ic loses sight of
normal values, and Hugh, obsessed by his newly conceived idea of atoning
for the sin of his marriage, was utterly oblivious of the enormity of
his conduct as viewed through unbiased eyes.

The woman who had just fought her way through the Valley of the Shadow
stared at him uncomprehendingly.

"Retribution?" she repeated blankly.

"For my marriage--our marriage."

Diane's breath came faster.

"What--what do you mean?" she asked falteringly. Suddenly a look of
sheer terror leaped into her eyes, and she clutched at Hugh's sleeve.
"Oh, you're not going to be like Catherine? Say you're not! Hugh, you've
always said she was crazy to call our marriage a sin. . . . _A sin!_"
She tried to laugh, but the laugh stuck in her throat, caught and pinned
there by the terror that gripped her.

"Yes, I've said that. I've said it because I wanted to think it," he
returned remorselessly, "not because I really thought it."

Diane dragged herself up on to her elbow.

"I don't understand. You've not changed?" Then, as he made no answer:
"Hugh, you're frightening me! What do you mean? What has Catherine been
saying to you?"

Her voice rose excitedly. A patch of feverish colour appeared on either
cheek. Old Virginie sprung up from her chair by the fire, alarmed.

"You excite madame!"

Hugh turned to leave the room.

"We'll discuss this another time, Diane," he said.

Diane moved her head fretfully.

"No. Now--now! Don't go! Hugh!"

Her voice rose almost to a scream and simultaneously the nurse came
hurrying in from the adjoining room. She threw one glance at the
patient, huddled flushed and excited against the pillows, then without
more ado she marched up to Hugh and, taking him by the shoulders with
her small, capable hands, she pushed him out of the room.

"Do you want to _kill_ your wife?" she demanded in a low voice of
concentrated anger. "If so, you're going the right way about it."

The next moment the door closed behind her, and Hugh found himself
standing alone on the landing outside it.

Although the scene with her husband did not kill Diane, it went very
near it. For some time she was dangerously ill, but at last the combined
efforts of doctor and nurse restored her once more to a frail hold upon
life, and the resiliency of youth accomplished the rest.

Curiously enough, the remembrance of Hugh's brief visit to her bedside
held for her no force of reality. When the fever which had ensued