“They were reconciled, then? O, the dear particular lady! Does he wipe his boots on her? Did he take his love-potion very strong on the wedding night?” “Very strong, no doubt,” said Gogo. And then suddenly he clasped my skirt, and buried his face in it. “He would; it was his way,” he muttered. “O, girl, spare me and my unhappiness--my broken dreams! Did you not know? I had always a struggle to keep him from it. And now he will go down, down.” “Yes,” I said, “while she clings to his legs, as fools drown together.” “Would you not have had her try to save him?” “Yes, indeed.” “Ah! You are vindictive.” “Don’t you hear me laughing?” “Yes; like the devil.” “Is it? I should be mad indeed if I could applaud her. Do you bear in mind what she has done to me? She is of the sort who make cruelty their pander--a frowsy, garterless Jezebel. O, how I hate prudery! For five years I longed to open the windows on it, and let the air in, and whatever wholesome little devils beside. I declare I loathe myself to be of her sex. Touch me, Gogo. Am I the same, or different? O, to be sure! I wish her joy of her bargain--and him.” “She will pay. But for Noel, weak child of genius--leave me the sorrow of my broken hopes, Diana.” “And nothing else? Why did he not meet me?” “He had not the courage at the last moment.” “And so, having cut the ground from under me, he stepped back, and instigated madam to her little _coup de theâtre_, I suppose, and helped her to push me over the precipice. And you--you sympathised with and abetted him?” “Ay,” he said sorrowfully: “witness my long exile here, gnawing my fingers in the hungry moonlight.” I sank upon the ground in a passion of tears, and he mingled his grief with mine. “Child, I had loved him; and I had but to learn how he had abandoned you, to leave him. I cursed him--cursed de Crespigny. Will Jove forgive me? What matter, if I have saved you?” I lifted my drowned eyes and agonised arms. “Take me to Patty,” I cried, “and let me weep my soul out on her kind little heart.” He shook his head. “What!” I said; “you will not?” “She must not even know,” he said. “I could not trust her anxious love. She must rest as she is, aware of my endless scheming, but not of its fruits. Some day, perhaps. And in the meanwhile my lady is gone honeymooning; there is no hope of appeal to her. A breath would redeliver you to your fate, and perhaps a worse. Come, and tell me all you have suffered, poor mistress.” I crept to his feet, and in broken tones gave him the history of my misery, to the day, to the hour when he had appeared before me. “And you have not told me,” I said, “how that was.”