plead on his behalf. Such as he was, he was himself, no simulator. She
longed for Mr. Redworth's report of him.

Her compassion for Redworth's feelings when beholding the woman he loved
another man's wife, did not soften the urgency of her injunction that he
should go speedily, and see as much of them as he could. 'Because,' she
gave her reason, 'I wish Diana to know she has not lost a single friend
through her marriage, and is only one the richer.'

Redworth buckled himself to the task. He belonged to the class of his
countrymen who have a dungeon-vault for feelings that should not be
suffered to cry abroad, and into this oubliette he cast them, letting
them feed as they might, or perish. It was his heart down below, and in
no voluntary musings did he listen to it, to sustain the thing. Grimly
lord of himself, he stood emotionless before the world. Some worthy
fellows resemble him, and they are called deep-hearted. He was
dungeon-deep. The prisoner underneath might clamour and leap; none heard
him or knew of him; nor did he ever view the day. Diana's frank:
'Ah, Mr. Redworth, how glad I am to see you!' was met by the calmest
formalism of the wish for her happiness. He became a guest at her London
house, and his report of the domesticity there, and notably of the lord
of the house, pleased Lady Dunstane more than her husband's. He saw the
kind of man accurately, as far as men are to be seen on the surface; and
she could say assentingly, without anxiety: 'Yes, yes,' to his remarks
upon Mr. Warwick, indicative of a man of capable head in worldly
affairs, commonplace beside his wife. The noble gentleman for Diana
was yet unborn, they tacitly agreed. Meantime one must not put a mortal
husband to the fiery ordeal of his wife's deserts, they agreed likewise.
'You may be sure she is a constant friend,' Lady Dunstane said for
his comfort; and she reminded herself subsequently of a shade of
disappointment at his imperturbable rejoinder: 'I could calculate on
it.' For though not at all desiring to witness the sentimental fit, she
wished to see that he held an image of Diana:--surely a woman to
kindle poets and heroes, the princes of the race; and it was a curious
perversity that the two men she had moved were merely excellent,
emotionless, ordinary men, with heads for business. Elsewhere, out of
England, Diana would have been a woman for a place in song, exalted
to the skies. Here she had the destiny to inflame Mr. Redworth and