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 suddenly 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 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 written 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.
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