"
"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 opposition 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 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 sympathy 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.
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