'Well, I won't talk commonplaces about the world,' said Redworth. 'We can none of us afford to have it against us. Consider a moment: to your friends you are the Diana Merion they knew, and they will not suffer an injury to your good name without a struggle. But if you fly? You leave the dearest you have to the whole brunt of it.
'They will, if they love me.'
'They will. But think of the shock to her. Lady Dunstane reads you—'
'Not quite. No, not if she even wishes me to stay!' said Diana.
He was too intent on his pleading to perceive a signification.
'She reads you as clearly in the dark as if you were present with her.'
'Oh! why am I not ten years older!' Diana cried, and tried to face round to him, and stopped paralyzed. 'Ten years older, I could discuss my situation, as an old woman of the world, and use my wits to defend myself.'
'And then you would not dream of flight before it!'
'No, she does not read me: no! She saw that I might come to The Crossways. She—no one but myself can see the wisdom of my holding aloof, in contempt of this baseness.'
'And of allowing her to sink under that which your presence would arrest. Her strength will not support it.'