Pobs' good counsel came back to her mind: "It seems to me that if you
love him, you needs _must_ trust him." Ah! but that was uttered in
regard to another matter--the secret which shadowed Max's life--and she
_had_ trusted him over that, she told herself. This, this jealousy of
another woman, was an altogether different thing, something which had
crept insidiously into her heart, and woven its toils about her almost
before she was aware of it.
And behind it all there loomed a new terror. Olga Lermontof's advice:
"_Ask him who he is_," beat at the back of her brain, fraught with
fresh mystery, the forerunner of a whole host of new suspicions.
Secrecy and concealment of any kind were utterly alien to Diana's
nature. Impulsive, warm-hearted, quick-tempered, she was the last
woman in the world to have been thrust by an unkind fate into an
atmosphere of intrigue and mystery. She was like a pretty, fluttering,
summer moth, caught in the gossamer web of a spider--terrified,
struggling, battling against something she did not understand, and
utterly without the patience and strong determination requisite to free
herself.
For hours after Olga's departure she fought down the temptation to
follow her advice and question her husband. She could not bring
herself to hurt him--as it must do if he guessed that she distrusted
him. But neither could she conquer the suspicions that had leaped to
life within her.
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