It was the Vicar who took the news to Beechcote.  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.  An injury to the spine—­so it was reported.  No doubt rest and treatment would soon amend it.  A London surgeon had been sent for.  Meanwhile the election was said to be lost.  Muriel reluctantly produced the letter in the West Brookshire Gazette, knowing that in the natural course of things Diana must see it on the morrow.

Diana sat bowed over the letter and the news, and presently lifted up a white face, kissed Muriel, who was hovering round her, and begged to be left alone.

She went to her room.  The windows were wide open to the woods, and the golden August moon shone above the down in its bare full majesty.  Most of the night she sat crouched beside the window, her head resting on the ledge.  Her whole nature hungered—­and hungered—­for Oliver.  As she lifted her eyes, she saw the little dim path on the hill-side; she felt his arms round about her, his warm life against hers.  Nothing that he had done, nothing that he could do, had torn him, or would ever tear him, from her heart.  And now he was wounded—­defeated—­perhaps disgraced; and she could not help him, could not comfort him.

She supposed Alicia Drake was with him.  For the first time a torment of fierce jealousy ran through her nature, like fire through a forest glade, burning up its sweetness.

CHAPTER XXI

“What time is the carriage ordered for Mr. Nixon?” asked Marsham of his servant.

“Her ladyship, sir, told me to tell the stables four-twenty at Dunscombe.”

“Let me hear directly the carriage arrives.  And, Richard, go and see if the Dunscombe paper is come, and bring it up.”

The footman disappeared.  As soon as the door was shut Marsham sank back into his cushions with a stifled groan.  He was lying on a sofa in his own sitting-room.  A fire burned in the grate, and Marsham’s limbs were covered with a rug.  Yet it was only the first week of September, and the afternoon was warm and sunny.  The neuralgic pain, however, from which he had suffered day and night since the attack upon him made him susceptible to the slightest breath of chill.

The footman returned with the newspaper.

“Is her ladyship at home?”

“I think not, sir.  I saw her ladyship go out a little while ago with Miss Drake.  Is there anything else I can get for you?”

“Make up the fire, please.  Put the cigarettes here, and don’t come till I ring.”