Di saw that nothing short of the truth would wrest his persistence from its object.
"Yes, I do," she said passionately, trembling from head to foot. "For some one who does not care for me. You and I are both in the same position. Do you see now how useless it is to talk of this any longer?"
Both had risen to their feet. Lord Hemsworth looked at Di's white convulsed face, and his own became as ashen. He saw at last that he had no more chance of marrying her than if she were lying at his feet in her coffin. Constancy, which can compass many things, avails nought sometimes.
"I beg your pardon," he said, holding out his hand to go.
"I think I ought to beg yours," she said brokenly, while their hands clasped tightly each in each. "I never meant to make you as—unhappy as—as I am myself, but yet I have."
They looked at each other with tears in their eyes.
"It does not matter," said Lord Hemsworth, hoarsely. "I shall be all right—it's you—I think of. Don't stand—mustn't stand—you're too tired. Good-bye."
Di flung herself down on her face on the sofa as the door closed. She had forgotten Lord Hemsworth's existence the moment after he had left the room. John had told him that there was nothing between her and himself. John had told him that. John had said that. A cry escaped her, and she strangled it in the cushion.
Hope does not always die when we imagine it does. It is subject to long trances. The hope which she had thought dead was only giving up the ghost now. "Chaque espérance est un œuf d'où peut sortir un serpent au lieu d'une colombe." Out of that frail shell of a cherished hope lying broken before her the serpent had crept at last. It moved, it grew before her eyes.