Dunstan sprang up and _non scese, no, precipitò_ down the hillside. Clara looked anxiously after him. These were the saddening moments of twilight, when sunset glories are gloom and we are not yet quite reconciled to night. Some one of the festal party said that the evening was ominously beautiful--it seemed there could never be another to compare with it. Splendours were exhausted. The Dumplings stands upon a low, craggy hillock at the water’s edge. In front is a bit of precipice; then a scarped slope, covered with débris, such as bricks, stones, broken bottles, sardine boxes, and chicken bones; then rocks again and water. On the landward side the rough hillock is still steep, but overcome by a path circling the crumbling round of the fort. This path is rather up and down, enough so to blow most dowagers and duennas; the ascent has therefore its great uses in the world, and many a tender word has been gasped from panting hearts of those who panted up together, eluding, for precious moments, the stern duenna below. Dunstan climbed rapidly up. It was but a few steps, yet in the moment all that had ever passed between him and Diana came powerfully back, as all the sounds of a lingering storm are suddenly embodied in one neighbour thunder-clap, and all its playfully terrible lightnings, illuminating scenes far away, concentre in the keen presence and absence of the flash that strikes near by. The evening, whose ominous beauty had impressed him also, was so still that he could hear gushes of gay laughter from the party. He could see nothing of Diana. She must be within the fort. As he stepped along the narrow ledge of the pathway, he checked himself an instant before entering the ruined gateway, and called “Diana!” No answer! Could she have gone elsewhere? He sprang within the inclosure. Diana was there. She sat leaning against an angle of the crumbling wall. As he entered, she turned towards him a ghastly and agonised face. She did not stir. She was pressing her handkerchief to her arm. He was at her side in an instant. “Blood! blood again!” he said, with a dreadful shudder. “It shall not part us now--Diana, my love! my love!” He took her very tenderly in his arms. Blood was flowing freely from a wound in her arm. He tore off his cravat and checked the flow and was binding the place with his handkerchief. The agonised look on her face changed to a smile of gentleness. “Harry,” she said, “this is nothing--a scratch--I fainted and fell. That was the old wound. I am dying with the old wound. Dying to-day, when I was happy again--to-day, when I know you love me still.” “Love you--oh, Diana! I have been waiting through all this long despair for this one moment. I knew the terror must pass away that separated us, and now a new terror comes--the old wound--dying--no! no! Oh, my God!”