“You would have been safer at Chillingburgh House, once the stricken Frenchwoman gone. And so my lord knew as well as I. Our grand dame never died of the sickness, child, but of a fit of anger—and not before her time, either! But let that pass. I saw thee on the Strand, Diana, a while ago—marked thee hither and knew the trick played on thee. A-tramp the whole night, till your body and your spirit be worn out. Is’t not so? And my lord … so tender, so protecting, so fatherly. Is’t not so?” “Lionel…!” The man changed his tone:— “Diana, ’tis but a few hundred paces to her Majesty’s House of the Blue Nuns, in St. Martin’s Lane, where our kinswoman, Madam Anastasia, would shelter you in honour and safety. Come forth now, from this place; ’tis worse, I tell you, than the Pest-house! I will go before thee; I can yet protect thee along the street, if I may not approach thee.…” Never had Diana heard that ring of passion from his lips; even when he had pleaded for her love, there had always run an undercurrent of mockery and cynicism in the tenderest word. Truly, these days changed all men’s nature. But Diana was not swayed: she was afire at the odiousness of the slander cast on him she loved. “I thank you, cousin,” she returned coldly. “But I have placed myself under Lord Rockhurst’s protection; and since you have been pleased to watch me, sir, you will have seen the Lord Constable leave this house but a few moments ago. It was in search of a coach, and it is his purpose to escort me out of the town, even this day, to my own home.” The man on the window-sill gave a fierce laugh. “Art as simple, Diana, as thou wouldst fain make out? Dost really believe thy protector—’tis a fine name, in sooth—will find thee that coach?” “Not a word more!” broke in the other. She had as strong a spirit as his own. “Who should know Lord Rockhurst better than I? Ah, who has better reason to know him? If all the world were to believe evil of him, yet would I still trust him with my life.” “And is there naught you value more than life?” “How dare you, cousin!” “Is your good name nothing to you?” he insisted. “How dare you!” she repeated. “Nay, Diana, listen to me!—Shall I tell thee what’s to happen? The Rakehell will return to thee in a little while, dejected, aye, heart-broken! Far and wide, not a horse, not a coach, not a driver to be had for love or money. He has bargained, pleaded, threatened, in vain. So thou must even trust thyself to him further—to him who is as thy father.…” Diana started, bit her lip. The words struck her; and vehemently she thrust them from her. “Then, Diana,” went on Ratcliffe, ever more cuttingly, “will he discover something strange in the character of his protective feelings.… Thou, too, will read in thine own … filial … heart. Behold, the end is not difficult to guess!” “Oh, foul-mouthed!” cried the young widow, recoiling.