He began with a hesitating circumlocution, in order to prepare her mind for bad news.
She divined immediately that it concerned Diana, and forcing him to speak to the point, she had the story jerked out to her in a sentence.
It stopped her heart.
The chill of death was tasted in that wavering ascent from oblivion to recollection.

Why had not Diana come to her, she asked herself, and asked her husband; who, as usual, was absolutely unable to say.

Under compulsory squeezing, he would have answered, that she did not come because she could not fib so easily to her bosom friend: and this he thought, notwithstanding his personal experience of Diana's generosity.
But he had other personal experiences of her sex, and her sex plucked at the bright star and drowned it.
The happy day of Lord Dannisburgh's visit settled in Emma's belief as the cause of Mr.Warwick's unpardonable suspicions and cruelty.

Arguing from her own sensations of a day that had been like the return of sweet health to her frame, she could see nothing but the loveliest freakish innocence in Diana's conduct, and she recalled her looks, her words, every fleeting gesture, even to the ingenuousness of the noble statesman's admiration of her, for the confusion of her unmanly and unworthy husband.

And Emma was nevertheless a thoughtful person; only her heart was at the head of her thoughts, and led the file, whose reasoning was accurate on erratic tracks.