“Poor Mabel! You’re a hard judge sometimes, papa! I pity Mabel. I’ve thought of her once or twice to-day, because I was so happy. You remember she was married three years ago to-morrow? She was happy then—but he’s turned out such a rogue! I think, perhaps, that’s why I said what I did just now. I want to keep Arthur as he is, a follower of the shining trail.”
The judge reflected a while on this, smoking quietly.
“I’ll tell you what Arthur said to me,” he rejoined at last. “He told me that your love for him would lead him higher than any ambition that he had ever cherished, or any hope that he’d ever had. It’s a good deal for a man to say, my girl!”
She was leaning against his knee, her cheek resting on her hand, and he could see only the soft, brown arch of her head and the cloud of hair that cloaked her shoulders.
“It’s a great deal to say,” she admitted. “It makes it harder for me to fill the place he’s set for me in his life; but I’ll try to do it. Meanwhile, papa, I hate to leave you! When I came in here to-night I came to tell you that, but we’ve been talking of Arthur. I’ve tried to be a good daughter. I hope I’ve succeeded half-way, papa?”
He patted her head again.
“The best man ever had!”
The words brought back those words of Faunce about Overton. “The best friend man ever had!” The thought thrust itself suddenly into Diane’s heart, and took her unawares. Her tense nerves quivered. She laid her head down on her father’s knee and burst into bitter, inexplicable tears.
XVII
Early the following morning, with the rain and sleet driving against the window-panes, in the fury of a late winter storm—the wild harbinger, in fact, of spring itself—Diane was married to Arthur Faunce.