for a moment embarrassed her visitor, accustomed 
 to the old excess of manner and dignity, wherewith she 
 kept her little world in awe. He saw, too, that the 
 havoc wrought by age and grief had gone forward rap- 
 idly since he had seen her last. 
 
 "I am afraid there is no better news of Oliver?" he 
 said, gravely, as he sat down beside her. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 522
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 " We are in despair. Nothing touches the pain but 
 morphia. And he has lost heart himself so much during 
 the last fortnight." 
 
 "You have had any fresh opinion?" 
 
 " Yes. The last man told me he still believed the 
 injury was curable, but that Oliver must do a great 
 deal for himself. And that he seems incapable of doing. 
 It is, of course, the shock to the nerves, and the gen- 
 eral disappointment 
 
 Her voice shook. She stared into the fire. 
 
 "You mean about politics?" said Sir James, after 
 a pause. 
 
 " Yes. Whenever I speak cheerfully to him, he asks 
 me what there is to live for. He has been driven out of 
 politics by a conspiracy " 
 
 Sir James moved impatiently. 
 
 "With health he would soon recover everything," 
 he said, rather shortly. 
 
 She made no reply, and her shrunken faded look as 
 of one with no energy for hope again roused his pity. 
 
 "Tell me," he said, bending toward her "I don't ask 
 from idle curiosity but has there been any truth in 
 the rumor of Oliver's engagement to Miss Drake?" 
 
 Lady Lucy raised her head sharply. The light came 
 back to her eyes. 
 
 " She was engaged to him, and three weeks after his 
 accident she threw him over." 
 
 Sir James made a sound of amazement. Lady Lucy 
 went on: 
 
 " She left him and me, barely a fortnight afterward, 
 to go to a big country-house party in the north. That 
 will show you what she's made of. Then she wrote 
 a hypocritical letter putting it on him. He must not 
 
 5 2 3
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 be agitated, nor feel her any burden upon him; so, for 
 his sake, she broke it off. Of course, they were to be 
 cousins and friends again just as before. She had ar- 
 ranged it all to her own satisfaction and was mean- 
 while flirting desperately, as we heard from various 
 people in the north, with Lord Philip Darcy. Oliver 
 showed me her letter, and at last told me the whole 
 story. I persuaded him not to answer it. A fortnight 
 ago, she wrote again, proposing to come back here 
 to 'look after' us poor things! This time, 7 replied. 
 She would like Tallyn, no doubt, as a place of retreat, 
 should other plans fail ; but it will not be open to 
 her!" 
 
 It was not energy now vindictive energy that was 
 lacking to the personality before him! 
 
 "An odious young woman" exclaimed Sir James, 
 lifting hands and eyebrows. " I am afraid I always 
 thought so, saving .your presence, Lady Lucy. How- 
 ever, she will want a retreat; for her plans in the quar- 
 ter you name have not a chance of success. ' ' 
 
 "I am delighted to hear it!" said Lady Lucy, still 
 erect and flushed. "What do you know?" 
 
 " Simply that Lord Philip is not in the least likely to 
 marry her, having, I imagine, views in quite other quar- 
 ters so I am told. But he is the least scrupulous of 
 men and no doubt if, at Eastham, she threw herself 
 into his arms 'what mother's son,' et cetera. Only, 
 if she imagined herself to have caught him such an old 
 and hardened stager! in a week her abilities are less 
 than I supposed." 
 
 "Alicia's self-conceit was always her weak point." 
 
 But as she spoke the force imparted by resentment 
 died away. Lady Lucy sank back in her chair. 
 
 524
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Aud Oliver felt it very much?" asked Sir James, 
 after a pause, his shrewd eyes upon her. 
 
 " He was wounded, of course he has been more 
 depressed since ; but I have never believed that he was 
 in love with her." 
 
 Sir James did not pursue the subject, but the vivacity 
 of the glance bent now on the fire, now on his compan- 
 ion, betrayed the marching thoughts hehind. 
 
 "Will Oliver see me this evening?" he inquired, pres- 
 ently. 
 
 "I hope so. He promised me to make the effort." 
 
 A servant knocked at the door. It was Oliver's 
 valet. 
 
 " Please, my lady, Mr. Marsham wished me to say he 
 was afraid he would not be strong enough to see Sir 
 James Chide to-night. He is very sorry and would 
 Sir James be kind enough to come and see him after 
 breakfast to-morrow?" 
 
 Lady Lucy threw up her hands in a little gesture of 
 despair. Then she rose, and went to speak to the servant 
 in the doorway. 
 
 When she returned she looked whiter and more shriv- 
 elled than before. 
 
 "Is he worse to-night?" asked Sir James, gently. 
 
 "It is the pain," she said, in a muffled voice; "and we 
 can't touch it yet. He mustn't have any more mor- 
 phia yet." 
 
 She sat down once more. Sir James, the best of 
 gossips, glided off into talk of London, and of old com- 
 mon friends, trying to amuse and distract her. But 
 he realized that she scarcely listened to him, and that he 
 was talking to a woman whose life was being ground 
 away between a last affection and the torment it had 
 
 525
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 power to cause her. A new Lady Lucy, indeed! Had 
 any one ever dared to pity her before ? 
 
 Meanwhile, five miles off, a girl whom he loved as a 
 daughter was eating her heart out for sorrow over this 
 mother and son consumed, as he guessed, with the 
 wild desire to offer them, in any sacrificial mode they 
 pleased, her youth and her sweet self. In one way or 
 another he had found out that Hugh Roughsedge had 
 been sent about his business of course, with all the 
 usual softening formulae. 
 
 And now there was a kind of mute conflict going on 
 between himself and Mrs. Col wood on the one side, and 
 Diana on the other side. 
 
 No, she should not spend and waste her youth in 
 the vain attempt to mend this house of tragedy ! it was 
 not to be tolerated not to be thought of. She would 
 suffer, but she would get over it; and Oliver would 
 probably die. Sooner or later she would begin life 
 afresh, if only he was able to stand between her and the 
 madness in her heart. 
 
 But as he sat there, looking at Lady Lucy, he realized 
 that it might have been better for his powers and ef- 
 ficacy as a counsellor if he, too, had held aloof from this 
 house of pain.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 IT was about ten o'clock at night. Lankester, who 
 had arrived from London an hour before, had said 
 good-night to Lady Lucy and Sir James, and had slipped 
 into Marsham's room. Marsham had barred his door 
 that evening against both his mother and Sir James. 
 But Lankester was not excluded. 
 
 Off and on and in the intervals of his parliamentary 
 work he had been staying at Tallyn for some days. A 
 letter from Lady Lucy, in reply to an inquiry, had brought 
 him down. Oliver had received him with few words 
 indeed, with an evident distaste for words; but at the 
 end of the first day's visit had asked him abruptly, per- 
 emptorily even, to come again. 
 
 When he entered Marsham's room he found the 
 invalid asleep under the influence of morphia. The 
 valet, a young fellow, was noiselessly putting things 
 straight. Lankester noticed that he looked pale. 
 
 "A bad time?" he said, in a whisper, standing beside 
 the carefully regulated spinal couch on which Marsham 
 was sleeping. 
 
 "Awful, sir. He was fair beside himself till we gave 
 him the morphia." 
 
 "Is there anybody sitting up?" 
 
 "No. He'll be quiet now for six or seven hours. I 
 shall be in the next room." 
 
 The young man spoke wearily. It was clear that the 
 
 527
 
 The Testing of Diana Mai lory 
 
 moral strain of what he had just seen had weighed upon 
 him as much as the fatigue of the day's attendance. 
 
 "Come!" said Lankester, looking at him. "You 
 want a good night. Go to my room. I'll lie down 
 there." He pointed to Marsham's bedroom, now appro- 
 priated to the valet, while the master, for the sake of 
 space and cheerfulness, had been moved into the sitting- 
 room. The servant hesitated, protested, and was at 
 last persuaded, being well aware of Marsham's liking 
 for this queer, serviceable being. 
 
 Lankester took various directions from him, and 
 packed him off. Then, instead of going to the adjoin- 
 ing room, he chose a chair beside a shaded lamp, and 
 said to himself that he would sleep by the fire. 
 
 Presently the huge house sank into a silence even 
 more profound than that in which it was now steeped by 
 day. A cold autumn wind blew round about it. After 
 midnight the wind dropped, and the temperature with 
 it. The first severe frost laid its grip on forest and 
 down and garden. Silently the dahlias and the roses 
 died, the leaves shrivelled and blackened, and a cold and 
 glorious moon rose upon the ruins of the summer. 
 
 Lankester dozed and woke, keeping up the fire, and 
 wrapping himself in an eider-down, with which the 
 valet had provided him. In the small hours he walked 
 across the room to look at Marsham. He was lying 
 still and breathing heavily. His thick fair hair, always 
 slightly gray from the time he was thirty, had become 
 much grayer of late; the thin handsome face was drawn 
 and damp, the eyes cavernous, the lips bloodless. Even 
 in sleep his aspect showed what he had suffered. 
 
 Poor, poor old fellow! 
 
 Lankester's whole being softened into pity. Yet he 
 528
 
 The Testing otf Diana Mallory 
 
 had no illusions as to the man before him a man of 
 inferior morale and weak will, incapable, indeed, of the 
 clever brutalities by which the wicked flourish ; incapable 
 also of virtues that must, after all, be tolerably common, 
 or the world would run much more lamely than it does. 
 Straight, honorable, unselfish fellows Lankester knew 
 scores of them, rich and poor, clever and slow, who could 
 and did pass the tests of life without flinching; who 
 could produce in any society as politicians or green- 
 grocers an impression of uprightness and power, an 
 effect of character, that Marsham, for all his ability, had 
 never produced, or, in the long run, and as he came to 
 be known, had never sustained. 
 
 Well, what then ? In the man looking down on Mar- 
 sham not a tinge of pharisaic condemnation mingled 
 with the strange clearness of his judgment. What are 
 we all the best of us ? Lankester had not parted, like 
 the majority of his contemporaries, with the "sense of 
 sin." A vivid, spiritual imagination, trained for years 
 on prayer and reverie, showed him the world and human 
 nature his own first and foremost everywhere flecked 
 and stained with evil. For the man of religion the dif- 
 ference between saint and sinner has never been as sharp 
 as for the man of the world; it is for the difference be- 
 tween holiness and sin that he reserves his passion. And 
 the stricken or repentant sinner is at all times nearer 
 to his heart than the men "who need no repentance." 
 
 Moreover, it is in men like Lankester that the ascetic 
 temper common to all ages and faiths is perpetually re- 
 produced, the temper which makes of suffering itself a 
 divine and sacred thing the symbol of a mystery. In 
 his own pity for this emaciated arrested youth he read 
 the pledge of a divine sympathy, the secret voice of a 
 
 529
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 God suffering for and with man. which, in its myriad 
 forms, is the primeval faith of the race. Where a 
 thinker of another type would have seen mere aimless 
 waste and mutilation, this evangelical optimist bared the 
 head and bent the knee. The spot whereon he stood was 
 holy ground, and above this piteous sleeper heavenly 
 dominations, princedoms, powers, hung in watch. 
 
 He sank, indeed, upon his knees beside the sleeper. In 
 the intense and mystical concentration, which the habit 
 of his life had taught him, the prayer to which he com- 
 mitted himself took a marvellous range without ever 
 losing its detail, its poignancy. The pain, moral and 
 physical, of man pain of the savage, the slave, the 
 child; the 'miseries of innumerable persons he had 
 known, whose stories had been confided to him, whose 
 fates he had shared; the anguish of irreparable failure, 
 of missed, untasted joy; agonies brutal or obscure, of 
 nerve and brain! his mind and soul surrendered them- 
 selves to these impressions, shook under the storm and 
 scourge of them. His prayer was not his own ; it seemed 
 to be the Spirit wrestling with Itself, and rending his own 
 weak life. 
 
 He drew nearer to Marsham, resting his forehead on 
 the bed. The firelight threw the shadow of his gaunt 
 kneeling figure on the white walls. And at last, after 
 the struggle, there seemed to be an effluence a descend- 
 ing, invading love overflowing his own being enwrap- 
 ping the sufferer before him silencing the clamor of a 
 weeping world. And the dual mind of the modern, even 
 in Lankester, wavered between the two explanations: 
 " It is myself," said the critical intellect, " the intensifi- 
 cation and projection of myself." "// is God!''' replied 
 the soul. 
 
 530
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 Marsham, meanwhile, as the morning drew on, and as 
 the veil of morphia between him and reality grew thin- 
 ner, was aware of a dream slowly drifting into conscious- 
 ness of an experience that grew more vivid as it pro- 
 gressed. Some one was in the room; he moved uneasily, 
 lifted his head, and saw indistinctly a figure in the shad- 
 ows standing near the smouldering fire. It was not his 
 servant ; and suddenly his dream mingled with what he 
 saw, and his heart began to throb. 
 
 "Ferrier!" he called, under his breath. The figure 
 turned, but in his blindness and semi-consciousness he 
 did not recognize it. 
 
 " I want to speak to you," he said, in the same guarded, 
 half-whispered voice. "Of course, I had no right to do 
 it, but " 
 
 His voice dropped and his eyelids closed. 
 
 Lankester advanced from the fire. He saw Marsham 
 was not really awake, and he dreaded to rouse him 
 completely, lest it should only be to the consciousness 
 of pain. He stooped over him gently, and spoke his 
 name. 
 
 "Yes," said Marsham, murmuring, without opening 
 his eyes. "There's no need for you to rub it in. I be- 
 haved like a beast, and Barrington " 
 
 The voice became inarticulate again. The prostration 
 and pallor of the speaker, the feebleness of the tone 
 nothing could have been more pitiful. An idea rushed 
 upon Lankester. He again bent over the bed. 
 
 "Don't think of it any more," he said. "It's for- 
 gotten!" 
 
 A slight and ghastly smile showed on Marsham's lip 
 as he lay with closed eyes. " Forgotten ! No, by Jove !" 
 Then, after an uneasy movement, he said, in a stronger
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 and irritable voice, which seemed to come from another 
 region of consciousness: 
 
 " It would have been better to have burned the paper. 
 One can't get away from the thing. It it disturbs 
 me " 
 
 "What paper?" said Lankester, close to the dreamer's 
 ear. 
 
 "The Herald," said Marsham, impatiently. 
 
 "Where is it?" 
 
 "In that cabinet by the fire." 
 
 "Shall I burn it?" 
 
 " Yes don't bother me!" Evidently he now thought 
 he was speaking to his valet, and a moan of pain escaped 
 him. Lankester walked over to the cabinet and opened 
 the top drawer. He saw a folded newspaper lying within 
 it. After a moment's hesitation he lifted it, and per- 
 ceived by the light of the night-lamp that it was the 
 Herald of August 2 the famous number issued on the 
 morning of Ferrier's death. All the story of the com- 
 municated article and the "Harrington letter" ran 
 through his mind. He stood debating with himself, 
 shaken by emotion. Then he deliberately took the 
 paper to the fire, stirred the coals, and, tearing up the 
 paper, burned it piece by piece. 
 
 After it was done he walked back to Marsham's side. 
 "I have burned the paper," he said, kneeling down by 
 him. 
 
 Marsham, who was breathing lightly with occasional 
 twitchings of the brow, took no notice. But after a 
 minute he said, in a steady yet thrilling voice: 
 
 "Ferrier!" 
 
 Silence. 
 
 "Ferrier!" The tone of the repeated word brought 
 532
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 the moisture to Lankester's eyes. He took the dreamer's 
 hand in his, pressing it. Marsham returned the pressure, 
 first strongly, again more feebly. Then a wave of nar- 
 cotic sleep returned upon him, and he seemed to sink 
 into it profoundly. 
 
 Next morning, as Marsham, after his dressing, was 
 lying moody and exhausted on his pillows, he suddenly 
 said to his servant: 
 
 "I want something out of that cabinet by the fire." 
 
 "Yes, sir." The man moved toward it obediently. 
 
 " Find a newspaper in the top drawer, folded up 
 small on the right-hand side." 
 
 Richard looked. 
 
 " I am sorry, sir, but there is nothing in the drawer at 
 all." 
 
 "Nonsense!" said Marsham, angrily. "You've got 
 the wrong drawer!" 
 
 The whole cabinet was searched to no purpose. 
 Marsham grew very pale. He must, of course, have 
 destroyed the paper himself, and his illness had effaced 
 his memory of the act, as of other things. Yet he could 
 not shake off an impression of mystery. Twice now, 
 weeks after Ferrier's death, he seemed to have been in 
 Ferrier's living presence, under conditions very unlike 
 those of an ordinary dream. He could only remind 
 himself how easily the brain plays tricks upon a man in 
 his state. 
 
 After breakfast, Sir James Chide was admitted. But 
 Oliver was now in the state of obsession, when the whole 
 being, already conscious of a certain degree of pain, 
 dreads the approach of a much intenser form hears it 
 
 533
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 as the footfall of a beast of prey, drawing nearer room 
 by room, and can think of nothing else but the suffer- 
 ing it foresees, and the narcotic which those about him 
 deal out to him so grudgingly, rousing in him, the 
 while, a secret and silent fury. He answered Sir James 
 in monosyllables, lying, dressed, upon his sofa, the 
 neuralgic portion of the spine packed and cushioned 
 from any possible friction, his forehead drawn and 
 frowning. 
 
 Sir James shrank from asking him about himself. But 
 it was useless to talk of politics; Oliver made no re- 
 sponse, and was evidently no longer abreast even of the 
 newspapers. 
 
 "Does your man read you the Times f" asked Sir 
 James, noticing that it lay unopened beside him. 
 
 Oliver nodded. "There was a dreadful being my 
 mother found a fortnight ago. I got rid of him." 
 
 He had evidently not strength to be more explicit. 
 But Sir James had heard from Lady Lucy of the failure 
 of her secretarial attempt. 
 
 " I hear they talk of moving you for the winter." 
 
 " They talk of it. I shall oppose it." 
 
 "I hope not! for Lady Lucy's sake. She is so 
 hopeful about it, and she is not fit herself to spend the 
 winter in England." 
 
 "My mother must go," said Oliver, closing his eyes. 
 
 "She will never leave you." 
 
 Marsham made no reply; then, without closing his 
 eyes again, he said, between his teeth: " What is the use 
 of going from one hell to another hell through a third 
 which is the worst of all?" 
 
 "You dread the journey?" said Sir James, gently. 
 "But there are ways and means." 
 
 534
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 "No!" Oliver's voice was sudden and loud. "There 
 are none! that make any difference." 
 
 Sir James was left perplexed, cudgelling his brains 
 as to what to attempt next. It was Marsham, however, 
 who broke the silence. With his dimmed sight he 
 looked, at last, intently, at his companion. 
 
 "Is is Miss Mallory still at Beechcote?" 
 
 Sir James moved involuntarily. 
 
 "Yes, certainly." 
 
 " You see a great deal of her ?" 
 
 "I do I " Sir James cleared his throat a little 
 " I look upon her as my adopted daughter." 
 
 "I should like to be remembered to her." 
 
 "You shall be," said Sir James, rising. "I will give 
 her your message. Meanwhile, may I tell Lady Lucy 
 that you feel a little easier this morning?" 
 
 Oliver slowly and sombrely shook his head. Then, 
 however, he made a visible effort. 
 
 " But I want to see her. Will you tell her?" 
 
 Lady Lucy, however, was already in the room. Prob- 
 ably she had heard the message from the open doorway 
 where she often hovered. Oliver held out his hand to 
 her, and she stooped and kissed him. She asked him a 
 few low-voiced questions, to which he mostly answered 
 by a shake of the head. Then she attempted some 
 ordinary conversation, during which it was very evident 
 that the sick man wished to be left alone. 
 
 She and Sir James retreated to her sitting-room, and 
 there Lady Lucy, sitting helplessly by the fire, brushed 
 away some tears of which she was only half conscious. 
 Sir James walked up and down, coming at last to a stop 
 beside her. 
 
 " It seems to me this is as much a moral as a physical 
 
 535
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 breakdown. Can nothing be done to take him out of 
 himself? give him fresh heart?" 
 
 "We have tried everything suggested everything. 
 But it seems impossible to rouse him to make an 
 effort." 
 
 Sir James resumed his walk only to come to another 
 stop. 
 
 " Do you know that he just now sent a message by 
 me to Miss Mallory?" 
 
 Lady Lucy started. 
 
 "Did he?" she said, faintly, her eyes on the blaze. 
 He came up to her. 
 
 " There is a woman who would never have deserted 
 you! or him!" he said, in a burst of irrepressible feel- 
 ing, which would out. 
 
 Lady Lucy's glance met his silently, a little proudly. 
 She said nothing and presently he took his leave. 
 
 The day wore on. A misty sunshine enwrapped the 
 beech woods. The great trees stood marked here and 
 there by the first fiery summons of the frost. Their 
 supreme moment was approaching which would strike 
 them, head to foot, into gold and amber, in a purple 
 air. Lady Lucy took her drive among them as a duty, 
 but between her and the enchanted woodland there was 
 a gulf fixed. 
 
 She paid a visit to Oliver, trembling, as she always 
 did, lest some obscure catastrophe, of which she was 
 ever vaguely in dread, should have developed. But 
 she found him in a rather easier phase, with Lankester, 
 who had just returned from town, reading aloud to him. 
 She gave them tea, thinking, as she did so, of the noisy 
 parties gathered so recently, during the election weeks. 
 
 536
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 round the tea-tables in the hall. And then she returned 
 to her own room to write some letters. 
 
 She looked once more with distaste and weariness at 
 the pile of letters and notes awaiting her. All the 
 business of the house, the estate, the village she was 
 getting an old woman; she was weary of it. And with 
 sudden bitterness she remembered that she had a daugh- 
 ter, and that Isabel had never been a real day's help 
 to her in her life. Where was she now? Campaigning 
 in the north speaking at a bye-election lecturing for 
 the suffrage. Since the accident she had paid two fly- 
 ing visits to her mother and brother. Oliver had got 
 no help from her nor her mother; she was the Mrs. 
 Jellyby of a more hypocritical day. Yet Lady Lucy 
 in her youth had been a very motherly mother; she 
 could still recall in the depths of her being the thrill of 
 baby palms pressed "against the circle of the breast." 
 
 She sat down to her task, when the door opened be- 
 hind her. A footman came in, saying something which 
 she did not catch. " My letters are not ready yet " she 
 threw over her shoulder, irritably, without looking at 
 him. The door closed. But some one was still in the 
 room. She turned sharply in astonishment. 
 
 "May I disturb you, Lady Lucy?" said a tremulous 
 voice. 
 
 She saw a tall and slender woman, in black, bending 
 toward her, with a willowy appealing grace, and eyes 
 that beseeched. Diana Mallory stood before her. There 
 was a pause. Then Lady Lucy rose slowly, laid down 
 her spectacles, and held out her hand. 
 
 " It is very kind of you to come and see me," she said, 
 mechanically. " Will you sit down ?" 
 
 Diana gazed at her, with the childish short-sighted 
 35 537
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 pucker of the brow that Lady Lucy remembered well. 
 Then she came closer, still holding Lady Lucy's hand. 
 
 "Sir James thought I might come," she said, breath- 
 lessly. " Isn't there isn't there anything I might do ? 
 I wanted you to le"t me help you like a secretary won't 
 you ? Sir James thought you looked so tired and this 
 big place! I am sure there are things I might do 
 and oh! it would make me so happy!" 
 
 Now she had her two hands clasping, fondling Lady 
 Lucy's. Her eyes shone with tears, her mouth trembled. 
 
 "Oh, you must you must!" she cried, suddenly; 
 " don't let's remember anything but that we were friends 
 that you were so kind to me you and Mr. Oliver 
 in the spring. I can't bear sitting there at Beechcote 
 doing nothing amusing myself when you and Mr. 
 Oliver " 
 
 She stopped, forcing back the tears that would drive 
 their way up, studying in dismay the lined and dwindled 
 face before her. Lady Lucy colored deeply. During the 
 months which had elapsed since the broken engagement, 
 she, even in her remote and hostile distance, had become 
 fully aware of the singular prestige, the homage of a 
 whole district's admiration and tenderness, which had 
 gathered round Diana. She had resented the prestige 
 and the homage, as telling against Oliver, unfairly. Yet 
 as she looked at her visitor she felt the breath of their 
 ascendency. Tender courage and self-control the wom- 
 an, where the girl had been a nature steadied and 
 ennobled these facts and victories spoke from Diana's 
 face, her touch ; they gave even something of maternity to 
 her maiden youth. 
 
 " You come to a sad house," said Lady Lucy, holding 
 her away a little. 
 
 538
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " I know." The voice was quivering and sweet. " But 
 he will recover of course he'll recover!" 
 
 Lady Lucy shook her head. 
 
 " He seems to have no will to recover." 
 
 Then her limbs failed her. She sank into a chair by 
 the fire, and there was Diana on a stool at her feet 
 timidly daring dropping soft caresses on the hand she 
 held, drawing out the tragic history of the preceding 
 weeks, bringing, indeed, to this sad and failing mother 
 what she had perforce done without till now that elec- 
 tric sympathy of women with each other which is the 
 natural relief and sustenance of the sex. 
 
 Lady Lucy forgot her letters forgot, in her mind- 
 weariness, all the agitating facts about this girl that she 
 had once so vividly remembered. She had not the 
 strength to battle and hold aloof. Who now could talk 
 of marrying or giving in marriage? They met under 
 a shadow of death ; the situation between them reduced 
 to bare elemental things. 
 
 "You'll stay and dine with me?" she said at last, 
 feebly. "We'll send you home. The carriages have 
 nothing to do. And" she straightened herself "you 
 must see Oliver. He will know that you are here." 
 
 Diana said nothing. Lady Lucy rose and left the 
 room. Diana leaned her head against the chair in which 
 the older lady had been sitting, and covered her eyes. 
 Her whole being was gathered into the moment of waiting. 
 
 Lady Lucy returned and beckoned. Once more 
 Diana found herself hurrying along the ugly, inter- 
 minable corridors with which she had been so familiar 
 in the spring. The house had never seemed to her so 
 forlorn. They paused at an open door, guarded by a 
 screen, 
 
 539
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 "Go in, please," said Lady Lucy, making room for 
 her to pass. 
 
 Diana entered, shaken with inward fear. She passed 
 the screen, and there beyond it was an invalid couch a 
 man lying on it and a hand held out to her. 
 
 That shrunken and wasted being the Oliver Marsham 
 of two months before! Her heart beat against her 
 breast. Surely she was looking at the irreparable ! Her 
 high courage wavered and sank. 
 
 But Marsham did not perceive it. He saw, as in a 
 cloud, the lovely oval of the face, the fringed eyes, the 
 bending form. 
 
 "Will you sit down?" he said, hoarsely. 
 
 She took a chair beside him, still holding his hand. 
 It seemed as though she were struck dumb by what she 
 saw. He inquired if she was at Beechcote. 
 
 "Yes." Her head drooped. "But I want Lady 
 Lucy to let me come and stay here a little." 
 
 " No one ought to stay here," he said, abruptly, two 
 spots of feverish color appearing on his cheeks. "Sir 
 James would advise you not. So do I." 
 
 She looked up softly. 
 
 " Your mother is so tired; she wants help. Won't you 
 let me?" 
 
 Their eyes met. His hand trembled violently in hers. 
 
 "Why did you come?" he said, suddenly, breathing 
 fast. 
 
 She found no words, only tears. She had relinquished 
 his hand, but he stretched it out again and touched her 
 bent head. 
 
 " There's no time left," he said, impatiently, " to to 
 fence in. Look here! I can't stand this pain many 
 
 54o
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 minutes more." He moved with a stifled groan. "They'll 
 give me morphia it's the only thing. But I want you 
 to know. I was engaged to Alicia Drake after we 
 broke it off. And I never loved her not for a moment 
 and she knew it. Then, as soon as this happened 
 she left us. There was poetic justice, wasn't it? Who 
 can blame her? I don't. I want you to know what 
 sort of a fellow I am." 
 
 Diana had recovered her strength. She raised his 
 hand, and leaned her face upon it. 
 
 " Let me stay," she repeated "let me stay!" 
 
 "No!" he said, with emphasis. "You should only 
 stay if I might tell you I am a miserable creature but 
 I love you! And I may be a miserable creature in 
 Chide's opinion everybody's. But I am not quite such 
 a cur as that." 
 
 "Oliver!" She slipped to her knees. "Oliver! don't 
 send me away!" All her being spoke in the words. 
 Her dark head sank upon his shoulder, he felt her 
 fresh cheek against his. With a cry he pressed her to 
 him. 
 
 "I am dying and I I am weak," he said, inco- 
 herently. He raised her hand as it lay across his breast 
 and kissed it. Then he dropped it despairingly. 
 
 " The awful thing is that when the pain comes I care 
 about nothing not even you nothing. And it's com- 
 ing now. Go! dearest. Good-night. To-morrow! 
 Call my servant." And as she fled she heard a sound of 
 anguish that was like a sword in her own heart. 
 
 His servant hurried to him; in the passage outside 
 Diana found Lady Lucy. They went back to the sitting- 
 room together. 
 
 "The morphia will ease him," said Lady Lucy, with
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 painful composure, putting her arm round the girl's 
 shoulders. "Did he tell you he was dying?" 
 
 Diana nodded, unable to speak. 
 
 " It may be so. But the doctors don't agree." Then 
 with a manner that recalled old days: "May I ask I 
 don't know that I have the right what he said to you ?" 
 
 She had withdrawn her arm, and the two confronted 
 each other. 
 
 "Perhaps you won't allow it," said Diana, piteously. 
 " He said I might only stay, if if he might tell me he 
 loved me." 
 
 "Allow it?" said Lady Lucy, vaguely "allow it?" 
 
 She fell into her chair, and Diana looked down upon 
 her, hanging on the next word. 
 
 Lady Lucy made various movements as though to 
 speak, which came to nothing. 
 
 "I have no one but him," she said at last, with 
 pathetic irrelevance. " No one. Isabel " 
 
 Her voice failed her. Diana held out her hands, the 
 tears running down her cheeks. " Dear Lady Lucy, let 
 me! I am yours and Oliver's." 
 
 " It will, perhaps, be only a few weeks or months 
 and then he will be taken from us." 
 
 " But give me the right to those weeks. You wouldn't 
 you wouldn't separate us now!" 
 
 Lady Lucy suddenly broke down. Diana clung to her 
 with tears, and in that hour she became as a daughter 
 to the woman who had sentenced her youth. Lady 
 Lucy asked no pardon in words, to Diana's infinite re- 
 lief; but the surrender of weakness and sorrow was 
 complete. "Sir James will forbid it," she said at last, 
 when she had recovered her calm. 
 
 "No one shall forbid it!" said Diana, rising with a 
 542
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallortj 
 
 smile. "Now, may I answer some of those letters for 
 you?" 
 
 For some weeks after this Diana went backward and 
 forward daily, or almost daily, between Beechcote and 
 Tallyn. Then she migrated to Tallyn altogether, and 
 Muriel Colwood with her. Before and after that migra- 
 tion wisdom had been justified of her children in the 
 person of the doctor. Hugh Roughsedge's leave had 
 been prolonged, owing to a slight but troublesome 
 wound in the arm, of which he had made nothing on 
 coming home. No wound could have been more oppor- 
 tune more friendly to the doctor's craving for a daugh- 
 ter-in-law. It kept the Captain at Beechcote, but it 
 did not prevent him from coming over every Sunday to 
 Tallyn to bring flowers or letters, or news from the vil- 
 lage; and it was positively benefited by such mild exer- 
 cise as a man may take, in company with a little round- 
 eyed woman, feather-light and active, yet in relation to 
 Diana, like a tethered dove, that can only take short 
 flights. Only here it was a tether self-imposed and of 
 the heart. 
 
 There was no direct wooing, however, and for weeks 
 their talk was all of Diana. Then the Captain's arm got 
 well, and Nigeria called. But Muriel would no't have 
 allowed him to say a word before departure had it not 
 been for Diana and the doctor who were suddenly 
 found to have entered, in regard to this matter, upon a 
 league and covenant not to be resisted. Whether the 
 doctor opened Diana's eyes need not be inquired; it is 
 certain that if, all the while, in Oliver's room, she and 
 Lady Lucy had not been wrestling hour by hour with 
 death or worse Diana would have wanted no one to 
 
 543
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 open them. When she did understand, there was no 
 opposing her. She pleaded not without tears to be 
 given the happiness of knowing they were pledged, and 
 her Muriel safe in harbor. So Roughsedge had his say; 
 a quiet engagement began its course in the world ; Brook- 
 shire as yet knew nothing; and the doctor triumphed 
 over Patricia. 
 
 During this time Sir James Chide watched the de- 
 velopment of a situation he had not been able to change 
 with a strange mixture of revolt and sympathy. Some- 
 times he looked beyond the tragedy which he thought 
 inevitable to a recovered and normal life for Diana; 
 sometimes he felt a dismal certainty that when Oliver 
 had left her, that recovered life could only shape itself 
 to ascetic and self-renouncing ends. Had she belonged 
 to his own church, she would no doubt have become a 
 "religious"; and he would have felt it the natural so- 
 lution. Outside the Catholic Church, the same need 
 takes shape he thought in forms less suited to a 
 woman's weakness, less conducive to her dignity. 
 
 All through he resented the sacrifice of a being so 
 noble, true, and tender to a love, in his eyes, so unfitting 
 and derogatory. Not all the pathos of suffering could 
 blunt his sense of Marsham's inferiority, or make him 
 think it "worth while." 
 
 Then, looking deeper, he saw the mother in the child; 
 and in Diana's devotion, mysterious influences, flowing 
 from her mother's fate from the agony, the sin, the last 
 tremulous hope, and piteous submission of Juliet Spar- 
 ling. He perceived that in this broken, tortured happi- 
 ness to which Diana had given herself there was some 
 sustaining or consoling element that nothing more nor- 
 mal or more earthly would have brought her; he guessed 
 
 544 

 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 at spiritual currents and forces linking the dead with the 
 living, and at a soul heroically calm among them, send- 
 ing forth rays into the darkness. His religion, which 
 was sincere, enabled him to understand her; his affection, 
 his infinite delicacy of feeling, helped her. 
 
 Meanwhile, Diana and Lankester became the sustain- 
 ing angels of a stricken house. But not all their tender- 
 ness and their pity could, in the end, do much for the two 
 sufferers they tried to comfort. In Oliver's case the 
 spinal pain and disorganization increased, the blindness 
 also; Lady Lucy became steadily feebler and more 
 decrepit. At last all life was centred on one hope 
 the coming of a great French specialist, a disciple of 
 Charcot's, recommended by the English Ambassador in 
 Paris, who was an old friend and kinsman of Lady Lucy. 
 
 But before he arrived Diana took a resolution. She 
 went very early one morning to see Sir James Chide. 
 He was afterward closeted with Lady Lucy, and he went 
 up to town the following day on Diana's business. The 
 upshot of it all was that on the morning of New Year's 
 Eve a marriage was celebrated in Oliver Marsham's 
 room by the Rector of Tallyn and Mr. Lavery. It was 
 a wedding which, to all who witnessed it, was among the 
 most heart-rending experiences of life. Oliver, practi- 
 cally blind, could not see his bride, and only morphia 
 enabled him to go through it. Mrs. Fotheringham was 
 to have been present; but there was a feminist congress 
 in Paris, and she was detained at the last moment. 
 The French specialist came. He made a careful exam- 
 ination, but would give no decided opinion. He was 
 to stay a week at Tallyn in order to watch the case, 
 and he reserved his judgment. Meanwhile he gave cer- 
 tain directions as to local treatment, and he asked that 
 
 545
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 a new drug might be tried during the night instead of 
 the second dose of morphia usually given. The hearts 
 of all in charge of the invalid sank as they foresaw the 
 inevitable struggle. 
 
 In the evening the new doctor paid a second visit to 
 his patient. Diana saw him afterward alone. He was 
 evidently touched by the situation in the house, and, 
 cautious as he was, allowed himself a few guarded sen- 
 tences throwing light on the doubt which was in effect 
 a hope in his own mind. 
 
 " Madame, it is a very difficult case. The emaciation, 
 the weakness, the nerve depression even if there were 
 no organic disease are alone enough to threaten life. 
 The morphia is, of course, a contributing cause. The 
 question before us is: Have we here a case of irreparable 
 disease caused by the blow, or a case of nervous shock 
 producing all the symptoms of disease pain, blindness, 
 emaciation but ultimately curable ? That is what we 
 have to solve." 
 
 Diana's eyes implored him. 
 
 "Give him hope," she said, with intensity. "For 
 weeks months he has never allowed himself a mo- 
 ment's hope." 
 
 The doctor reflected. 
 
 " We will do what we can," he said, slowly. " Mean- 
 while, cheerfulness! all the cheerfulness possible." 
 
 Diana's faint, obedient smile, as she rose to leave the 
 room, touched him afresh. Just married, he understood. 
 These are the things that women do! 
 
 As he opened the door for her he said, with some hesi- 
 tation: " You have, perhaps, heard of some of the curious 
 effects that a railway collision produces. A man who 
 has been in a collision and received a blow suffers after- 
 
 546
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 ward great pain, loss of walking power, impairment of 
 vision, and so forth. The man's suffering is real the 
 man himself perfectly sincere his doctor diagnoses in- 
 curable injury the jury awards him damages. Yet, in 
 a certain number of instances, the man recovers. Have 
 we here an aggravated form of the same thing? Ah, 
 madame, courage!" 
 
 For in the doorway he saw her fall back against the 
 lintel for support. The hope that he infused tested her 
 physically more severely than the agonies of the pre- 
 ceding weeks. But almost immediately she controlled 
 herself, smiled at him again, and went. 
 
 That night various changes were made at Tallyn. 
 Diana's maid unpacked, in the room communicating with 
 Marsham's; and Diana, pale and composed, made a new 
 arrangement with Oliver's male nurse. She was to take 
 the nursing of the first part of the night, and he was to 
 relieve her at three in the morning. To her would fall 
 the administration of the new medicine. 
 
 At eleven o'clock all was still in the house. Diana 
 opened the door of Oliver's room with a beating heart. 
 She wore a dressing-gown of some white stuff; her 
 black hair, released from the combs of the day, was 
 loosely rolled up, and curled round her neck and temples. 
 She came in with a gentle deliberate step; it was but 
 a few hours since the ceremony of the morning, but the 
 transormation in her was instinctive and complete. To- 
 night she was the wife alone with her husband. 
 
 She saw that he was not asleep, and she went and 
 knelt down beside him. 
 
 "Oliver, darling!" 
 
 He passed his hand over her hair. 
 
 547
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallorg 
 
 " I have been waiting for you it is our wedding 
 night." 
 
 She hid her face against him. 
 
 "Oh! you angel!" he murmured to her "angel of 
 consolation! When I am gone, say to yourself: 'I 
 drew him out of the pit, and helped him to die ' ; say ' he 
 suffered, and I forgave him everything'; say 'he was 
 my husband, and I carried him on my heart so.' " He 
 moved toward her. She put her arms under his head 
 and drew him to her breast, stooping over him and 
 kissing him. 
 
 So the first part of the night went by, he very much 
 under the influence of morphia, and not in pain ; murmur- 
 ed words passing at intervals between them, the out- 
 ward signs of an inward and ineffable bond. Often, as 
 she sat motionless beside him, the thought of her mother 
 stirred in her heart father, mother, husband close, 
 close all of them "closer than hands and feet" one 
 with her and one with God. 
 
 About two o'clock she gave him the new drug, he 
 piteously consenting for her sake. Then in a mortal 
 terror she resumed her place beside him. In a few 
 minutes surely the pain, the leaping hungry pain would 
 be upon him, and she must see him wrestle with it de- 
 fenceless. She sat holding her breath, all existence 
 gathered into fear. 
 
 But the minutes passed. She felt the tension of his 
 hand relax. He went to sleep so gently that in her 
 infinite relief she too dropped into sleep, her head beside 
 his, the black hair mingling with the gray on the same 
 pillow. 
 
 The servant coming in, as he had been told, looked at 
 them in astonishment, and stole away again. 
 
 548
 
 The Testing of Diana Mallory 
 
 An hour or so later Oliver woke. 
 
 " I have had no morphia, and I am not in pain. My 
 God! what does it mean?" 
 
 Trembling, he put out his hand. Yes! Diana was 
 there asleep in her chair. His wife! 
 
 His touch roused her, and as she bent over him he 
 saw her dimly in the dim light her black hair, her white 
 dress. 
 
 " You can bring that old French fellow here whenever 
 you like," he said, holding her. Then, faintly, his eyes 
 closed: "This is New Year's Day." 
 
 Once more Diana's kisses fell " on the tired heart like 
 rain"; and when she left him he lay still, wrapped in 
 a tangle of thought which his weakness could not un- 
 ravel. Presently he dropped again into sleep. 
 
 Diana too slept, the sleep of a young exhaustion; 
 and when she woke up, it was to find her being flooded 
 with an upholding, enkindling joy, she knew not how or 
 whence. She threw open the window to the frosty 
 dawn, thinking of the year before and her first arrival 
 at Beechcote. And there, in the eastern sky no radi- 
 ant planet but a twinkling star, in an ethereal blue; 
 and from the valley below, dim joyous sounds of bells. 
 
 THE END
 
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