“Well, upon my word!”—­he put the letter down—­“upon my word!"’ He turned to his sweetheart.  “Ettie!—­you marry me in a month!—­mind that!  Hang Berlin!  I scorn their mean proposals.  London requires me.”  He drew himself up.  “But first” (he looked at Lady Niton, his flushed face twitching a little) “justice!” he said, peremptorily—­“justice on the chief offender.”

And walking across to her, he stooped and kissed her.  Then he beckoned to Ettie to do the same.  Very shyly the girl ventured; very stoically the victim, submitted.  Whereupon, Bobbie subsided, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and a violent quarrel began immediately between him and Lady Niton on the subject of the part of London in which he and Ettie were to live.  Fiercely the conflict waxed and waned, while the young girl’s soft irrepressible laughter filled up all the gaps and like a rushing stream carried away the detritus—­the tempers and rancors and scorns—­left by former convulsions.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, Diana and Sir James paced the garden.  He saw that she was silent and absent-minded, and guessed uneasily at the cause.  It was impossible that any woman of her type, who had gone through the experience that she had, should remain unmoved by the accounts now current as to Oliver Marsham’s state.

As they returned across the lawn to the house the two lovers came out to meet them.  Sir James saw the look with which Diana watched them coming.  It seemed to him one of the sweetest and one of the most piteous he had ever seen on a human face.

“I shall descend upon you next week,” said Lady Niton abruptly, as Diana made her farewells.  “I shall be at Tallyn.”

Diana did not reply.  The little fiancee insisted on the right to take her to her pony-carriage, and kissed her tenderly before she let her go.  Diana had already become as a sister to her and Bobbie, trusted in their secrets and advising in their affairs.

Lady Niton, standing by Sir James, looked after her.

“Well, there’s only one thing in the world that girl wants; and I suppose nobody in their senses ought to help her to it.”

“What do you mean?”

She murmured a few words in his ear.

“Not a bit of it!” said Sir James, violently.  “I forbid it.  Don’t you go and put anything of the sort into her head.  The young man I mean her to marry comes back from Nigeria this very day.”

“She won’t marry him!”

“We shall see.”

* * * * *

Diana drove home through lanes suffused with sunset and rich with autumn.  There had been much rain through September, and the deluged earth steamed under the return of the sun.  Mists were rising from the stubbles, and wrapping the woods in sleep and purple.  To her the beauty of it all was of a mask or pageant—­seen from a distance across a plain or through a street-opening—­lovely and remote.  All that was real—­all that lived—­was the image within the mind; not the great earth-show without.