noble statesman’s admiration of her, for the confusion of her unmanly and unworthy husband.  And Emma was nevertheless a thoughtful person; only her heart was at the head of her thoughts, and led the file, whose reasoning was accurate on erratic tracks.  All night her heart went at fever pace.  She brought the repentant husband to his knees, and then doubted, strongly doubted, whether she would, whether in consideration for her friend she could, intercede with Diana to forgive him.  In the morning she slept heavily.  Sir Lukin had gone to London early for further tidings.  She awoke about midday, and found a letter on her pillow.  It was Diana’s.  Then while her fingers eagerly tore it open, her heart, the champion rider over-night, sank.  It needed support of facts, and feared them:  not in distrust of that dear persecuted soul, but because the very bravest of hearts is of its nature a shivering defender, sensitive in the presence of any hostile array, much craving for material support, until the mind and spirit displace it, depute it to second them instead of leading.

She read by a dull November fog-light a mixture of the dreadful and the comforting, and dwelt upon the latter in abandonment, hugged it, though conscious of evil and the little that there was to veritably console.

The close of the letter struck the blow.  After bluntly stating that Mr. Warwick had served her with a process, and that he had no case without suborning witnesses, Diana said:  ’But I leave the case, and him, to the world.  Ireland, or else America, it is a guiltless kind of suicide to bury myself abroad.  He has my letters.  They are such as I can own to you; and ask you to kiss me—­and kiss me when you have heard all the evidence, all that I can add to it, kiss me.  You know me too well to think I would ask you to kiss criminal lips.  But I cannot face the world.  In the dock, yes.  Not where I am expected to smile and sparkle, on pain of incurring suspicion if I show a sign of oppression.  I cannot do that.  I see myself wearing a false grin—­your Tony!  No, I do well to go.  This is my resolution; and in consequence,—­my beloved! my only truly loved on earth!  I do not come to you, to grieve you, as I surely should.  Nor would it soothe me, dearest.  This will be to you the best of reasons.  It could not soothe me to see myself giving pain to Emma.  I am like a pestilence, and let me swing away to the desert, for there I do no harm.  I know I am right.  I have questioned myself—­it is not cowardice.  I do not quail.  I abhor the part of actress.  I should do it well—­too well; destroy my soul in the performance.  Is a good name before such a world as this worth that sacrifice?  A convent and self-quenching;—­cloisters would seem to me like holy dew.  But that would be sleep, and I feel the powers of life.  Never have I felt them so mightily.  If it were not for being called on to act and mew, I would stay, fight, meet a bayonet-hedge of charges and rebut them.  I have my natural weapons and my cause.  It must be confessed that I have also more knowledge of men and the secret contempt—­it must be—­the best of them entertain for us.  Oh! and we confirm it if we trust them.  But they have been at a wicked school.