"My child, he positively worships the ground you walk upon. Ah, my love, _it is something to have a father_! I need scarcely tell you that his first idea of your excellence was inspired by those glowing descriptions of your goodness, your beauty, your heroism, which I favoured him with, _en passant_, during our conversations at Cotenoir, where the happy accident of a business transaction first introduced me to him. The interests of my only child have ever been near and dear to me; and where a duller man would have perceived only a wealthy stranger, my paternal instincts recognized at a glance the predestined husband of my daughter. It needed my wide experience of life--and, as I venture to believe, my subtle knowledge of the human heart--to understand that a man who had lived for five-and-thirty years buried alive in a French province--a charming place, my love, and for your refined taste replete with interest--never seeing a mortal except his immediate neighbours, would be the man of men to fall in love with the first attractive young woman he met among strangers. Come to me this afternoon without fail, and come early.--Yours, "H.N.C.P." Diana obeyed this summons submissively, but still troubled by that strange sense of bewilderment which had affected her since her stormy interview with Captain Paget. She was not quite certain of herself. The old dreams--the sweet foolish girlish fancies--were not yet put away altogether from her mind; but she knew that they were foolish, and she was half-inclined to believe that there had been some wisdom in her father's scorn. "What do I want more?" she asked herself. "He is good and brave and true, and he loves me. If I were a princess, my marriage would be negotiated for me by other people, and I should have reason to consider myself very happy if the man whom the state selected for my husband should prove as good a man as Gustave Lenoble. And he loves me; me, who have never before had power over a man's heart!" She walked across Hyde Park on this occasion, as on the last; and her thoughts, though always confused--mere rags and scraps of thought--were not all unpleasant. There was a smile, half shy, half tender, on her face as she went into the little sitting-room where Gustave was waiting for her. She had seen his hat and overcoat in the passage, and knew that he was there waiting for her. To this poor desolate soul there was something sweet in the idea of being waited for. As she stood but a little within the doorway, blushing, almost trembling with the sense of her changed position, her lover came across the room and took her in his arms. The strong brave arms held her to his breast; and in that one embrace he took her to his heart, and made her his own for ever.