'Try by-and-by to recollect it,' said Dacier.
'And you were with that poor man! How did he pass the terrible time? I pitied him.'
'He suffered; he prayed.'
'It was the best he could do. Mr. Redworth was as he always is at the trial, a pillar. Happy the friend who knows him for one! He never thinks of himself in a crisis. He is sheer strength to comfort and aid. They will drive you to the station with Mr. Thomson. He returns to relieve Sir William to-morrow. I have learnt to admire the men of the knife! No profession equals theirs in self-command and beneficence. Dr. Bridgenorth is permanent here.'
'I have a fly, and go back immediately,' said Dacier.
'She shall hear of your coming. Adieu.'
Diana gave him her hand. It was gently pressed.
A wonderment at the utter change of circumstances took Dacier passingly at the sight of her vanishing figure.
He left the house, feeling he dared have no personal wishes. It had ceased to be the lover's hypocrisy with him.
The crisis of mortal peril in that house enveloped its inmates, and so wrought in him as to enshroud the stripped outcrying husband, of whom he had no clear recollection, save of the man's agony. The two women, striving against death, devoted in friendship, were the sole living images he brought away; they were a new vision of the world and our life.