“Oh, Mr. Pandolfini!” cried Diana, the tears rising warm and sudden into her eyes. “Let me give you some comfort if I can.” The moment was too bitter, the encounter too real, as of two souls in the wilderness, to warrant any pretence on either side that they did not understand each other. “Once the same thing happened to me. I have gone through the same. There was one whom I cared for, but who made me no return. I do not hesitate to tell you. For a time it seemed worse than death: but now it is past, and I am no longer unhappy. So will it be with you.” “Ah, my God, my God!” he cried, with sudden passion, “can such things be? You!--was he mad or blind?” Then a smile came over his haggard face, which was more pathetic than the previous look of misery. “This is to comfort me,” he said. “Yes, it is just; it was more pitiful for such a one than for me.” “I meant--it will pass away--and all will be well,” cried Diana, trembling. “Oh, believe me. I speak who know. It will be so with you.” “You think so,” he said, gently shaking his head. “_Generosissima!_ You show me the wound to heal mine. But it will not be so with me. I wish no healing: yet I will do--my duty,” he added, in a low and broken voice. “God bless you, Mr. Pandolfini!” she said, holding out her hand. This overcame him altogether. He fell upon his knees and kissed it, as men of his faith kiss the holy mysteries, and then looked at her with trembling lips and dim eyes, as we look at those we are never to see more, and stumbling to his feet, turned and hurried from the room. The tears were falling frankly and without concealment from Diana’s eyes. She was touched to the heart. Oh that such things should be! that the best of life should thus be thrown away like a flower on somebody’s path to whom it was nothing. She had forgotten Sophy altogether in the anguish of sympathy and fellow-feeling. That complication, adding as it did so much misery and difficulty, seemed to fade altogether in presence of the pang which she herself understood so thoroughly, and seemed to feel again. She had barely time to dry her eyes when she heard some one coming, and turned her back to the light to avoid a too curious gaze. It was Sophy who came in, complaining. “O Diana!” she cried, with a little start, “you are here! that was why he went away. It is very hard to see so little of him, and when he does come to be out and have him sent away.” “Oh, Sophy, my pet, don’t be unjust,” said Mrs. Norton; “how should Diana send him away? Of course he must have felt it hard that you should be out when he snatched a moment from his business. Was he very much disappointed, Diana? I am sure you would say everything that was kind.”