“Where else was the bargain made?” she asked, and shattered his last doubt. “You know that Mr. Wilding has not been here.”
Yet Blake struggled heroically against conviction.
“She went to intercede for Richard,” he protested. Miss Horton looked up at him, and under her glance Sir Rowland felt that he was a man of unfathomable ignorance. Then she turned aside her eyes and shrugged her shoulders very eloquently. “You are a man of the world, Sir Rowland. You cannot seriously suppose that any maid would so imperil her good name in any cause?”
Darker grew his florid countenance; his bulging eyes looked troubled and perplexed.
“You mean that she loves him?” he said, between question and assertion.
Diana pursed her lips. “You shall draw your own inference,” quoth she.
He breathed heavily, and squared his broad shoulders, as one who braces himself for battle against an element stronger than himself.
“But her talk of sacrifice?” he cried.
Diana laughed, and again he was stung by her contempt of his perceptions. “Her brother is set against her marrying him,” said she. “Here was her chance. Is it not very plain?”
Doubt stared from his eyes. “Why do you tell me this?”