And more days than one. She waked up to see what she had been doing. What business had she to be thinking of Evan, when she was Basil's wife?--what right to, be even only in imagination, spending her life with him? She knew, now that she was called to look at it, that Mrs. Sutphen had spoken true, and that a process had been going on in herself which might well be likened to the process of petrifying. Everything had been losing taste and colour lately; even her baby was not the delight she had been formerly. Her mind had been warped from its healthy condition, and was growing morbid. Conscience roused up now fully, and bade Diana stop short where she was and take another course. But there she was met by a difficulty; one that many a woman has had to meet, and that few have ever overcome. To take another course, meant that she should cease thinking of Evan,--cease thinking of him even at all; for it was one of those things which you cannot do _a little_. She tried it; and she found it to be impossible. Everything and anything would set her upon the track of thinking of him; everything led to him; everything was bound up with him, either by sympathy or contrast. She found that she must think of Evan, because she loved him. She said that to herself, and pleaded it. Then do not love him! was the instant sharp answer of conscience. And Diana saw a battle set in array. That day, the day when she got to this point, was one of those which even in summer one may know on the sea-shore. It was grey and cool, and a violent easterly wind was driving the waters in from the Narrows. The moment Diana got a sight of those battle forces opposed to each other in her spiritual nature, she threw on bonnet and shawl and went out. Baby was sleeping, and she left her safely in charge of a good-tempered servant who asked no better. She went along the shore in the face of the wind, meeting, breasting, overcoming it, though with the exertion of determined strength and energy. The gale was rather fierce. It was a sight to see, the rush of that tide of waters, mighty, sweeping, rolling and tumbling in from the great sea, restless, endless. Diana did not stop to draw comparisons, yet I think she felt them even then; the wild accord of the unchained forces without and the unchained forces within. Who could stay them, the one or the other? "That is Nature," said Diana to herself; "and this is Nature; 'the troubled sea that cannot rest.' But that is spoken of the wicked; am I wicked because I cannot help what I _cannot_ help? As well put out my tiny hand and sweep back that stormy flood of water to the ocean where it comes from!--as hopefully, as practicably. What am I, _I_--but a chip or a shingle tossed and chased along on the power of the waves? The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest; that is it, it _cannot_ rest. Look at it, and think of bidding it rest!"