Her own thoughts were filled with him to the exclusion of everything else on earth. She was almost frightened at the strength of her feeling for him, he seemed even to put aside her anxiety for her father, his life was her one passionate petition to Heaven. And she was conscious now that she wanted not only his life, but his love.
Dr. Cheyney had installed a trained nurse, and there was a young surgeon from the hospital in charge. Diana’s only privilege was to go to the door and inquire, and wait upon the doctors. She did this to the exclusion of the negroes, who considered it their duty to remonstrate with Miss Diana. In the afternoon Dr. Cheyney told her that Caleb had borne the operation so well that there was much hope. Then Diana went out bareheaded into the deserted grounds and wandered about them aimlessly, trying to regain her natural composure.
They had arrested Zeb Bartlett, and he had given his sister’s disgrace as his reason for shooting Caleb,—a belated vengeance, but one that suited the public appetite for scandal. Diana had heard it unmoved. In that dreadful moment when he lay at her feet, seemingly dead, she had forgotten Jean Bartlett, and even now, nothing in the world mattered to her but his life. Her face flushed with shame for her own indifference, the deadening of every instinct but her agonizing anxiety for his life. She had learned that love is greater than judgment and as great as mercy. She walked slowly along the path between the box-bordered flower-beds; here and there a late rose bloomed in the autumn sunshine, and in the arbor the great ungathered clusters of grapes hung purple, sweetened by frost.
Before her was the same vista which showed from the Shut Room, and she saw the river. That view recalled the room and the days her father had sat there before his illness, and she thought of her mother with that vague sweet regret with which we think of the unknown dead whom we would have loved. Then she looked up and saw a woman coming toward her from the gate. She was a stranger, yet Diana was instinctively aware of a familiarity in her bearing and her gait. She stood waiting for her approach, looking keenly at her face, which was beautiful though it looked a little haggard and worn. The woman came on, looking eagerly, in her turn, at Diana. For one so apparently wealthy and at ease, her manner was almost timid; there was a hesitation even in its eagerness as though she feared her welcome. The girl saw it and was faintly surprised. In another moment the stranger was in front of her, and she saw that she breathed like a person who had been running or was in great trepidation. She stopped, and involuntarily her hand went to her heart.
“You are Diana Royall,� she said abruptly.
Diana looked at her gently, vaguely alarmed, though at what she could not divine. Her first thought, strangely enough, was a message from Jacob, and her manner grew cold. “Yes,� she said quietly, “I am Diana Royall; can I do anything for you?�
The stranger hesitated; then her natural manner, which was full of self-command, asserted itself. “I am Mrs. Fenwick. I know you do not know me, but�—she glanced down the long garden path—“will you walk with me a moment?� she said. “I have something to say to you.�
Diana assented reluctantly. Her own heart was behind the half-closed shutters in that upper room, and at another time she would have thought the request at once remarkable and unwarranted. They turned and walked together down the garden path, and as Diana stooped to unlatch the wicket gate which shut off the rose garden from the larger grounds, her companion shaded her eyes with her hand and looked off toward the river.
“There have been some changes in this view, I think,� she said abruptly, her eyes on the landscape; “the river was more obscured by trees.�
“The railroad cut cleared a bit of forest and gave us a finer view,� replied Diana, and then she glanced quickly at her visitor, who was evidently familiar with the prospect.