"And when you grow older my task in all its aspects will be
harder still. You have inherited her beauty on a larger,
ampler scale, and the time will come for lovers. You will
hear of your mother then for the first time; my mind trembles
even now at the thought of it. For the story may work out
ill, or well, in a hundred different ways; and what we did in
love may one day be seen as an error and folly, avenging
itself not on us, but on our child.
"Nevertheless, my Diana, if it had to be done again, it must
still be done. Your mother, before she died, was tortured by
no common pains of body and spirit. Yet she never thought of
herself--she was tormented for us. If her vision was clouded,
her prayer unwise--in that hour, no argument, no resistance
was possible.
"The man who loves you will love you well, my child. You are
not made to be lightly or faithlessly loved. He will carry
you through the passage perilous if I am no longer there to
help. To him--in the distant years--I commit you. On him be
my blessing, and the blessing, too, of that poor ghost whose
hands I seem to hold in mine as I write.
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