Once before, Mr. Sheldon had found himself face to face with ruin complete and irredeemable. When all common expedients had been exhausted, and his embarrassments had become desperate, he had found a desperate expedient, and had extricated himself from those embarrassments. The time had come in which a new means of extrication must be found as desperate as the last, if need were. As Philip Sheldon had faced the situation before, he faced it now--unshrinkingly, though with a gloomy anger against destiny. It was hard for him that such a thing should have to be repeated. If he pitied anybody, he pitied himself; and this kind of compassion is very common with this kind of character. Do not the Casket letters show us--if we may trust them to show us anything--that Mary Stuart was very sorry for herself when she found herself called upon to make an end of Darnley? In Mr. Swinburne's wonderful study in morbid anatomy, there are perhaps no finer touches than those which reveal the Queen's selfish compassion for her own heartlessness. CHAPTER IV. DIANA ASKS FOR A HOLIDAY. Diana informed Mrs. Sheldon of her father's wish that she should leave Bayswater. Before doing this, she had obtained the Captain's consent to the revelation of her engagement to be married. "I don't like to leave them in a mysterious manner, papa," she said. "I have told Charlotte a good deal already, under a promise of secrecy; but I should like to tell Mrs. Sheldon that there is a real reason for my leaving her." "Very well, my love, since you are so amazingly squeam--honourable," interposed the Captain, remembering how much depended on his daughter's marriage, and what a very difficult person he had found her. "Yes, my dear, of course; I respect your honourable feeling; and--er--yes--you may tell Mrs. Sheldon--and that of course includes Mr. Sheldon, since the lady is but an inoffensive cipher--that you are about to be married--to a French gentleman of position. You will, of course, be obliged to mention his name, and then will arise the question as to where and how you met him; and, upon my word, it's confoundedly awkward that you should insist on enlightening these people. You see, my dear girl, what I want to avoid, for the present, is any chance of collision between the Sheldons and Lenoble." "Papa!" exclaimed Diana, impatiently, "why must there be all this scheming?" "O, very well, Miss Paget; tell them what you like!" cried the Captain, aggravated beyond endurance by such inherent perversity. "All I can say is, that a young woman who quarrels with her bread-and-butter is likely to come to dry bread; and very little of that, perhaps. I wash my hands of the business. Tell them what you like." "I will not tell them more than I feel to be actually necessary, papa," the young lady replied calmly. "I do not think Mr. Sheldon will trouble himself about M. Lenoble. He seems very much occupied by his own affairs." "Humph! Sheldon seems harassed, anxious, does he?"