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Updated: June 16, 2025
"There he is! coming by the fields." Diana sat down, as though her limbs trembled under her. "Did you send for him?" "Yes. You forgive me?" "Then he hasn't got my letter." She said it without looking up, as though to herself. Mrs. Colwood knelt down beside her. "It is right he should be here," she said, with energy, almost with command; "it is the right, natural thing."
Colwood all the time was of a desperately struggling soul voyaging strange seas of grief alone.
What was the meaning of that cloud under which she had grown up? She had repeated to Muriel Colwood the stock explanations she had been accustomed to give herself of the manner and circumstances of her bringing-up. To-day they seemed to her own mind, for the first time, utterly insufficient.
The speaker sat down by the fire, raised her skirt of purple cloth, and stretched a pair of shapely feet to the warmth. Her look was good-humored and lazy. "I am very happy here," said Mrs. Colwood, quietly. "Miss Mallory is so charming and so kind."
"Was that what she was saying to you?" Muriel nodded assent. Her look so anxious and tender held, enveloped her companion. "Are they in debt?" said Diana, slowly. "Terribly. They seem to be going to break up their home." "Did she tell you all about it?" Mrs. Colwood hesitated. "A great deal more than I wanted to know!" she said, at last, as though the words broke from her. Diana thought a little.
Yet it could not be denied that the congregation was unusually good for a village church; and by the involuntary sigh which Miss Mallory gave as the sermon ended, Mrs. Colwood was able to gauge the profound and docile attention with which one at least had listened to it.
Eyes more acute in her own interests than Diana's might have perceived a change in Fanny Merton, after her long conversation with Mrs. Colwood. A certain excitement, a certain triumph, perhaps an occasional relenting and compunction: all these might have been observed or guessed.
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.
Presently Chide, who had now taken the part of general adviser to Diana, which had once been filled by Marsham, strolled off with her to look at a greenhouse in need of repairs. Mrs. Colwood was called in by some household matter. Ferrier was left alone. As usual, he had a book in his pocket. This time it was a volume of selected essays, ranging from Bacon to Carlyle.
Colwood stood at the foot of the stairs a moment, lost in a trance of wonderment. Her heart was really sore for Diana's disappointment, for the look in her face, as she left the house. How on earth could the visit be shortened and the young lady removed? The striking of three o'clock reminded Muriel Colwood that she was to take the new-comer out for an hour.
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