That never-to-be-forgotten vision came back to Diana Paget as she sat at her work; and for a few minutes the clicking sound of the beads ceased, while she waited with clasped hands until the shadows should have passed before her eyes. The old dream came back to her like a picture, bright with colour and light. But the airy habitation which she had built for herself of old was no "palace lifting to Italian heavens its marble roof." It was only a commonplace lodging in a street running out of the Strand, with just a peep of the river from a trim little balcony. An airy second-floor sitting-room, with engraved portraits of the great writers on the newly-papered walls: on one side an office-desk, on the other a work-table. The unpretending shelter of a newspaper hack, who lives _a jour la journee_, and whose wife must achieve wonders in the way of domestic economy in order to eke out his modest earnings. This was Diana Paget's vision of Paradise, and it seemed only the brighter now that she felt it was never to be anything more than a supernal picture painted on her brain. After sitting silent for some little time, eager to talk, but waiting to be interrogated, Charlotte was fain to break silence. "You don't ask me whether I enjoyed myself in Yorkshire, Di," she said, looking shyly down at the little bunch of charms and lockets which employed her restless fingers. "Didn't I, really?" replied Diana, languidly; "I thought that was one of the stereotyped inquiries one always made." "I hope you wouldn't make stereotyped inquiries of _me_, Diana." "No, I ought not to do so. But I think there are times when one is artificial even with one's best friends. And you are my best friend, Charlotte. I may as well say my only friend," the girl added, with a laugh. "Diana," cried Charlotte, reproachfully, "why do you speak so bitterly? You know how dearly I love you. I do, indeed, dear. There is scarcely anything in this world I would not do for you. But I am not your only friend. There is Mr. Hawkehurst, whom you have known so long." Miss Halliday's face was in a flame; and although she bent very low to examine the golden absurdities hanging on her watch-chain, she could not conceal her blushes from the eyes that were so sharpened by jealousy. "Mr. Hawkehurst!" cried Diana, with unspeakable contempt. "If I were drowning, do you think _he_ would stretch out his hand to save me while you were within his sight? When he comes to this house--he who has seen so much poverty, and misery, and shame, and--happiness with me and mine--do you think he so much as remembers my existence? Do you think he ever stops to consider whether I am that Diana Paget who was once his friend and confidante and fellow-wayfarer and companion? or only a lay figure dressed up to fill a vacant chair in your drawing-room?" "Diana!"