lent Sir Lukin was passing a
great deal of his time in London. His wife had not a word of blame for
him; he was a respectful husband, and attentive when present; but so
uncertain, owing to the sudden pressure of engagements, that Diana,
bound on a second visit to The Crossways, doubted whether she would be
able to quit her friend, whose condition did not allow of her being left
solitary at Copsley. He came nevertheless a day before Diana's appointed
departure on her round of visits. She was pleased with him, and let
him see it, for the encouragement of a husband in the observance of his
duties. One of the horses had fallen lame, so they went out for a walk,
at Lady Dunstane's request. It was a delicious afternoon of Spring,
with the full red disk of sun dropping behind the brown beech-twigs. She
remembered long afterward the sweet simpleness of her feelings as she
took in the scent of wild flowers along the lanes and entered the woods
jaws of another monstrous and blackening experience. He fell into the
sentimental vein, and a man coming from that heated London life to these
glorified woods, might be excused for doing so, though it sounded to her
just a little ludicrous in him. She played tolerantly second to it; she
quoted a snatch of poetry, and his whole face was bent to her, with the
petition that she would repeat the verse. Much struck was this giant
ex-dragoon. Ah! how fine! grand! He would rather hear that than any
opera: it was diviner! 'Yes, the best poetry is,' she assented. 'On
your lips,' he said. She laughed. 'I am not a particularly melodious
reciter.' He vowed he could listen to her eternally, eternally.
His face, on a screw of the neck and shoulders, was now perpetually
three-quarters fronting. Ah! she was going to leave. 'Yes, and you will
find my return quite early enough,' said Diana, stepping a trifle
more briskly. His fist was raised on the length of the arm, as if in
invocation. 'Not in the whole of London is there a woman worthy to
fasten your shoe-buckles! My oath on it! I look; I can't spy one.' Such
was his flattering eloquence.

She told him not to think it necessary to pay her compliments. 'And
here, of all places!' They were in the heart of the woods. She found her
hand seized--her waist. Even then, so impossible is it to conceive the
unimaginable even when the apparition of it smites us, she expected some
protesting absurdity, or that he had seen something in her path.--What
did she hear? A