"My pet, don't tell me! You are crying!"
"I-I'm n-not!" avowed Diana, hunting wildly for her pocket-handkerchief. "'Tis a cold in the head I have had these three days."
"Indeed, my love? Longer than that, I fear."
"Yes-perhaps so-I- What do you mean?"
"I doubt but what you caught it the day that Mr. Carr left us."
Diana started.
"P-pray, do not be ridiculous, auntie!"
"No, my dear. Come and sit beside me and tell me all about it," coaxed Miss Betty.
Diana hesitated, gave a damp sniff, and obeyed.
Miss Betty drew her head down on to her shoulder soothingly.
"There, there! Don't cry, my sweet! What has happened?"
"'Tis that odious Mr. Bettison!" sobbed Diana "He-he had the audacity to ask me to m-marry him!"
"You don't say so, my love! I thought I heard him arrive. So you sent him about his business?"
"N-not before he had time to insult m-me!"
"Insult you? Di!"
"He-he dared to insinuate-oh no! he accused me outright-of being infatuated by Mr. Carr! Infatuated!"
Over her head Miss Betty opened her eyes at her own reflection in the glass.
"The brute! But, of course, 'tis true?"
No answer.
"Is it not?"
The sobs came faster.
"Of-of course 'tis true, but h-how dared he say so?"
"Di, my love, you really are in love with that boy?"
"I-I-I asked him to marry me-and he wouldn't!"
"Good gracious heavens!" Miss Betty was genuinely horrified. "My dear Diana!"
"N-not outright-b-but he understood-and-he loves me! And I'd do it again to-morrow, if I could-immodest or no! So there!"
"Yes, yes," soothed Miss Betty hastily. "Tell me all about it."
Diana lifted her head.
"That's all. And he loves me-he does-he does!"
"Did he say so?"
"N-no-but I could tell. And I love him"-sob-"and I'd sooner die than live without him, and he won't ask me b-because he has not got a spotless p-past, and he'd be a cur, and horrid things, and my husband must not be an-an-outcast, and-and-and I don't care!"
Her bewildered aunt unravelled this with difficulty.
"He'd be a cur if he asked you to marry him?" she asked, with knitted brows.
"Yes. Because he's a highwayman."
"A highwayman! Then 'twas true what he said? Well, well! I should never have thought it! That nice boy!"
Diana disengaged herself; in her eyes was a threatening gleam.
"Don't dare say a word against him!"
"No, no-of course not! I was only surprised. But I am thankfully glad he did not ask you, for all that!"
"Glad? How can you be so cruel?"
"My dear, you could not possibly marry-a-a-"
"Common felon!" sobbed Diana. "I can-I can!"