'Can you resist her appeal to you?'
'I must.'
'She is not in a condition to bear it well. You will pardon me, Mrs. Warwick...'
'Fully! Fully!'
'I venture to offer merely practical advice. You have thought of it all, but have not felt it. In these cases, the one thing to do is to make a stand. Lady Dunstane has a clear head. She sees what has to be endured by you. Consider: she appeals to me to bring you her letter. Would she have chosen me, or any man, for her messenger, if it had not appeared to her a matter of life and death? You count me among your friends.'
'One of the truest.'
'Here are two, then, and your own good sense. For I do not believe it to be a question of courage.'
'He has commenced. Let him carry it out,' said Diana.
Her desperation could have added the cry—And give me freedom! That was the secret in her heart. She had struck on the hope for the detested yoke to be broken at any cost.
'I decline to meet his charges. I despise them. If my friends have faith in me—and they may!—I want nothing more.'