‘I was worth a thought?’

‘Worth a life! worth ten thousand!’

’You have reckoned it all like a sane man:—­family, position, the world, the scandal?’

’All.  I have long known that you were the mate for me.  You have to weather a gale, Tony.  It won’t last.  My dearest! it won’t last many months.  I regret the trial for you, but I shall be with you, burning for the day to reinstate you and show you the queen you are.’

‘Yes, we two can have no covert dealings, Percy,’ said Diana.  They would be hateful—­baseness!  Rejecting any baseness, it seemed to her that she stood in some brightness.  The light was of a lurid sort.  She called on her heart to glory in it as the light of tried love, the love that defied the world.  Her heart rose.  She and he would at a single step give proof of their love for one another—­and this kingdom of love—­how different from her recent craven languors!—­this kingdom awaited her, was hers for one word; and beset with the oceans of enemies, it was unassailable.  If only they were true to the love they vowed, no human force could subvert it:  and she doubted him as little as of herself.  This new kingdom of love, never entered by her, acclaiming her, was well-nigh unimaginable, in spite of the many hooded messengers it had despatched to her of late.  She could hardly believe that it had come.

‘But see me as I am,’ she said; she faltered it through her direct gaze on him.

‘With chains to strike off?  Certainly; it is done,’ he replied.

’Rather heavier than those of the slave-market!  I am the deadest of burdens.  It means that your enemies, personal—­if you have any, and political—­you have numbers; will raise a cry . . . .  Realize it.  You may still be my friend.  I forgive the bit of wildness.’

She provoked a renewed kissing of her hand; for magnammity in love is an overflowing danger; and when he said:  ’The burden you have to bear outweighs mine out of all comparison.  What is it to a man—­a public man or not!  The woman is always the victim.  That’s why I have held myself in so long:—­her strung frame softened.  She half yielded to the tug on her arm.

‘Is there no talking for us without foolishness?’ she murmured.  The foolishness had wafted her to sea, far from sight of land.  ’Now sit, and speak soberly.  Discuss the matter.—­Yes, my hand, but I must have my wits.  Leave me free to use them till we choose our path.  Let it be the brains between us, as far as it can.  You ask me to join my fate to yours.  It signifies a sharp battle for you, dear friend; perhaps the blighting of the most promising life in England.  One question is, can I countervail the burden I shall be, by such help to you as I can afford?  Burden, is no word—­I rake up a buried fever.  I have partially lived it down, and instantly I am covered with spots.  The old false charges and this plain offence make a monster of me.’

’And meanwhile you are at the disposal of the man who falsely charged you and armed the world against you,’ said Dacier.