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 required it. There she had no doubt;
and her will, therefore, 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, turning her face toward
the Umbrian plain, with its twinkling lights below, its stars above.
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