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Diana turned and beckoned to Mrs. Colwood. The two ladies went toward the drawing-room, Mr. Ferrier showing the way. When he returned to the hall, Sir James Chide, its sole occupant, was walking up and down. "Who was that young lady?" said Sir James, turning abruptly. "Isn't she charming? Her name is Mallory and she has just settled at Beechcote, near here. That small fair lady was her companion.
For some weeks after this Diana went backward and forward daily, or almost daily, between Beechcote and Tallyn. Then she migrated to Tallyn altogether, and Muriel Colwood with her. Before and after that migration wisdom had been justified of her children in the person of the doctor.
He was evidently delighted to find himself at Beechcote, and it might have been divined that there was a spice of malice in his pleasure. The Vavasours had always snubbed him; Miss Mallory herself had not been over-polite to him on one or two occasions; but her cousin was a "stunner," and, secure in Fanny's exuberant favor, he made himself quite at home.
It took a back way from Beechcote, thus avoiding the crowd, which on the village side had gathered round the gates. Diana, on the steps, saw it go, following it with her eyes; standing very white and still. Then Marsham lifted his hat to her, conscious through every nerve of the curiosity among the little group of people standing by. Suddenly, he thought, she too divined it.
Lady Lucy sat in pale endurance, throwing in an occasional protest, not budging by one inch and no doubt reminding herself from time to time, in the intervals of her old friend's attacks, of the letter she had just despatched to Beechcote until, at last, Lady Niton, having worked herself up into a fine frenzy to no purpose at all, thought it was time to depart.
He had come to Overton for the Sunday, at great professional inconvenience, for nothing in the world but that he must pay this visit to Beechcote; and he had approached the house with dread dread lest he should find a face stricken with the truth.
Meanwhile, in Beechcote village, that night, a man slept lightly, thinking of Diana. Hugh Roughsedge, bronzed and full of honors, a man developed and matured, with the future in his hands, had returned that afternoon to his old home. "How is she?" Mrs. Colwood shook her head sadly. "Not well and not happy." The questioner was Hugh Roughsedge.
As the two men sat talking the messenger arrived from Beechcote with Sir James Chide's letter. From the Premier's expression as he laid it down Marsham divined that it contained Chide's refusal to join the Government. Lord Broadstone got up and began to move to and fro, wrapped in a cloud of thought. He seemed to forget Marsham's presence, and Marsham made a movement to go.
Hugh Roughsedge, reading him with a hostile eye, said to himself that if it hadn't been Lady Lucy it would have been something else. As it happened, he was quite as well aware as his mother that Marsham's visits to Beechcote of late had been far more frequent than mere neighborliness required. Marsham was in hunting dress, and made his usual handsome and energetic impression.
Upgathered and rolled away, like storm-winds from the sea, they had left a shining and a festal wave for love to venture on. Let him only yield himself feel the full swell of the divine force! He moved to the window, and looked out. Birch! What on earth brought that creature to Beechcote.
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