He had been wary and he had known how to wait; and now, it seemed to him, he was to be rewarded for his patience.

Then he frowned, as another glance showed him that Diana still lingered with her cousin; he wished Diana at the devil.

He had come to hate this fair-haired doll to whom he had once paid court.

She was too continually in his way, a constant obstacle in his path, ever ready to remind Ruth of Anthony Wilding when Sir Rowland most desired Anthony Wilding to be forgotten; and in Diana's feelings towards himself such a change had been gradually wrought that she had come to reciprocate his sentiments--to hate him with all the bitter hatred into which love can be by scorn transmuted.

At first her object in keeping Ruth's thoughts on Mr.Wilding, in pleading his cause, and seeking to present him in a favourable light to the lady whom he had constrained to become his wife, had been that he might stand a barrier between Ruth and Sir Rowland to the end that Diana might hope to see revived--faute de mieux, since possible in no other way--the feelings that once Sir Rowland had professed for herself.