He loved her, and he would ask her for his wife. She would accept his offer; her father would rejoice in so fortunate an alliance; her friends of Bayswater would felicitate a change so desirable. And when he returned to Normandy he would take her with him, and say to his children, "Behold your mother!" And then the great rambling mansion of Cotenoir would assume a home-like aspect. The ponderous old furniture would be replaced by lightsome appointments of modern fashion; except, of course, in the grand drawing-room, where there were tapestries said to be from the designs of Boucher, and chairs and sofas in the true Louis Quinze style, of immovable bulkiness. There was but one trifling hitch in the whole scheme of happiness--Diana was a Protestant. Ah, but what then! A creature so sweet, so noble, could not long remain the slave of Anglican heresy. A little talk with Cydalise, a week's "retreat" at the Sacre Coeur, and the thing would be done. The dear girl would renounce her errors, and enter the bosom of the Mother Church. Pouff! M. Lenoble blew the little difficulty away from his finger-tips, and then wafted a kiss from the same finger-tips to his absent beloved. "And this noble heart warned me against her own father!" M. Lenoble said to himself, as he walked towards the hotel at Blackfriars where he had taken up his abode, quite unconscious that the foot of Blackfriars Bridge was not the centre of West End London. "How noble, how disinterested! Poor old man! He is, no doubt, a speculator--something even of an Adventurer. What then? He shall have an apartment at Cotenoir, his place at the family table, his _fauteuil_ by the hearth; and there he can do no harm." * * * * * There was a strange sentiment in Diana's mind after this evening's conversation with Gustave Lenoble. To feel herself beloved, to know that there was some one creature in the wide crowded world interested in, nay, even attached to her, was a mystery, a surprise, and in some sort a source of pleasure to her. That Gustave Lenoble could ever be any nearer to her than he was at the present time did not occur to her as being within the limits of possibility. She had thrust Valentine from her heart, but the empty chamber could receive no new tenant. It was not swept and garnished; nay, indeed, it was sadly littered with the shreds and patches left by the late occupant. But, while this was so, to know that she could be loved was in some manner sweet to her. "Ah, now I know that the poet is right," she said to herself. "There is no creature so desolate but some heart responds unto its own. And I have found the generous responsive heart that can pity and love me because I seem so sorely to need love and pity. All my life--my blank, empty life--I will remember and be grateful to him, the first good man who ever called my father friend; the first of all mankind who thought this poor hand worthy to be lifted to his lips." CHAPTER IV.