Frank expressed his shame and sorrow as best he could. He had been troubled, he said, by some information that he had received.
"And now," she said, "please tell me instantly what it was that Rashleigh said of me--I have a right to know and know I will!"
It was some time before Frank could bring himself to tell Diana what her cousin had really hinted concerning herself, and when she heard that he had affirmed her wish to marry him in preference to Thorncliff, she shuddered from head to foot.
"No," she cried, all her soul instantly on fire, "any lot rather than that--the sot, the gambler, the bully, the jockey, the insensate fool were a thousand times preferable to Rashleigh! But the convent, the jail--the grave--shall be welcome before them all!"
At the abrupt close of the story the children looked not a little surprised, nor did they manifest their usual eagerness to rush out of doors and instantly to reduce the tale to action.
The first difficulty was as to who the real highwayman could be.
"Did Frank _really_ take the man's bag with the money and things?" ventured Maid Margaret, a little timidly. She knew that she would be promptly contradicted.
"No, of course not," shouted Hugh John, "it was the Scotch drover, Campbell,--for how else could he know so well about it? Of course it was--_I_ knew it from the first."
Meantime Sweetheart had been musing deeply.
"Do you know," she said gently, "I am most of all sorry for Die Vernon. I don't think that I want to play in this story. It is too real. I think Die Vernon lived."
"Why--didn't they all live?" said Maid Margaret, plaintively. For the world of books was still quite alive for her. She had not lost the most precious of all the senses. Dream-gold was as good as Queen's-head-gold fresh out of the mint for her. Happy Maid Margaret!
"I am sure Die Vernon was real," Sweetheart went on; "last night when you were all out cycle-riding and I was waiting for my Latin lesson, I read a bit of the book--a chapter that father has not told us. And it made me sorry for Die. She wished that she had been born a man, so that she might say and do the same things as others. She was alone in the world, she said. She needed protection, yet if she said or did anything naturally, every one thought what a bold, forward girl she was! I have felt that too!"