But the Lord Constable had followed Diana as she moved across the room to seek the guitar. They stood together a second; he saw her hand tremble over the olive-wood case.
“Nay, child, you can never sing to-night!” he whispered.
“My lord, I must—anything to soothe her. Oh, the physicians have ever warned us of the danger of agitation for her!”
“Diana!” Lady Chillingburgh’s voice was weak and strained; her face seemed to have suddenly shrunk; extinct was the fire in the eyes. Yet the will still struggled. “Sing!”
Rockhurst stood behind Diana, a strong, quiet presence, watchful, comforting. She smiled at him over her shoulder. He bent to her, and under cover of the first chords:—
“You, at least, are not afraid?” he asked.
“No, my lord.”
Lionel Ratcliffe had taken no pains to fulfil his grandmother’s behest; and already she seemed to have forgotten it; but he had soothed Edward Hare after his own fashion—by a bumper of wine and a whispered promise to provide the travel money himself. Now in the lull he took a seat behind Madame de Mantes and, his eyes on Rockhurst and Diana, began in a fierce undertone:—
“Do you not see how it is with them? Why, in this evening’s folly everything conspires to give them to each other. You wait the ripe moment, say you? Gad! Look there, I say: there is that other woman with the man you love—claim him now! ’Tis your last chance!”
Madame de Mantes, who, since Lady Chillingburgh’s rebuke, had been sitting, her chin propped up on her hands, her curls concealing her face, turned slowly toward him. He started. For all his fortitude a shudder ran through him.—Through her mad eyes the Pestilence was looking upon him!