At last she attempted it.

“You have heard of our election?  And what happened?”

He nodded.  His mother had kept him informed.  He understood Marsham had been badly hurt.  Was it really so desperate?

In a cautious voice, watching the window, Muriel told what she knew.  The recital was pitiful; but Hugh Roughsedge sat impassive, making no comments.  She felt that in this quarter the young man was adamant.

“I suppose”—­he turned his face from her—­“Miss Mallory does not now go to Tallyn.”

“No.”  She hesitated, looking at her companion, a score of feelings mingling in her mind.  Then she broke out:  “But she would like to!”

His startled look met hers; she was dismayed at what she had done.  Yet, how not to give him warning?—­this loyal young fellow, feeding himself on futile hopes!

“You mean—­she still thinks—­of Marsham?”

“Of nothing else,” she said, impetuously—­“of nothing else!”

He frowned and winced.

She resumed:  “It is like her—­so like her!—­isn’t it?”

Her soft pitiful eyes, into which the tears had sprung, pressed the question on him.

“I thought there was a cousin—­Miss Drake?” he said, roughly.

Mrs. Colwood hesitated.

“It is said that all that is broken off.”

He was silent.  But his watch was on the garden.  And suddenly, on the long grass path, Diana appeared, side by side with the Vicar.  Roughsedge sprang up.  Muriel was arrested by Diana’s face, and by something rigid in the carriage of the head.  What had the Vicar been saying to her?—­she asked herself, angrily.  Never was there anything less discreet than the Vicar’s handling of human nature!—­female human nature, in particular.

Hugh Roughsedge opened the glass door, and went to meet them.  Diana, at sight of him, gave a bewildered look, as though she scarcely knew him—­then a perfunctory hand.

“Captain Roughsedge!  They didn’t tell me—­”

“I want to speak to you,” said the Vicar, peremptorily, to Mrs. Colwood; and he carried her off round the corner of the house.

Diana gazed after them, and Roughsedge thought he saw her totter.

“You look so ill!” he said, stooping over her.  “Come and sit down.”

His boyish nervousness and timidity left him.  The strong man emerged and took command.  He guided her to a garden seat, under a drooping lime.  She sank upon the seat, quite unable to stand, beckoning him to stay by her.  So he stood near, reluctantly waiting, his heart contracting at the sight of her.

At last she recovered herself and sat up.

“It was some bad news,” she said, looking at him piteously, and holding out her hand again.  “It is too bad of me to greet you like this.”

He took her hand, and his own self-control broke down.  He raised it to his lips with a stifled cry.

“Don’t!—­don’t!” said Diana, helplessly.  “Indeed—­there is nothing the matter—­I am only foolish.  It is so—­so good of you to care.”  She drew her hand from his, raised it to her brow, and, drawing a long breath, pushed back the hair from her face.  She was like a person struggling against some torturing restraint, not knowing where to turn for help.