as well as to you—­of what she proposed.  No doubt it tortured her to think of you as growing up under the cloud of her name and fate, and with her natural and tragic impetuosity she asked what she did.

     “’One day—­there will come some one—­who will love her—­in
     spite of me.  Then you and he—­shall tell her.’

“I pointed out to her that such a course would mean that I must change my name and live abroad.  Her eyes assented, with a look of relief.  She knew that I had already developed the tastes of the nomad and the sun-worshipper, that I was a student, happy in books and solitude; and I have no doubt that the picture her mind formed at the moment of some such hidden life together, as we have actually led, you and I, since her death, soothed and consoled her.  With her intense and poetic imagination, she knew well what had happened to us, as well as to herself.

“So here we are in this hermitage; and except in a few passing perfunctory words, I have never spoken to you of her.  Whether what I have done is wise I cannot tell.  I could not help it; and if I had broken my word, remorse would have killed me.  I shall not die, however, without telling you—­if only I have warning enough.

“But supposing there is no warning—­then all that I write now, and much else, will be in your hands some day.  There are moments when I feel a rush of comfort at the notion that I may never have to watch your face as you hear the story; there are others when the longing to hold you—­child as you still are—­against my heart, and feel your tears—­your tears for her—­mingling with mine, almost sweeps me off my feet.

“And when you grow older my task in all its aspects will be harder still.  You have inherited her beauty on a larger, ampler scale, and the time will come for lovers.  You will hear of your mother then for the first time; my mind trembles even now at the thought of it.  For the story may work out ill, or well, in a hundred different ways; and what we did in love may one day be seen as an error and folly, avenging itself not on us, but on our child.

“Nevertheless, my Diana, if it had to be done again, it must still be done.  Your mother, before she died, was tortured by no common pains of body and spirit.  Yet she never thought of herself—­she was tormented for us.  If her vision was clouded, her prayer unwise—­in that hour, no argument, no resistance was possible.

“The man who loves you will love you well, my child.  You are not made to be lightly or faithlessly loved.  He will carry you through the passage perilous if I am no longer there to help.  To him—­in the distant years—­I commit you.  On him be my blessing, and the blessing, too, of that poor ghost whose hands I seem to hold in mine as I write.  Let him not be too proud to take it!”

Diana put down the book with a low sob that sounded through the quiet room.  Then she opened the garden door and stepped on to the terrace.  The night was cold but not frosty; there was a waning moon above the autumnal fulness of the garden and the woods.