"Not at this moment. He was in the smoking-room a little while ago."
He passed her abruptly. Alicia Drake pursued her way to the hall. She was carrying some letters to the post-box near the front door. When she arrived there she dropped two of them in at once, and held the other a moment in her hand, looking at it. It was addressed to "Mrs. Fotheringham, Manningham House, Leeds."
Meanwhile, Diana herself was wrestling with her own fate.
When Marsham rode away from her, and she had watched his tall figure disappear into the dusk, she turned back toward the house, and saw it and the world round it with new eyes. The moon shone on the old front, mellowing it to a brownish ivory; the shadows of the trees lay clear on the whitened grass; and in the luminous air colors of sunrise and of moonrise blended, tints of pearl, of gold, and purple. A consecrating beauty lay on all visible things, and spoke to the girl's tender and passionate heart. In the shadow of the trees she stood a moment, her hands clasped on her breast, recalling Marsham's words of love and comfort, resting on him, reaching out through him to the Power behind the world, which spoke surely through this loveliness of the night, this joy in the soul!
And yet, her mood, her outlook--like Marsham's--was no longer what it had been on the hill-side. No ugly light of revelation had broken upon her, as upon him. But the conversation in the lime-walk had sobered the first young exaltation of love; it had somehow divided them from the happy lovers of every day; it had also divided them--she hardly knew how or why--from that moment on the hill when Oliver had spoken of immediate announcement and immediate marriage. Nothing was to be said--except to Muriel--till Lady Lucy knew. She was glad. It made her bliss, in this intervening moment, more fully her own. She thought with yearning of Oliver's interview with his mother. A filial, though a trembling love sprang up in her. And the sense of having come to shelter and to haven seemed to give her strength for what she had never yet dared to face. The past was now to be probed, interrogated. She was firmly resolved to write to Riley & Bonner, to examine any papers there might be; not because she was afraid that anything might come between her and Oliver; rather because now, with his love to support her, she could bear whatever there might be to bear.
She stepped into the house. Some one was strumming in the drawing-room--with intervals between the strummings--as though the player stopped to listen for something or some one. Diana shrank into herself. She ran up-stairs noiselessly to her sitting-room, and opened the door as quietly as possible.
"Muriel!"
The voice was almost a whisper. Mrs. Colwood did not hear it. She was bending over the fire, with her back to the door, and a reading-lamp beside her. To her amazement, Diana heard a sob, a sound of stifled grief, which struck a sudden chill through her own excitement. She paused a moment, and repeated her friend's name. Mrs. Colwood started. She hastily rose, turning her face from Diana.
"Is that you? I thought you were still out."