't endure it any longer. I thought--oh! I _prayed_
that when it came to a choice between you and Nadine he would give
way--let Nadine fend for herself. And that was why I tried to anger you
against him--to drive you into forcing his hand." She paused, her breast
heaving tumultuously. "But the plan failed. Max remained staunch, and
only his happiness came crashing down about his ears instead. There
is"--bleakly--"no saving saints and martyrs against their will."

A silence fell between them, and Diana made a few wavering steps towards
a chair and sat down. She felt as though her legs would no longer
support her.

In a mad moment, half-crazed by the new fear which the newspaper
paragraph had inspired in her, she had closed the only road which might
have led her back to Max. Yesterday, still unwitting of how infinitely
she had wronged him, passionately, humbly ready to give him the trust he
had demanded, she might have gone to him. But to-day, her knowledge of
the truth had taken from her the power to make atonement, and had raised
a barrier between herself and Max which nothing in the world could ever
break down.

She had failed her man in the hour of his need, and henceforth she must
walk outcast in desert places.

There were still many gaps in the story to be filled in. But one thing
stood out clearly from amidst the chaos which enveloped her, and that
was, that she had misjudged her husband--terribly, unforgivably misjudged
him.

It was loyalty, not love, that he had given Adrienne, and he had been
right--a thousand times right--in refusing to reveal, even to his wife,
the secret which was not his alone, and upon which hung issues of life
and death and the ultimate destiny of a country--perhaps, even, of Europe
itself!

It was to save his country from the Prussian claw that Max had sacrificed
himself with the pure fervour of a patriot, at no matter what cost! And
she, Diana, by her lack of faith, her petty jealousy, had sent him from
her, had seen to it that that cost included even his happiness!

She had failed him every way--trailing the glory of love's golden raiment
in the dust of the highway.

If she had but fulfilled her womanhood, what might not her unshaken faith
have meant to a man fighting a battle against such bitter odds? No
matter how worn with the stress of incessant watchfulness, or wearied by
the strain of constant planning and the need to forestall each move of
the enemy, he would