"
There was a curious stricken expression on the face Diana turned
towards him.
"So that was it!"
"Yes, that was it. I tried to put you out of my life, for I'd no right
to ask you into it. And I've failed! I can't do without you"--his
voice gathered intensity--"I want you--body and soul I want you. And
yet--a secret between husband and wife is a burden no man should ask a
woman to bear."
When next Diana spoke it was in a curiously cold, collected voice. She
felt stunned. A great wall seemed to be rising up betwixt herself and
Max; all her golden visions for the future were falling about her in
ruins.
"You are right," she said slowly. "No man should ask--that--of his
wife."
Errington's face twisted with pain.
"I never meant to let you know I cared," he answered. "I fought down
my love for you just because of that. And then--it grew too strong for
me. . . . My God! If you knew what it's been like--to be near you,
with you, constantly, and yet to feel that you were as far removed from
me as the sun itself. Diana--beloved--can't you trust me over this one
thing? Isn't your love strong enough for that?"
She turned on him passionately.
"Oh, you are unfair to me--cruelly unfair! You ask me to trust you!
And your very asking implies that you cannot trust _me_!"
There was bitter anger in her voice.
"I know it looks like that," he said wearily.
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