Early in the evening Charlotte retired, worn out by the day's physical weariness, in spite of Valentine's fond companionship. Later, when it was dusk, Diana came downstairs with the news that the invalid was sleeping quietly. Mrs. Sheldon was dozing in her arm-chair, the Dissenting minister having fallen to the ground; and Valentine was leaning, with folded arms, on the broad window-sill looking out into the shadowy garden. Mr. Sheldon had given them very little of his society during that day. He went out immediately after his interview with Valentine, on a sea-coast ramble, which lasted till dinner-time. After dinner he remained in the room where they had dined. He was there now. The light of the candles, by which he read his papers, shone out upon the dusk. "Will you come for a stroll with me, Diana?" asked Valentine. Miss Paget assented promptly; and they went out into the garden, beyond the reach of Mr. Sheldon's ears, had that gentleman been disposed to place himself at his open window in the character of a listener. "I want to tell you my plans about Charlotte," Valentine began. "I am going to London to-morrow to search for a greater physician than Dr. Doddleson. I shall find my man in an hour or so; and, if possible, shall return with him in the evening. There is no apparent reason to anticipate any sudden change for the worse; but if such a change should take place, I rely on you, dear, to give me the earliest tidings of it. I suppose you can get a fly here, if you want one?" "I can get to St. Leonards, if that is what you mean," Miss Paget answered promptly. "I dare say there is a fly to be had; if not, I can walk there. I am not afraid of a few miles' walk, by day or night. If there should be a change, Valentine--which God forbid--I will telegraph the tidings of it to you." "You had better address the message to me at Rancy's, Covent Garden; the house where the Ragamuffins have their rooms, you know, dear. That is a more central point than my lodgings, and nearer the terminus. I will call there two or three times in the course of the day." "You may trust my vigilance, Valentine. I did not think it was in my nature to love any one as I love Charlotte Halliday." Gustave Lenoble's letters lying unanswered in her desk asserted the all-absorbing nature of Diana's affection for the fading girl. She _was_ fading. The consciousness of this made all other love sacrilege, as it seemed to Diana. She sat up late that night to answer Gustave's last letter of piteous complaint.