"Captured just at the impressionable moment!" cried Winnington—"when a girl will do anything—believe anything—for the person she loves!"
"Well the prescription should be easy—at her age. Change the person!
But then comes the question: Is she loveable? Speak the truth, Mr.
Guardian!"
Winnington began a rather eager assent. Watch her with the servants, the gardeners, the animals! Then you perceived what should be the girl's natural charm and sweetness—
"'Hm. Does she show any of it to you?"
Winnington laughed.
"You forget—I am always there as the obstacle in the path. But if it weren't for the sinister influence—in the background."
And again he went off at score—describing various small incidents that had touched or pleased him, as throwing light upon what he vowed was the real Delia.
Madeleine listened, watching him attentively the while. When he took his leave and she was alone, she sat thinking for some time, and then going to a cupboard in her writing-table, which held her diaries of past years, she rummaged till she found one bearing a date fifteen years old. She turned up the entry for the sixteenth of May:
"She died last night. This morning, at early service, Mark was there. We walked home together. I doubt whether he will ever marry—now. He is not one of those men who are hurried by the mere emotion and unbearableness of grief, into a fresh emotion of love. But what a lover—what a husband lost!"
She closed the book, and stood with it in her hand—pondering.