Diana Part 69

"I do not know. I do not care. Anywhere."

"You have no plan?"

"No; only to get away."

"Why, Diana?" he said very tenderly. "Is it necessary?"

"Yes, Basil. I must go."

"Do you know that it would be extremely difficult for me to leave home just at present? There are so many people wanting me."

"I know that. I have thought of all that. You cannot go. Let me go, and baby."

"Where, my dear?

"I don't know," she said with almost a sob. "You must know. You must help me, Basil."

Basil looked at her, and took several turns up and down the room, in sorrow and perplexity.

"What is your reason, Di?" he asked gently. "If I understood your thought better, I should know better how to meet it."

"I must be away," said Diana vaguely. "I must not be here. I musn't be where I can see--anybody. n.o.body must know where I am, Basil--do you understand? You must send me away, and you must not tell _anybody_."

The minister walked up and down, thinking. He let go entirely the thought of arguing with Diana. She had the look at moments of a creature driven to bay; and when not so, the haggard, eager, appealing face filled his inmost heart with grief and pity. n.o.body better than Basil could manage the unreasonable and bring the disorderly to obedience; he had a magical way with him; but now he only meditated how Diana's wish was to be met. It was not just easy, for he had few family connections in the world, and she had none.

"I can think of n.o.body to whom I should like to send you," he said.

"Unless"--

He waited, and Diana waited; then he finished his sentence.

"I was going to say, unless a certain old grandaunt of mine. Perhaps she would do."

"I do not care where or who it is," said Diana.

"I care, though."

"Where does she live?"

"On Staten Island."

"Staten Island?" repeated Diana.

"Yes. It is near New York; about an hour from the city, down the bay."

"The bay of New York?"

"Yes."

"May I go there?" said Diana. "That would do."

"How soon do you wish to go?"

"To-day, if I could!" she said with a half-caught breath. "Can I, Basil? To-day is best."

Mr. Masters considered again.

"Will you be ready to go by the seven o'clock train this evening?"

"Yes. O yes!"

"Very well. We will take that."

"_We?_" Diana repeated. "Must I take you, Basil, away from your work?

Cannot I go alone?"

He looked up at her with a very sweet grave smile as he answered, "Not possibly."

"I am a great deal of trouble"--she said with a woful expression.

"Go and make your preparations," he said cheerfully; "and I will tell you about Aunt Sutphen when we are off."

There was no bustle in the house that day, there was no undue stir of making arrangements; but at the time appointed Diana was ready. She had managed to keep Miss Collins in the dark down to the very last minute, and answered her questions then with, "I can't tell you. You must ask Mr. Masters." And Diana knew anybody might as well get the Great Pyramid to disclose its secrets.

That night's train took them to Boston. The next morning they went on their way towards New York; and so far Mr. Masters had found no good time for his proposed explanations. Diana was busied with the baby, and contrived to keep herself away from him or from communication with him.

He saw that she was engrossed, preoccupied, suffering, and that she shunned him; and he fell back and waited. In New York, he established Diana in a hotel and left her, to go himself alone to the Island and have an interview with his aunt.

Diana alone in a Broadway hotel, felt a little like a person shipwrecked in mid-ocean. What was all this bustling, restless, driving mult.i.tude around her like, but the waves of the sea, to which Scripture likens them? and the roar of their tumult almost bewildered her senses.

Proverbially there is no situation more lonely to the feeling than the midst of a strange crowd; and Diana, sitting at her window and looking down into the busy street, felt alone and cast adrift as she never had felt in her life before. _Her_ life seemed done, finished, as far as regarded hope or joy; nothing left but weary and dragging existence; and the eager hurrying hither and thither of the city crowd struck on her view as aimless and fruitless, and so very drear to look at? What was it all for?--seeing life was such a thing as she had found it. The wrench of coming away from Pleasant Valley had left her with a reaction of dull, stunned, and strained nerves; she was glad she had come away, glad she was no longer there; and that was the only thing she was glad of in the wide, wide world.

Some degree of rest came with the quiet of those hours alone in the hotel. Basil was gone until the evening, and Diana had time to recover a little from the fatigue of the journey, and in the perfect solitude also from the overstrain of the nerves. She began to remember Basil's part in all this, and to be sensible how true and faithful and kind he was; how very unselfish, how patient with her and with pain. Diana could have wept her heart out over it, if that would have done any good; and indeed supposing that she could have shed tears at all, which she could not just then. She only felt sore and sorry for her husband; and then she took some pains with her toilet, and refreshed herself so as to look pleasant to his eyes when he came home.

He came home only to a late supper. He looked somewhat weary, but his eye brightened when he saw Diana, and he came up and kissed her.

"Diana--G.o.d is good," he said to her.

"Yes," she answered, looking up drearily, "I believe it."

"But you do not feel it yet. Well, remember, it is true, and you will feel it some day. It is all right with Aunt Sutphen."

"She will let me come?"

"She is glad to have you come. The old lady is very much alone. And she does me the honour to say that she expects my wife will know how to behave herself."

"What does she mean by that?" said Diana, a little startled.

"I don't know! Aunt Sutphen has her own notions respecting behaviour. I did not inquire, Diana; knowing that, whatever her meaning might be, it was the same thing so far as you are concerned."

"Basil--you are very good!" Diana said after a pause and with a trembling lip.