will, he set her down. He was white to the
lips, and his eyes glowed like blue flame in their pallid setting.

"Frighten you!" he repeated hoarsely. "You don't know what love
means--you English."

Diana stared at him.

"'You English!' What--what are you saying? Max, aren't you English
after all?"

He threw back his head with a laugh.

"Oh, yes, I'm English. But I'm something else as well. . . . There's
warmer blood in my veins, and I can't love like an Englishman. Oh,
Diana, heart's beloved, let me teach you what love is!"

Impetuously he caught her in his arms again, and once more she felt the
storm of his passion sweep over her as he rained fierce kisses on eyes
and throat and lips. For a space it seemed as if the whole world were
blotted out and there were only they two alone together--shaken to the
very foundations of their being by the tremendous force of the
whirlwind of love which had engulfed them.

When at length he released her, all her reserves were down.

"Max . . . Max . . . I love you!"

The confession fell from her lips with a timid, exquisite abandon. He
was her mate and she recognised it. He had conquered her.

Presently he put her from him, very gently, but decisively.

"Diana, heart's dearest, there is something more--something I have not
told you yet."

She looked at him with sudden apprehension in her eyes.

"Max! . . . Nothing--nothing that need come between us?"

Memories of the past, of all the incomprehensible episodes of their
acquaintance--his refusal to recognise her, his reluctance to accept
her friendship--came crowding in upon her, threatening the destruction
of her new-found happiness.

"Not if you can be strong--not if you'll trust me." He looked at her
searchingly.

"Trust you? But I do trust you. Should I have . . . Oh, Max!" the
warm colour dyed her face from chin to brow--"Could I love you if I
didn't trust you?"

There was a tender, almost compassionate expression in his eyes as he
answered, rather sadly:--

"Ah, my dear, we don't know what 'trust' really means until we are
called upon to give it. . . . And I want so much from you!"

Diana slipped her hand confidently into his.

"Tell me," she said, smiling at him. "I don't think I shall fail you."

He was silent for a while, wondering if the next words he spoke would
set them as far apart as though the previous hour had never been. At
last he spoke.

"Do you believe that husbands a