e Vallincourt standard of conduct, and in
that handful of wayward charm, red lips, and soft, beguiling eyes which
was Diane he found what he sought.

Again the room door opened. This time, instead of putting a longed-for
end to a blank period of suspense, the little quiet clicking of the
latch cut almost aggressively across the conflict of Hugh's thoughts. He
turned round irritably.

"What is it?" he demanded.

A uniformed nurse was standing in the doorway. At the sound of his
curtly-spoken question she glanced at him with a certain contemplative
curiosity in her eyes. They might have held surprise as well as
curiosity had she not lately stood beside that huge, canopied bed
upstairs, listening pitifully to a woman's secret fears and longings,
unveiled in the delirium of pain.

"I know you sometimes wish you hadn't married me. . . . I'm not good
enough. And Catherine hates me. Yes, she does, she does! And she'll make
you hate me too! But you won't hate me when my baby comes, will you,
Hugh? You want a little son . . . a little son . . ."

Nurse Maynard could hear again the weary, complaining voice, trailing
off at last in the silence of exhaustion, and an impulse of indignation
added a sharp edge to her tone as she responded to Hugh's query.

"Her ladyship is asking to see you, Sir Hugh. She ought to rest now, but
she is too excited. She has been expecting you."

There was no mistaking the implied rebuke in the last sentence, and
Hugh's face darkened.

"I'll come," he said, briefly, and followed the crisp starched figure
up the stairs and into a half-darkened room, smelling faintly of
antiseptics.

Vaguely the white counterpane outlined the slim figure of Diane upon the
bed. The nurse raised the blind a little, and the light of the westering
sun fell across the pillow, revealing a small, dark head which turned
eagerly at the sound of Hugh's entrance.

"Hugh!" The voice from the bed came faintly.

Hugh looked down at his wife. Probably never had Diane looked more
beautiful.

The little worldly, sophisticated expression common to her features had
been temporarily obliterated by the holy suffering of motherhood, and
the face of the "foreign dancing-woman," born and bred in a quarter of
the world where virtue is a cheap commodity, was as pure and serene as
the face of a Madonna.

She held out her hands to her husband, her lips curving into a smile
that was all love and tenderness.

"Hugh--_mon adore!_"