"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?"
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.
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