An hour afterward, it was announced to the crowded gathering in the Dunscombe Corn Exchange that Mr. Marsham had been hurt by a stone at Hartingfield, and could not address the meeting. The message was received with derision rather than sympathy. It was universally believed that the injury was a mere excuse, and that the publication of that most damning letter, on the very eve of the poll, was the sole and only cause why the Junior Lord of the Treasury failed on this occasion to meet the serried rows of his excited countrymen, waiting for him in the packed and stifling hall.
It was the Vicar who took the news to Beechcote. As in the case of Diana herself, the misfortune of the enemy instantly transformed a roaring lion into a sucking dove. Some instinct told him that she must hear it gently. He therefore invented an errand, saw Muriel Colwood, and left the tale with her--both of the blow and the letter.
Muriel, trembling inwardly, broke it as lightly and casually as she could. An injury to the spine--so it was reported. No doubt rest and treatment would soon amend it. A London surgeon had been sent for. Meanwhile the election was said to be lost. Muriel reluctantly produced the letter in the West Brookshire Gazette, knowing that in the natural course of things Diana must see it on the morrow.
Diana sat bowed over the letter and the news, and presently lifted up a white face, kissed Muriel, who was hovering round her, and begged to be left alone.
She went to her room. The windows were wide open to the woods, and the golden August moon shone above the down in its bare full majesty. Most of the night she sat crouched beside the window, her head resting on the ledge. Her whole nature hungered--and hungered--for Oliver. As she lifted her eyes, she saw the little dim path on the hill-side; she felt his arms round about her, his warm life against hers. Nothing that he had done, nothing that he could do, had torn him, or would ever tear him, from her heart. And now he was wounded--defeated--perhaps disgraced; and she could not help him, could not comfort him.
She supposed Alicia Drake was with him. For the first time a torment of fierce jealousy ran through her nature, like fire through a forest glade, burning up its sweetness.
CHAPTER XXI
"What time is the carriage ordered for Mr. Nixon?" asked Marsham of his servant.
"Her ladyship, sir, told me to tell the stables four-twenty at Dunscombe."