“She does not know that I wrote to you,” said the little lady, in her pale distress.  “She wrote to you herself this evening.  I hope I have not done wrong.”

Marsham reassured her, and they had a melancholy consultation.  Diana, it seemed, had insisted on getting up that day as usual.  She had tottered across to her sitting-room and had spent the day there alone, writing a few letters, or sitting motionless in her chair for hours together.  She had scarcely eaten, and Mrs. Colwood was sure she had not slept at all since the shock.  It was to be hoped that out of sheer fatigue she might sleep, on this, the second night.  But it was essential there should be no fresh excitement, such as the knowledge of Marsham’s arrival would certainly arouse.

Mrs. Colwood could hardly bring herself to speak of Fanny Merton.  She was, of course, still in the house—­sulking—­and inclined to blame everybody, her dead uncle in particular, rather than herself.  But, mercifully, she was departing early on the Monday morning—­to some friends in London.

“If you come after breakfast you will find Miss Mallory alone.  I will tell her first thing that you are here.”

Marsham assented, and got up to take his leave.  Involuntarily he looked round the drawing-room where he had first seen Diana the day before.  Then it was flooded by spring sunshine—­not more radiant than her face.  Now a solitary lamp made a faint spot of light amid the shadows of the panelled walls.  He and Mrs. Colwood spoke almost in whispers.  The old house, generally so winning and sympathetic, seemed to hold itself silent and aloof—­as though in this touch of calamity the living were no longer its master and the dead generations woke.  And, up-stairs, Diana lay perhaps in her white bed, miserable and alone, not knowing that he was there, within a few yards of her.

Mrs. Colwood noiselessly opened a garden door and so dismissed him.  It was moonlight outside, and instead of returning to the inn he took the road up the hill to the crest of the encircling down.  Diverging a little to the left, he found himself on the open hill-side, at a point commanding the village and Beechcote itself, ringed by its ancient woods.  In the village two dim lights, far apart, were visible; lights, he thought, of sickness or of birth?—­for the poor sleep early.  One of the Beechcote windows shone with a dim illumination.  Was she there, and sleepless?  The sky was full of light; the blanched chalk down on which he stood ran northward in a shining curve, bare in the moon; but in the hollow below, and on the horizon, the dark huddled woods kept watch, guarding the secrets of night.  The owls were calling in the trees behind him—­some in faint prolonged cry, one in a sharp shrieking note.  And at whiles a train rushed upon the ear, held it, and died away; or a breeze crept among the dead beech leaves at his feet.  Otherwise not a sound or show of life; Marsham was alone with night and himself.