her chin in her hands, and with a sigh of misery stared straight before her.
“It was untrue!” she said at last. “What Richard said of me was untrue.”
“Why, yes,” Diana snapped, contemptuous. “The only truth is that Richard is afraid.”
Ruth shivered. “Ah, no,” she pleaded—she knew how true was the impeachment. “Don't say it, Diana.”
“It matters little that I say it,” snorted Diana impatiently. “It is a truth proclaimed by the first glance at him.”
“He is in poor health, perhaps,” said Ruth, seeking miserably to excuse him.
“Aye,” said Diana. “He's suffering from an ague—the result of a lack of courage. That he should so have spoken to you! Give me patience, Heaven!”
Ruth crimsoned again at the memory of his words; a wave of indignation swept through her gentle soul, but was gone at once, leaving an ineffable sadness in its room. What was to be done? She turned to Diana for counsel. But Diana was still whipping up her scorn.
“If he goes out to meet Mr. Wilding, he'll shame himself and every man and woman that bears the name of Westmacott,” said she, and struck a new fear with that into the heart of Ruth.
“He must not go!” she answered passionately. “He must not meet him!”
Diana flashed her a sidelong glance. “And if he doesn't, will things be mended?” she inquired. “Will it save his honour to have Mr. Wilding come and cane him?”
“He'd not do that?” said Ruth.
“Not if you asked him—no,” was Diana's sharp retort, and she caught her breath on the last word of it, for just then the Devil dropped the seed of a suggestion into the fertile soil of her lovesick soul.
“Diana!” Ruth exclaimed in reproof, turning to confront her cousin. But Diana's mind started upon its scheming journey was now travelling fast. Out of that devil's seed there sprang with amazing rapidity a tree-like growth, throwing out branches, putting forth leaves, bearing already—in her fancy—bloom and
Prev.
Back
Top