“Dear Diana! Who could have been strong to bear this?” said she. “Why could you not let me comfort you?”
“I thought,” said Diana, “that there was to be comfort for me nevermore, until Miss Sullivan was my angel of pardon. Oh, how wise and good she is! My mother—our mother, dear sister.”
The unwilling, almost unconscious coldness that had withdrawn Clara from her friend, had utterly passed away. It shamed her now like a crime, that uncontrollable passion had made her an unacknowledged, unperceived rival. But the harm was done, and she must know it bitterly in her heart and endure silently. She kissed Diana tenderly, desolately, and gave her hand to Dunstan. They felt the tenderness: they could not see the desolation.
Paulding, who had been at the boats, bestowing paraphernalia, now appeared, and learning from the party that something was wrong, he came swinging down the slope with giant strides.
“I can walk now,” said Diana. “To-day speak to Mr. Paulding and the others only of my fall and the cut; that explains itself. The rest by-and-by,” and she smiled hopefully with that beautiful smile, sadder than tears to those who behold it and know the hopelessness of its deceiving consolation.
Paulding came up, followed by Sir Comeguys. Both showed great concern at the accident. Diana thanked them and said that she hoped it was only trifling, though a shock at first. She then walked slowly to the boats, clinging to Dunstan’s arm.
Everyone was in such consternation at Diana’s accident that she made efforts to recover her usual spirits and partly succeeded. Good Mrs. Wilkes must not be mortified by a calamity at her picnic. All the men who did not venture to be in love with Diana, or who loved elsewhere, liked her, and the ladies were not jealous of so unconscious a belle. She had breadths of sympathy. Miss Milly Center, Queen of the Birthday Festival, came and took Diana’s hand softly and was very sorry. And when Diana thanked her gently, poor Milly, on her gay birthday, burst into tears.
In Miss Milly’s walk with Mr. Dulger, she had been very exasperating. There was no object she carried that she did not drop, and few that she did not break or tear. Poor Billy was put terribly in fault by her conduct. He could not endure it another day, and when Milly finally crashed her parasol into a bag of silk filled with comminuted whale-bone, and said, “You must have it mended to-morrow before eleven, Mr. Dulger, and bring it to me,” he resolved to make the morrow’s morn the crisis. It should end for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, his dumb thraldom. He would kick away the platform and be a dangler no more, even if he broke his neck. Courage, Billy Dulger!
Mr. Belden was especially distressed at the accident. In fact, he seemed, in speaking to Clara, to assume a right to more than friendly sympathy. Clara observed, now for the first time, that singular resemblance between him and Dunstan. She saw why Diana had allowed an intimacy.
Clara, studying Belden’s face, quickly and keenly, discovered that the resemblance was not a pleasant one. All her old distrust of him returned.