Page:Master Eustace (1920).djvu/113

Rh saying hard things about Mr. Longstaff, in pointing out that he had not been honorable; rising herein to a sublime hypocrisy, for, on that last occasion at St. Peter's, the poor girl had felt a renewed personal admiration,—the quickening of a private flame; she saw nothing but his good looks and his kind manner.

"What did he want—what did he mean, after all?" she ingenuously murmured, leaning over Diana's sofa. "Why should he have been wounded at what you said? It would have been part of the bargain that he should not get well. Did he mean to take an unfair advantage—to make you his wife under false pretenses? When you put your finger on the weak spot, why should he resent it? No, it was not honorable."

Diana smiled sadly; she had no false shame now, and she spoke of this thing as if it concerned another person.

"He would have counted on my forgiving him!" she said. A little while after this, she began to sink more rapidly. Then she called her friend to her, and said simply: "Send for him!" And as Agatha looked perplexed and distressed, she added, "I know he is still in Rome."

Agatha at first was at a loss where to find him, but among the benefits of the papal dispensation was the fact that the pontifical police could