Diana turned suddenly toward the house.
"I think we may go back now," she said, and her hand contracted and her
lip, as though she realized that her dear dead friend had left her
roof forever.
They hurried back, but there was still time for conversation.
"You knew him, of course, from a child?" she said to him, glancing at
him with timid interrogation.
In reply he forced himself to play that part of Ferrier's
intimate--almost son--which, indeed, she had given him, by implication,
throughout her own talk. In this she had shown a tact, a kindness for
which he owed her gratitude. She must have heard the charges brought
against him by the Ferrier party during the election, yet, noble
creature that she was, she had not believed them. He could have thanked
her aloud, till he remembered that marked newspaper in his pocket.
Once a straggling rose branch caught in her dress. He stooped to free
it. Then for the first time he saw her shrink. The instinctive service
had made them man and woman again--not mind and mind; and he perceived,
with a miserable throb, that she could not be so unconscious of his
identity, his presence, their past, as she had seemed to be.
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