felt that the day had been an abject and intolerable failure!  Did the fact that she so felt it bear strange witness to the truth that at the bottom of her anger and her cruelty there was a masked and distorted something which was not wholly vile—­which was, in fact, the nature’s tribute to something nobler than itself?  That Diana shivered at and repulsed her was the hot-iron that burned and seared.  And that she richly deserved it—­and knew it—­made its smart not a whit the less.

* * * * *

Fanny did not appear at dinner.  Mrs. Colwood and Diana dined alone—­Diana very white and silent.  After dinner, Diana began slowly to climb the shallow old staircase.  Mrs. Colwood followed her.

“Where are you going?” she said, trying to hold her back.

Diana looked at her.  In the girl’s eyes there was a sudden and tragic indignation.

“Do you all know?” she said, under her breath—­“all—­all of you?” And again she began to mount, with a resolute step.

Mrs. Colwood dared not follow her any farther.  Diana went quickly up and along the gallery; she knocked at Fanny’s door.  After a moment Mrs. Colwood heard it opened, and a parley of voices—­Fanny’s short and sullen, Diana’s very low.  Then the door closed, and Mrs. Colwood knew that the cousins were together.

How the next twenty minutes passed, Mrs. Colwood could never remember.  At the end of them she heard steps slowly coming down the stairs, and a cry—­her own name—­not in Diana’s voice.  She ran out into the hall.

At the top of the stairs, stood Fanny Merton, not daring to move farther.  Her eyes were starting out of her head, her face flushed and distorted.

“You go to her!” She stooped, panting, over the balusters, addressing Mrs. Colwood.  “She won’t let me touch her.”

Diana descended, groping.  At the foot of the stairs she caught at Mrs. Colwood’s hand, went swaying across the hall and into the drawing-room.  There she closed the door, and looked into Mrs. Colwood’s eyes.  Muriel saw a face in which bloom and first youth were forever dead, though in its delicate features horror was still beautiful.  She threw her arms round the girl, weeping.  But Diana put her aside.  She walked to a chair, and sat down.  “My mother—­” she said, looking up.

Her voice dropped.  She moistened her dry lips, and began once more:  “My mother—­”

But the brain could maintain its flickering strength no longer.  There was a low cry of “Oliver!” that stabbed the heart; then, suddenly, her limbs were loosened, and she sank back, unconscious, out of her friend’s grasp and ken.

CHAPTER XI

“Her ladyship will be here directly, sir.”  Lady Lucy’s immaculate butler opened the door of her drawing-room in Eaton Square, ushered in Sir James Chide, noiselessly crossed the room to see to the fire, and then as noiselessly withdrew.