The Duchess for the first time put her arms about her and drew her to her embrace.
“My dear,” says she, “if you desert him I know not where he shall turn. ’Twill break his heart. And this I would say for yourself. Let us suppose (though I believe it not) that like all men he is inconstant and leaves you for another, yet may you yourself be faithful, and looking back remember with joy that when he asked for mercy you withheld nothing but gave all. On that record, and knowing that it wrongs his wife in nothing, you need not fear to face either life or death. It may bring you sorrow, but I think no shame that need trouble you.”
This she said with a certain solemnity of bearing—Diana looking up with awe. They clasped hands and she replied very simply:
“I thank your Grace. I will do my part whatever may chance. I have no words for your goodness and condescension to one so far beneath you, but my life shall be answerable to your expectations.”
She went downstairs alone and entered the chair that should take her to her new life, the Duchess remaining lost in thought.
’Twas an ardent lover indeed that met his love in Pall Mall, that commanded his servants to obey her as though she was the Duchess herself, that surrounded her with such indulgences as might befit a princess. And thus the step was took and she entered upon her new life.
’Twas marked by a strange circumstance, for on her reaching the house, her woman put a small box in her hand most carefully folded and sealed with the Bolton arms, and on Diana opening it alone, what must she discover within but a cross of brilliants, beautiful as that which adorned the gifted Mr. Pope’s Belinda. Indeed when she put it about her neck and so descended to Bolton, he gazed on her enraptured and quoted with delight the celebrated lines:
“On her fair breast a sparkling cross she wore
Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.”
adding—