He moved on, consumed with regrets and discomfort.  During the two months which had elapsed since Diana had left England, he had, in his own opinion, gone through a good deal.  He was pursued by the memory of that wretched afternoon when he had debated with himself whether he should not, after all, go and intercept her at Charing Cross, plead his mother’s age and frail health, implore her to give him time; not to break off all relations; to revert, at least, to the old friendship.  He had actually risen from his seat in the House of Commons half an hour before the starting of the train; had made his way to the Central Lobby, torn by indecision; and had there been pounced upon by an important and fussy constituent.  Of course, he could have shaken the man off.  But just the extra resolution required to do it had seemed absolutely beyond his power, and when next he looked at the clock it was too late.  He went back to the House, haunted by the imagination of a face.  She would never have mentioned her route unless she had meant “Come and say good-bye!”—­unless she had longed for a parting look and word.  And he—­coward that he was—­had shirked it—­had denied her last mute petition.

Well!—­after all—­might it not simply have made matters worse?—­for her no less than for him?  The whole thing was his mother’s responsibility.  He might, no doubt, have pushed it all through, regardless of consequences; he might have accepted the Juliet Sparling heritage, thrown over his career, braved his mother, and carried off Diana by storm—­if, that is, she would ever have allowed him to make the sacrifice as soon as she fully understood it.  But it would have been one of the most quixotic things ever done.  He had made his effort to do it; and—­frankly—­he had not been capable of it.  He wondered how many men of his acquaintance would have been capable of it.

Nevertheless, he had fallen seriously in his own estimation.  Nor was he unaware that he had lost a certain amount of consideration with the world at large.  His courtship of Diana had been watched by a great many people:  and at the same moment that it came to an end and she left England, the story of her parentage had become known in Brookshire.  There had been a remarkable outburst of public sympathy and pity, testifying, no doubt, in a striking way, to the effect produced by the girl’s personality, even in those few months of residence.  And the fact that she was not there, that only the empty house that she had furnished with so much girlish pleasure remained to bear its mute testimony to her grief, made feeling all the hotter.  Brookshire beheld her as a charming and innocent victim, and, not being able to tell her so, found relief in blaming and mocking at the man who had not stood by her.  For it appeared there was to be no engagement, although all Brookshire had expected it.  Instead of it, came the announcement of the tragic truth, the girl’s hurried departure, and the passionate feeling on her behalf of people like the Roughsedges, or her quondam critic, the Vicar.