their intrigues obscurely as they
imagined, it would have soothed her exasperation.

She left a woman the prey of panic.

Diana thought of Emma and Redworth, and of their foolish interposition
to save her character and keep her bound. She might now have been free!
The struggle with her manacles reduced her to a state of rebelliousness,
from which issued vivid illuminations of the one means of certain
escape; an abhorrent hissing cavern, that led to a place named Liberty,
her refuge, but a hectic place.

Unable to write, hating the house which held her a fixed mark for these
attacks, she had an idea of flying straight to her beloved Lugano lake,
and there hiding, abandoning her friends, casting off the slave's name
she bore, and living free in spirit. She went so far as to reckon the
cost of a small household there, and justify the violent step by an
exposition of retrenchment upon her large London expenditure. She had
but to say farewell to Emma, no other tie to cut! One morning on
the Salvatore heights would wash her clear of the webs defacing and
entangling her.

CHAPTER XXIV. INDICATES A SOUL PREPARED FOR DESPERATION

The month was August, four days before the closing of Parliament, and
Diana fancied it good for Arthur Rhodes to run down with her to Copsley.
He came to her invitation joyfully, reminding her of Lady Dunstane's
wish to hear some chapters of THE CANTATRICE, and the MS. was packed.
They started, taking rail and fly, and winding up the distance on foot.
August is the month of sober maturity and majestic foliage, songless,
but a crowned and royal-robed queenly month; and the youngster's
appreciation of the homely scenery refreshed Diana; his delight in being
with her was also pleasant. She had no wish to exchange him for another;
and that was a strengthening thought.

At Copsley the arrival of their luggage had prepared the welcome. Warm
though it was, Diana perceived a change in Emma, an unwonted reserve, a
doubtfulness of her eyes, in spite of tenderness; and thus thrown back
on herself, thinking that if she had followed her own counsel (as she
called her impulse) in old days, there would have been no such present
misery, she at once, and unconsciously, assumed a guarded look. Based on
her knowledge of her honest footing, it was a little defiant. Secretly
in her bosom it was sharpened to a slight hostility by the knowledge
that her mind had been straying. The guilt and the innocence combined