first time, since
he had set out to see her, that it occurred to him how one-sided was
the proposition. She had no knowledge of his resolve to thrust his aid
upon her. He told himself that she could have no possible inkling of
his feelings toward her; and he waited with no little anxiety for her
response.

Nor was that response long in coming. She made another effort to dash
the tears from her eyes. Then, half defiantly and half eagerly, she
stepped up to the window.

"Go round to the door, quick!" she whispered, and moved off again as
though she stood in imminent peril as a consequence of her words.

And Tresler was round at the door and standing in the shadow of the
water-barrel before the bolt was slipped back. Now, as the girl raised
the latch and silently opened the door, he slid within. He offered no
explanation, but simply pointed to the window.

"We must close that," he said in a low tone.

And Diane obeyed without demur. There was a quiet unobtrusive force
about this man whenever his actions were directed into a definite
channel. And Diane found herself complying without the least
resentment, or even doubt as to the necessity for his orders. Now she
came back to him, and raised a pair of trusting eyes to his face, and
he, looking down into them, thought he had never gazed upon anything
so sweetly pathetic; nor had he ever encountered anything quite so
rousing as the implicit trust of her manner toward him. Whatever he
had felt for her before, it was as nothing to the delicious sense of
protection, the indefinable wave of responsibility, almost parental,
that now swept over him. He felt that, come what might, she was his to
cherish, to guard, to pilot through whatever shoals her life might
hold for her. It was the effect of her simple womanly trust appealing
to his manhood, unconsciously for her part, but nevertheless surely.
Nor was that feeling only due to his love for her; it was largely the
chivalrous instinct of a brave and strong man for a weak woman that
filled his heart at that moment.

"There is a lot for us to talk about," he said. "A lot that others
mustn't hear," he added thoughtfully.

"What others?" Diane asked anxiously.

Tresler deemed it best to avoid half measures, and answered with
prompt decision--

"Your father, for one."

"Then," said Diane, steadying at once, "we had better close the door
into the passage."

She suited the action to the word, and returned dry-eyed and calm.