The paper of Mr. Tonans was named by him. 'You have not seen it?
'I have not opened it yet.'
He sprang up. 'The truth is, those fellows can now afford to buy right and left, corrupt every soul alive! There must have been a spy at the keyhole. I'm pretty certain—I could swear it was not breathed to any ear but mine; and there it is this morning in black and white.'
'What is?' cried Diana, turning to him on her chair.
'The thing I told you last night.'
Her lips worked, as if to spell the thing. 'Printed, do you say?' she rose.
'Printed. In a leading article, loud as a trumpet; a hue and cry running from end to end of the country. And my Chief has already had the satisfaction of seeing the secret he confided to me yesterday roared in all the thoroughfares this morning. They've got the facts: his decision to propose it, and the date—the whole of it! But who could have betrayed it?'
For the first time since her midnight expedition she felt a sensation of the full weight of the deed. She heard thunder.
She tried to disperse the growing burden by an inward summons to contempt of the journalistic profession, but nothing would come. She tried to minimize it, and her brain succumbed. Her views of the deed last night and now throttled reason in two contending clutches. The enormity swelled its dimensions, taking shape, and pointing magnetically at her. She stood absolutely, amazedly, bare before it.
'Is it of such very great importance?' she said, like one supplicating him to lessen it.