‘I am unaware of it,’ said Emma, who could have retorted with a like reproach.  ’I am anxious, I will not say at present for your happiness, for your peace; and I have a hope that possibly a timely word from some friend—­Lukin or another—­might induce him to consider.’

‘To pardon me, do you mean?’ cried Diana, flushing sternly.

‘Not pardon.  Suppose a case of faults on both sides.’

’You address a faulty person, my dear.  But do you know that you are hinting at a reconcilement?’

‘Might it not be?’

’Open your eyes to what it involves.  I trust I can pardon.  Let him go his ways, do his darkest, or repent.  But return to the roof of the “basest of men,” who was guilty of “the unpardonable cowardice”?  You expect me to be superhuman.  When I consent to that, I shall be out of my woman’s skin, which he has branded.  Go back to him!’ She was taken with a shudder of head and limbs.  ’No; I really have the power of pardoning, and I am bound to; for among my debts to him, this present exemption, that is like liberty dragging a chain, or, say, an escaped felon wearing his manacles, should count.  I am sensible of my obligation.  The price I pay for it is an immovable patch-attractive to male idiots, I have heard, and a mark of scorn to females.  Between the two the remainder of my days will be lively.  “Out, out, damned spot!” But it will not.  And not on the hand—­on the forehead!  We’ll talk of it no longer.  I have sent a note, with an enclosure, to my lawyers.  I sell The Crossways, if I have the married woman’s right to any scrap of property, for money to scatter fees.’

‘My purse, dear Tony!’ exclaimed Emma.  ’My house!  You will stay with me?  Why do you shake your head?  With me you are safe.’  She spied at the shadows in her friend’s face.  ’Ever since your marriage, Tony, you have been strange in your trick of refusing to stay with me.  And you and I made our friendship the pledge of a belief in eternity!  We vowed it.  Come, I do talk sentimentally, but my heart is in it.  I beg you—­all the reasons are with me—­to make my house your home.  You will.  You know I am rather lonely.’

Diana struggled to keep her resolution from being broken by tenderness.  And doubtless poor Sir Lukin had learnt his lesson; still, her defensive instincts could never quite slumber under his roof; not because of any further fear that they would have to be summoned; it was chiefly owing to the consequences of his treacherous foolishness.  For this half-home with her friend thenceforward denied to her, she had accepted a protector, called husband—­rashly, past credence, in the retrospect; but it had been her propelling motive; and the loathings roused by her marriage helped to sicken her at the idea of a lengthened stay where she had suffered the shock precipitating her to an act of insanity.

’I do not forget you were an heiress, Emmy, and I will come to you if I need money to keep my head up.  As for staying, two reasons are against it.  If I am to fight my battle, I must be seen; I must go about—­wherever I am received.  So my field is London.  That is obvious.  And I shall rest better in a house where my story is not known.’