“I am very glad you have come,” she said, in answer to his stammered salutation, “for I was feeling lonely, which is not usual with me. Everybody whom I know gone--and our little friends upstairs are very busy, of course,” she added, with a smile. The curate had not time to think, as he probably would have done otherwise, that the idea of these little friends neglecting Diana was incredible. His mind was too full of his mission, which filled his homely countenance with purpose and eagerness. Diana saw this almost before she had completed what she was saying. She added hastily, in a different tone, “Something has happened--you have come to tell me of something? Is it news from home?” “No,” he said: “Miss Trelawny, perhaps it is something quite foolish or more; but you understand--and you will pardon me if I am wrong. Pandolfini--he is in a condition I cannot understand.” “Is he ill?” He thought she grew paler, and clasped her hands together as if something moved her. “No, not that I know of: except that he is haggard and worn--a shadow of himself. It is about this--marriage.” Diana had made a step towards him with warm and anxious interest at Pandolfini’s name. She now drew back again, a cloud falling over her. She did not make any reply, but only shook her head, and her countenance grew very grave, the smile, which was always lurking somewhere, ready to be called forth, fading altogether from her face. “You will do nothing, Miss Trelawny, you who help every one! and yet how few are in such trouble? For you must see how unsuitable it is--how it is killing him.” “Hush!” said Diana, as Pandolfini had said before; “if it is going to be, nothing unkind must be said--nothing it would hurt us or them to think of hereafter. And it is not for us to discuss,” she said, with a slight faltering in her voice; “they only can tell----” “But, Miss Trelawny, it is not for gossip, nor in the way of intrusion into other people’s affairs. But, Pandolfini, he has read my heart, and now I feel that I can read his,” said the curate, stammering and growing red. Must not she know what he meant in both cases? She stood with her hands clasped, her head drooping, but no consciousness about her, thoughtful, and almost sorrowful, as if she knew all that he would say. “Oh, Miss Trelawny,” he cried, with generous zeal, “could not you interfere? Could not you set things right? There are things a man must bear, and I don’t say you could--save him--or any of us from: give us, I mean, happiness. But this is madness, despair--I don’t know what--and it will kill him. Oh, Miss Trelawny, will not you interfere?”