Diana was happy that day. Her talks with Miss Sullivan had cleared away much darkness from her mind. She was younger by many years than a week before. All the beautiful sights and scenes of her past fleeted before her in bright and changing pictures. She was thinking much of her free and huntress life in Texas. She could even forget the terrible death of her mother. The whole story of that dreadful event was no longer a dark secret with her and one other, and that other she no longer dreaded to meet--that other she need no longer exclude from her presence and her thoughts. A few hours with Miss Sullivan had changed the current of her life. She was no longer drifting hopelessly toward maddening terrors, forever in dread of herself lest she should yield to a hope that she must deem sacrilege. She had called Miss Sullivan mother, and when that lady, studying her, perhaps by the light of some bitter experience of her own, had said, like a mother firm and wise, “My child! you are hiding something from me,” Diana flung herself into this mother’s arms, and with such agonised tears as you had not looked for in her clear and fearless eyes, told the secret that had been with her like a death--between her and God and hope and life and love. And now that this, her mother, had shown her how her guiltless and natural terrors were only superstitions, and how she might blamelessly accept an offered happiness, should it ever offer, there was no more vision of death between Diana and the beloved hopes of her soul. Yet she did not wish to think of the future; therefore she was glad to be diverted in her journey by an agreeable companion. And to him, also, it was good to be with her. This radiant nature shone upon him, and if there was anywhere in his being a dwarfed and colourless germ of better emotion among the thickets of his daily thoughts, this now sprang up and seemed ready to flourish and blossom. Belden, the petted and successful man, did not with Diana promise himself his usual easy triumph. He was willing to win her by pains. But sometimes in this day, her manner was so transparently full of happiness, and to him was so frank and gracious, that he began to draw inferences rapidly favourable to himself.