w--we are one. The world has
given you to me, me to you. Why should we be asunder? There's no reason
in it.'

She replied: 'But still I wish to burn a little incense in honour of
myself, or else I cannot live. It is the truth. You make Death my truer
friend, and at this moment I would willingly go out. You would respect
me more dead than alive. I could better pardon you too.'

He pleaded for the red mouth's pardon, remotely irritated by the
suspicion that she swayed him overmuch: and he had deserved the small
benevolences and donations of love, crumbs and heavenly dews!

'Not a word of pardon,' said Diana. 'I shall never count an iota against
you "in the dark backward and abysm of Time." This news is great, and
I have sunk beneath it. Come tomorrow. Then we will speak upon whatever
you can prove rational. The hour is getting late.'

Dacier took a draught of her dark beauty with the crimson he had kindled
over the cheeks. Her lips were firmly closed, her eyes grave; dry, but
seeming to waver tearfully in their heavy fulness. He could not doubt
her love of him; and although chafing at the idea that she swayed him
absurdly--beyond the credible in his world of wag-tongues--he resumed
his natural soberness, as a garment, not very uneasily fitting: whence
it ensued--for so are we influenced by the garb we put on us--that
his manly sentiment of revolt in being condemned to play second, was
repressed by the refreshment breathed on him from her lofty character,
the pure jewel proffered to his, inward ownership.

'Adieu for the night,' he said, and she smiled. He pressed for a
pressure of her hand. She brightened her smile instead, and said only:
'Good night, Percy.'

CHAPTER XXXII. WHEREIN WE BEHOLD A GIDDY TURN AT THE SPECTRAL CROSSWAYS

Danvers accompanied Mr. Dacier to the house-door. Climbing the stairs,
she found her mistress in the drawing-room still.

'You must be cold, ma'am,' she said, glancing at the fire-grate.

'Is it a frost?' said Diana.

'It's midnight and midwinter, ma'am.'

'Has it struck midnight?'

The mantel-piece clock said five minutes past.

'You had better go to bed, Danvers, or you will lose your bloom. Stop;
you are a faithful soul. Great things are happening and I am agitated.
Mr. Dacier has told me news. He came back purposely.'

'Yes, ma'am,' said Danvers. 'He had a great deal to tell?'

'Well, he had.' Diana coloured at the first tentative impertinence
she had heard from her