her such delight as she had known in the
midst of her wanderings; though shame and danger lurked at every
corner, and poverty, disguised in that tawdry masquerade habit in which
the swindler dresses it, accompanied her wherever she went.

She had been happy with him because she had loved him. That close
companionship, sisterly and brotherly though it had seemed, had been
fatal for the lonely and friendless daughter of Horatio Paget. In her
desolation she had clung to the one creature who was kind to her, who
did not advertise his disdain for herself and her sex, or openly avow
that she was a nuisance and an encumbrance. Every slight put upon her
by her father had strengthened the chain that bound her to Valentine
Hawkehurst; and as the friendship between them grew closer day by day,
until all her thoughts and fancies took their colour from his, it
seemed a matter of course that he should love her, and she never
doubted his feelings or questioned her own. There had been much in his
conduct to justify her belief that she was beloved; so this
inexperienced, untutored girl may surely be forgiven if she rested her
faith in that fancied affection, and looked forward to some shadowy
future in which she and Valentine would be man and wife, all in all to
each other, free from the trammels of Captain Paget's elaborate
schemes, and living honestly, somehow or other, by means of literature,
or music, or pen-and-ink caricatures, or some of those liberal arts
which have always been dear to the children of Bohemia. They would have
lodgings in some street near the Thames, and go to a theatre or a
concert every evening, and spend long summer days in suburban parks or
on suburban commons, he lying on the grass smoking, she talking to him
or reading to him, as his fancy might dictate. Before her twentieth
birthday, the proudest woman is apt to regard the man she loves as a
grand and superior creature; and there had been a certain amount of
reverential awe mingled with Diana's regard for Mr. Hawkehurst,
scapegrace and adventurer though he was.

Little by little that bright girlish dream had faded away. Fancy's
enchanted palace had been shattered into a heap of shapeless ruin by
those accidental scraps of hard worldly wisdom with which Valentine had
pelted the fairy fabric. He a man to love, or to marry for love! Why,
he talked like some hardened world-weary sinner who had done with every
human emotion. The girl shuddered as she heard him.