They were lovers to the
end, those two."
Listening to the little history of those two tender love tales that had
run their course side by side, Diana almost forgot for a moment how the
ripples of their influence, flowing out in ever-widening circles, had
touched, at last, even her own life, and had engulfed her happiness.
But, as Baroni ceased, the recollection of her own bitter share in the
matter returned with overwhelming force, and once more she arraigned
him for his silence.
"I still see no reason why you should not have told me the truth about
Adrienne--about Nadine Mazaroff. Max couldn't--I see that; nor Olga.
But _you_ were bound by no oath."
"My child, I was bound by something stronger than an oath."
The old man crossed the room to where there stood on a shelf a little
ebony cabinet, clamped with dull silver of foreign workmanship. He
unlocked it, and withdrew from it a letter, the paper faintly yellowed
and brittle with the passage of time.
He held it out to Diana.
"No eyes but mine haf ever rested on it since it was given into my hand
after her death," he said very gently. "But you, my child, you shall
read it; you are hurt and unhappy, battering against fate, and
believing that those who love you haf served you ill. But we were all
bound in different ways. . . . Read the letter, little one, and thou
wilt see that I, too, was not free.
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