"Yes, kill him, the cur! Diana, he did not even leave me a mother in the public mind! He maligned you. The burdens that I have carried for all the years, the horrors that I've wrestled with, the secret shames that I've hidden, he's exposed them all in the open marketplace. And he dragged you into my mire! Diana, each man must be broken in a different way. Some are broken by money, some by physical fear, some by spiritual fear, some—"
Diana interrupted. "Enoch, are you a friend of mine?"
Enoch turned his tortured eyes to hers. "I shall never tell you how much a friend I am to you, Diana. But my friendship is a fact you may draw on all the days of your life, as heavily as you will."
"And I am your friend. Though I know you so little, no friend is as dear to me as you are." She rose and coming to his side, she took his hand in both of hers.
"Dear Enoch, what a man like Brown can say of you in an article or two, has no permanent weight with the public. Scurrilous stories of that type kill themselves by their very scurrility. No matter how eagerly the public may lap up the stuff, it cannot really heed it for, Enoch, America knows you and your service. America loves you. Brown cannot dislodge you by slandering your mother. The real importance and danger of that story lies in its reaction on you. I—I could not help recalling the story of that tormented, red-haired boy who went down Bright Angel trail with my father and I had to come to help him, if I could. O Enoch, if the Canyon could only, once more, wipe Luigi Guiseppi out of your life!"
Enoch watched Diana's wide gray eyes with a look of painful eagerness.
"Nothing matters, nothing can matter, Enoch, except that you find the strength in the Canyon to go back to your work and that you leave Brown alone. That is what I want to demand of your friendship, that you promise me to do those two things."
"I shall go back, of course," replied Enoch, gravely. "I had no thought of doing otherwise. But about Brown, I cannot promise."
"Then will you agree not to go back until you have talked to me again?"
"Again? But I expect to talk to you many times, Diana! You are not going away, are you?"