Yet Diana had cut her out—­Diana was to carry off the prize!  Twenty thousand a year!  Fanny’s mind was in a ferment—­the mind of a raw and envious provincial, trained to small ambitions and hungry desires.  Half an hour before, she had been writing a letter home, in a whirl of delight and self-glorification.  The money Diana had promised would set the whole family on its legs, and Fanny had stipulated that after the debts were paid she was to have a clear, cool hundred for her own pocket, and no nonsense about it.  It was she who had done it all, and if it hadn’t been for her, they might all have gone to the workhouse.  But now her success was to her as dross.  The thought of Diana’s future wealth and glory produced in her a feeling which was an acute physical distress.  So Diana was to be married!—­and to the great parti of the neighborhood!  Fanny already saw her in the bridal white, surrounded by glittering bridesmaids; and a churchful of titled people, bowing before her as she passed in state, like poppies under a breeze.

And Diana had never said a word to her about it—­to her own cousin!  Nasty, close, mean ways!  Fanny was not good enough for Tallyn—­oh no! She was asked to Beechcote when there was nothing going on—­or next to nothing—­and one might yawn one’s self to sleep with dulness from morning till night.  But as soon as she was safely packed off, then there would be fine times, no doubt; the engagement would be announced; the presents would begin to come in; the bridesmaids would be chosen.  But she would get nothing out of it—­not she; she would not be asked to be bridesmaid.  She was not genteel enough for Diana.

Diana—­Diana!—­the daughter—­

Fanny’s whole nature gathered itself as though for a spring upon some prey, at once tempting and exasperating.  In one short fortnight the inbred and fated antagonism between the two natures had developed itself—­on Fanny’s side—­to the point of hatred.  In the depths of her being she knew that Diana had yearned to love her, and had not been able.  That failure was not her crime, but Diana’s.

Fanny looked haughtily round the table.  How many of them knew what she knew?  Suddenly a name recurred to her!—­the name announced by the butler and repeated by Mr. Birch.  At the moment she had been thinking of other things; it had roused no sleeping associations.  But now the obscure under-self sent it echoing through the brain.  Fanny caught her breath.  The sudden excitement made her head swim.—­She turned and looked at the white-haired elderly man sitting between her and Diana.

Sir James Chide!

Memories of the common gossip in her home, of the talk of the people on the steamer, of pages in that volume of Famous Trials she had studied on the voyage with such a close and unsavory curiosity danced through the girl’s consciousness.  Well, he knew!  No good pretending there.  And he came to see Diana—­and still Diana knew nothing!  Mrs. Colwood must simply be telling lies—­silly lies!  Fanny glanced at her with contempt.