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, 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.
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