“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!”