"I know that," he said; "and I think you can trust me, Miss Rivers, not to forget how much it means to us both. If it meant more, there could be no doubt. If it meant less, there would be no question. It is because it means exactly what it does mean, that the situation is so difficult. I believe light will soon come; and when it comes, it will come clearly. I think it will come to me to-night. If so, I need not keep you waiting forty-eight hours. I will go up to town early to-morrow morning, and see Sir Deryck, if possible, in time to catch the 2.35 for Riversmead. Could you be here, alone, at that hour to-morrow?"

"I will send to meet the 2.35," said Diana; "and I will be here alone. Good-bye, Cousin David."

"Good-bye, Miss Rivers."

Diana went into the hall, watched him climb into the dogcart and be driven rapidly away without looking back.

Then she entered the library, closed and locked the door, and stood on the hearthrug looking up at the portrait of Falcon Rivers. The amber eyes seemed to twinkle kindly into hers; but they still said: "I shall win, Diana."

"Oh, Uncle Falcon," she whispered "was this the way to secure my happiness? Ah, if you could know the loneliness, the pain, the humiliation, the shame! To have had to ask this of any man—even of such a saint as David Rivers. And how cruelly I hurt him, by seeming to build the whole plan upon the certainty of his death."

Suddenly she broke down under the prolonged strain of the afternoon's conversation. Kneeling at her uncle's empty chair—where she had so often knelt, looking up into his kind eyes—she buried her face on her arms and wept, and wept, until she could weep no longer.