d gathering in the
Dunscombe Corn Exchange that Mr. Marsham had been hurt by a stone at
Hartingfield, and could not address the meeting. The message was
received with derision rather than sympathy. It was universally believed
that the injury was a mere excuse, and that the publication of that most
damning letter, on the very eve of the poll, was the sole and only cause
why the Junior Lord of the Treasury failed on this occasion to meet the
serried rows of his excited countrymen, waiting for him in the packed
and stifling hall.

It was the Vicar who took the news to Beechcote. As in the case of
Diana herself, the misfortune of the enemy instantly transformed a
roaring lion into a sucking dove. Some instinct told him that she must
hear it gently. He therefore invented an errand, saw Muriel Colwood, and
left the tale with her--both of the blow and the letter.

Muriel, trembling inwardly, broke it as lightly and casually as she
could. An injury to the spine--so it was reported. No doubt rest and
treatment would soon amend it. A London surgeon had been sent for.
Meanwhile the election was said to be lost. Muriel reluctantly produced
the letter in the _West Brookshire Gazette_, knowing that in the natural
course of things Diana must see it on the morrow.

Diana sat bowed over the letter and the news, and presently lifted up a
white face, kissed Muriel, who was hovering round her, and begged to be
left alone.

She went to her room. The windows were wide open to the woods, and the
golden August moon shone above the down in its bare full majesty. Most
of the night she sat crouched beside the window, her head resting on the
ledge. Her whole nature hungered--and hungered--for Oliver. As she
lifted her eyes, she saw the little dim path on the hill-side; she felt
his arms round about her, his warm life against hers. Nothing that he
had done, nothing that he could do, had torn him, or would ever tear
him, from her heart. And now he was wounded--defeated--perhaps
disgraced; and she could not help him, could not comfort him.

She supposed Alicia Drake was with him. For the first time a torment of
fierce jealousy ran through her nature, like fire through a forest
glade, burning up its sweetness.

CHAPTER XXI

"What time is the carriage ordered for Mr. Nixon?" asked Marsham of his
servant.

"Her ladyship, sir, told me to tell the stables four-twenty at
Dunscombe."

"Let me hear directly the carriage arrives. And, Rich