“My lord!” There was fear and warning in her cry.
“Ah, Diana, do not grudge me your tears, since ’tis all I may ever have from you!” He took a hasty turn about the room,—his eyes averted, not to read in her countenance the effect of this cry of revelation. When he came back to her, iron composure was once more upon him. “I, too, heard from my son. Harry clamours to be allowed to join us. That may not be. Less than ever now!” A church bell rang mournfully into his last words. “Why, hark! the very bells ring out the words, plague, plague!”
“Oh, my good lord!” she exclaimed, her finger on her lip.
“Aye, and is my Lady Chillingburgh still so mad?”
“Mad? No; but all London is gone mad, is labouring under a monstrous illusion. We, in this house, alone are sane. There never was such an ailment as the—” she dropped and formed the evil word only with a movement of the lips. “And if, as you see, our friends grow scarcer each Wednesday night, there are a thousand indifferent good reasons to explain their absence.”
Something in the sweet, assumed archness of her tone stirred him as could no outburst of feminine terror.
“Diana, child, I cannot permit this! You must not remain exposed to such peril. I will no longer be withheld from speaking to Lady Chillingburgh.”
“Believe me, my lord,” she prayed him earnestly, “you would but anger her; you would but be banished this house, and nothing gained indeed. Oh, do not speak!”
He took both her hands as she involuntarily flung them out.
“Then will I speak to you only. Diana, think of yourself, of Harry. The whole town is in flight. The departure of the Court has given the final signal for panic—”