“No,” replied Diana, “love you cannot buy, but I will do all I can, if you will promise me never to let this great sorrow mar his life again, if you will help me guard him, if you will remember how beautifully he shielded your name for your child.” Letty covered her face with her hands. “Alas!” she said, “you have found a way to punish me, but I promise, Diana.” “He has been ill,” Diana went on hurriedly, “he has been in trouble, he needs me every moment, and I love him dearly; for his sake, because he wishes it, I love you also.” Mrs. Fenwick still wept; involuntarily they turned together and walked slowly toward the gate. “I want to see him,” she said at last, “I want to ask his forgiveness.” “You have it,” said Diana simply. “I dare not take you to him now, not to-night. Dr. Cheyney must tell him, I--I cannot. But his forgiveness, it is yours already.” Letty looked back over the house. A thousand haunting memories swept over her, and she shivered. “Diana,” she said, “I am rich, I must help you now.” Diana’s pale face crimsoned; her father’s honor had never seemed more sacred to her. “No,” she said simply, “you cannot.” Her mother met her eyes and turned away abruptly. At the gate she put out her hand blindly and touched Diana’s; the girl took it and kissed her. “Forgive me--mother!” she murmured. Letty clung to her a moment and then turned to go out alone. “My sin has found me out!” she cried bitterly, and dropped her veil over her face. Diana, standing in the gate, watched her go away alone. In her own anguish she was scarcely conscious of the tragic picture of the exile. In moments so poignant with feeling the great lesson of life is lost. Diana had instinctively obeyed the impulse of love and duty, for once irreconcilable with mercy, and she was unaware that she had been an instrument of one woman’s punishment. She went back to the house and found her father alone. Every impulse of her heart clamored to tell him that she knew, to sympathize, to go to him for comfort, as she had all her life. But he looked up as she entered. “Diana,” he said gently, “you look to-day as your mother did at your age.” Diana slipped down on the arm of his chair and threw her arms around his neck. “Was she beautiful, father?” she asked quietly. “Very, dear, like you,” he said; for twenty years he had woven his simple romance. Diana laid her cheek against his. “Thank you, dear,” she said, “for her memory--we will always love it together.” XXX WHEN Dr. Cheyney came down-stairs he found Colonel Royall alone, and he was able to reassure him about the patient in the west room. “He’s going to live,” he said; “he’s had a close squeak, but he’ll pull through unless something else happens. Lucky thing, too, for Zeb Bartlett.” “That poor boy is an idiot,” said the colonel reflectively. “I can’t see what he did it for?”