'A gentleman we got to know at Rapallo,' said Diana, still smiling to herself. 'He and his mother were there last winter. Father and I quarrelled with him all day long. He is the worst Radical I ever met, but -'

'But? - but agreeable?'

'Oh yes,' said Diana, uncertainly, and Mrs. Colwood thought she coloured 'oh yes - agreeable!'

'And he lives near here?'

'He is the Member for the division. Such a crew as we shall meet there!' Diana laughed out. 'I had better warn you. But they have been very kind. They called directly they knew I had taken the house. "They" means Mr. Oliver Marsham and his mother. I am glad I've found his book!'

She went off embracing it.

one

Mrs. Colwood was left with two impressions sharp, the other vague. One was that Mr. Oliver Marsham might easily become a personage in the story of which she had just, as it were, turned the first leaf. The other was connected with the name on the despatch-box. Why did it haunt her? It had produced a kind of indistinguishable echo in the brain, to which she could put no words - which was none the less dreary; like a voice of wailing from a far-off past.

sensuous romance

CHAPTER II

DURING the days immediately following her arrival at Beechcote, Mrs. Colwood applied herself to a study of Miss Mallory and her surroundings- none the less penetrating because the student was modest and her method unperceived. She divined a nature unworldly, impulsive, steeped, moreover, for all its spiritual and intellectual force, which was considerable, in a kind of much connected with concrete things and symbols, places, persons, emblems, or relics, any contact with which might at any time bring the colour to the girl's cheeks and the tears to her eyes. Honour personal or national the word was to Diana like a spark to dry leaves. Her whole nature flamed to it, and there were moments when she walked visibly transfigured in the glow of it. Her mind was rich, moreover, in the delicate, inchoate loves, the half-poetic, half-intellectual passions, the mystical yearnings and aspirations, which haunt a pure expanding youth. Such human beings, Mrs. Colwood reflected, are not generally made for happiness. But there were also in Diana signs both of practical ability and of a rare common sense. Would this last avail to protect her from her enthusiasms? Mrs. Colwood remembered a famous Frenchwoman of whom it was said: 'Her judgement is infallible-her conduct one long mistake!' The little companion was already sufficiently attached to Miss Mallory to hope that in this

case a natural tact and balance might not be thrown away.

As to suitors and falling in love, the natural accompaniments of such a charming youth, Mrs. Colwood came across no traces of anything of the sort. During her journey with her father to India, Japan, and America, Miss Mallory had indeed for the first time seen something of society. But in the villa beside the Mediterranean it was evident that her life with her father had been one of complete seclusion. She and he had lived for each other. Books, sketching, long walks, a friendly interest in their peasant neighbours-these had filled their time.

It took, indeed, but a short time to discover in Miss Mallory a hunger for society which seemed to be the natural result of long starvation. With her neighbours the Roughsedges she was already on the friendliest terms. To Doctor Roughsedge, who was infirm, and often a prisoner to his library, she paid many small attentions which soon won the heart of an old student. She was in love with Mrs. Roughsedge's grey curls and motherly ways; and would consult her about servants and tradesmen with an eager humility. She liked the son, it seemed, for the parents' sake, nor was it long before he was allowed - at his own pressing request -to help in hanging pictures and arranging books at Beechcote. A girl's manner with young men is always a matter of interest to older women. Mrs. Colwood thought that Diana's manner to the young soldier could not have been easily bettered. It was frank and gay with just that tinge of old-fashioned reserve which might be thought natural in a girl of gentle

breeding, brought up alone by a fastidious father. With all her impetuosity, indeed, there was about her something markedly virginal and remote, which is commoner, perhaps, in Irish than English women. Mrs. Colwood watched the effect of it on Captain Roughsedge. After her third day of acquaintance with him, she said to herself: 'He will fall in love with her!' But she said it with compassion, and without troubling to speculate on the lady. Whereas, with regard to the Marsham visit, she already she could hardly have told why found herself full of curiosity.

Meanwhile, in the few days which elapsed before that visit was due, Diana was much called on by the country-side. The girl restrained her restlessness, and sat at home, receiving everybody with a friendliness which might have been insipid but for its grace and spontaneity. She disliked no one, was bored by no one. The joy of her home-coming seemed to hallow them all. Even the sour Miss Bertrams could not annoy her; she thought them sensible and clever; even the tiresome Mrs. Minchin of Minchin Hall, the 'gusher' of the county, who 'adored' all mankind and ill-treated her step-daughter, even she was dubbed 'very kind,' till Mrs. Roughsedge, next day, kindled a passion in the girl's eyes by some tales of the step-daughter. Mrs. Colwood wondered whether, indeed, she could be bored, as Mrs. Minchin had not achieved it. Those who talk easily and well, like Diana, are less keenly aware, she thought, of the platitudes of their neighbours. They are not defenceless, like the shy and the silent.

Nevertheless, it was clear that if Diana welcomed the neighbours with pleasure she often saw them go

with relief. As soon as the house was clear of them, she would stand pensively by the fire, looking down into the blaze like one on whom a dream suddenly descends then would often call her dog, and go out alone, into the winter twilight. From these rambles she would return grave - sometimes with reddened eyes. But at all times, as Mrs. Colwood soon began to realise, there was but a thin line of division between her gaiety and some inexplicable sadness, some unspoken grief, which seemed to rise upon her and overshadow her, like a cloud tangled in the woods of spring. Mrs. Colwood could only suppose that these times of silence and eclipse were connected in some way with her father and her loss of him. But whenever they occurred, Mrs. Colwood found her own mind invincibly recalled to that name on the box of papers, which still haunted her, still brought with it a vague sense of something painful and harrowing — a breath of desolation, in strange harmony, it often seemed, with certain looks and moods of Diana. But Mrs. Colwood searched her memory in vain. And, indeed, after a little while, some imperious instinct even forbade her the search so rapid and strong was the growth of sympathy with the young life which had called her to its aid.

The day of the Marsham visit arrived - a January afternoon clear and frosty. In the morning before they were to start, Diana seemed to be often closeted with her maid, and once in passing Miss Mallory's open door, her companion could not help seeing a consultation going on, and a snowy white dress, with black ribbons, lying on the bed. Heretofore Diana had only