Dearest Marcus—Uncle no longer—I feel the age you don’t look, so I shall call you Marcus. It was cowardly to run away, wasn’t it? But I could not stand the atmosphere, it was too heavy. I was an idiot, but not more than that, and it was a poor joke, I admit it. I had a lovely time in spite of it, and I thank you thousands of times. I want you to ask Shan’t. She would love it so, and she would be no trouble whatever. John could look after her all day. I really think she would amuse you. I am glad I came home; Aunt Elsie, I am afraid, is in for an attack of sciatica. She was so pleased to see me. Who else has such a ridiculous aunt and such an absurd uncle as I have?
She was going to enclose a letter from Shan’t, having promised not to look at it.
“Promise?” asked Shan’t, folding it.
Diana promised. There was nothing Shan’t liked better than to write letters all by herself.
This is the one she wrote all by herself that Diana enclosed in hers “without looking”:
Dear uncle marcus, I mean my dearling will you ask me to come to scotland becawse I do love it so diana is very well but she loves hastings please say yes darling uncle marcus from your loving Shan’t.
And this is the letter that brought Uncle Marcus down from Scotland by the first train. All personal feeling must now go to the wind. What Miss Carston felt about the matter he did not care. She must tell him what she knew. She must help him. There could be now no jealousy between them. The child they loved was unhappy; he had seen that. Miss Carston must by now have seen it. Their hearts were united in a common cause. Diana must be happy. If she loved Hastings, it was the duty of Uncle Marcus, without making it difficult for Diana, to find out if Hastings loved her. Marcus was morally certain he did. Of course he did! He had fished with her and had shot with her; they had walked together and talked—Heavens, how they had talked! Didn’t Marcus know it to his cost? But nothing would matter if Diana were happy in the end and Elsie must help to that end. It was not a question of which of them had the means to make her happy; she might take all the kudos so long as Diana was happy.
Never had Uncle Marcus reached such heights of self-effacement. He now saw clearly enough that the feud between him and Miss Carston had been in the nature of a joke—a poor joke, but a joke. It had amused them to imagine themselves enemies. They were now fighters in a common cause.
Dear little Shan’t had told him all he wanted to know—in her innocence she had lightened his path and he now saw clearly. It only remained for Aunt Elsie to be as frank with him as he meant to be with her.
Aunt Elsie, knowing nothing of all this, was laid up on the sofa with an attack of sciatica and with her was Diana sympathizing.