"Perhaps—since soon after I came home from Clifton. It had not begun then; how soon it began after, I cannot tell. It was so gradual."
"When did you discover a change?"
"I felt it—I hardly discovered it—a good while ago, I think. But I did not in the least know what it was. I wished—Basil, it is very odd!"—and the colour rose in Diana's cheeks,—"I wished that I could love you."
The minister smiled, and there was a suspicious drop in his eyes, which
I think to hide, he stooped and kissed Rosy.
"Go on. When did you come to a better understanding?"
"I don't think I recognised it until—I told mother, not a great while ago, that I cared for nobody in the world but you; but that was different; I meant something different; I do not think I recognised it fully, until—you will think me very strange—until I saw—Evan Knowlton."
"And then?" said Basil with a quick look at his wife. Diana's eyes were dreamily going out of the window, and her lips wore the rare smile which had vexed Evan, and which he himself had never seen on them before that day.
"Then,—he ventured to remind me that—once—it was not true."
"What?" said Basil, laughing. "Your mother makes very confused statements, Rosy?"
"He was mortified, I think, that I did not seem to feel more at seeing him; and then he dared to remind me that I had married a man I did not"—Diana left the word unspoken.