But presently, to his astonishment, Diana began to talk, in her natural voice, without a trace of preoccupation or embarrassment. She poured out her latest recollections of Ferrier. She spoke, brushing away her tears sometimes, of his visit in the morning, and his talk as he lay beside them on the grass--his recent letters to her--her remembrance of him in Italy.
Marsham listened in silence. What she said was new to him, and often bitter. He had known nothing of this intimate relation which had sprung up so rapidly between her and Ferrier. While he acknowledged its beauty and delicacy, the very thought of it, even at this moment, filled him with an irritable jealousy. The new bond had arisen out of the wreck of those he had himself broken; Ferrier had turned to her, and she to Ferrier, just as he, by his own acts, had lost them both; it might be right and natural; he winced under it--in a sense, resented it--none the less.
And all the time he never ceased to be conscious of the newspaper in his breast-pocket, and of that faint pencilled line that seemed to burn against his heart.
Would she shrink from him, finally and irrevocably, if she knew it? Once or twice he looked at her curiously, wondering at the power that women have of filling and softening a situation. Her broken talk of Ferrier was the only possible talk that could have arisen between them at that moment without awkwardness, without risk. To that last ground of friendship she could still admit him, and a wounded self-love suggested that she chose it for his sake as well as Ferrier's.
Of course, she had seen him with Alicia, and must have drawn her conclusions. Four months after the breach with her!--and such a breach! As he walked beside her through the radiant scented garden, with its massed roses and delphiniums, its tangle of poppy and lupin, he suddenly beheld himself as a kind of outcast--distrusted and disliked by an old friend like Chide, separated forever from the good opinion of this girl whom he had loved, suspected even by his mother, and finally crushed by this unexpected tragedy, and by the shock of Barrington's unpardonable behavior.
Then his whole being reacted in a fierce protesting irritation. He had been the victim of circumstance as much as she. His will hardened to a passionate self-defence; he flung off, he held at bay, an anguish that must and should be conquered. He had to live his life. He would live it.
They passed into the orchard, where, amid the old trees, covered with tiny green apples, some climbing roses were running at will, hanging their trails of blossom, crimson and pale pink, from branch to branch. Linnets and blackbirds made a pleasant chatter; the grass beneath the trees was rich and soft, and through their tops, one saw white clouds hovering in a blazing blue.
Diana turned suddenly toward the house.
"I think we may go back now," she said, and her hand contracted and her lip, as though she realized that her dear dead friend had left her roof forever.
They hurried back, but there was still time for conversation.