e haze she conjured up. 'Am
I worse than other women?' was a piercing twithought. Worse, would be
hideous isolation. The not worse, abased her sex. She could afford to
say that the world was bad: not that women were.

Sinking deeper, an anguish of humiliation smote her to a sense of
drowning. For what of the poetic ecstasy on her Salvatore heights had
not been of origin divine? had sprung from other than spiritual founts?
had sprung from the reddened sources she was compelled to conceal? Could
it be? She would not believe it. But there was matter to clip her wings,
quench her light, in the doubt.

She fell asleep like the wrecked flung ashore.

Danvers entered her room at an early hour for London to inform her that
Mr. Percy Dacier was below, and begged permission to wait.

Diana gave orders for breakfast to be proposed to him. She lay staring
at the wall until it became too visibly a reflection of her mind.

CHAPTER XXV. ONCE MORE THE CROSSWAYS AND A CHANGE OF TURNINGS

The suspicion of his having come to impart the news of his proximate
marriage ultimately endowed her with sovereign calmness. She had need
to think it, and she did. Tea was brought to her while she dressed; she
descended the stairs revolving phrases of happy congratulation and the
world's ordinary epigrams upon the marriage-tie, neatly mixed.

They read in one another's faces a different meaning from the empty
words of excuse and welcome. Dacier's expressed the buckling of a strong
set purpose; but, grieved by the look of her eyes, he wasted a moment to
say: 'You have not slept. You have heard...?'

'What?' said she, trying to speculate; and that was a sufficient answer.

'I hadn't the courage to call last night; I passed the windows. Give me
your hand, I beg.'

She gave her hand in wonderment, and more wonderingly felt it squeezed.
Her heart began the hammerthump. She spoke an unintelligible something;
saw herself melting away to utter weakness-pride, reserve, simple
prudence, all going; crumbled ruins where had stood a fortress imposing
to men. Was it love? Her heart thumped shiveringly.

He kept her hand, indifferent to the gentle tension.

'This is the point: I cannot live without you: I have gone on... Who was
here last night? Forgive me.'

'You know Arthur Rhodes.'

'I saw him leave the door at eleven. Why do you torture me? There's
no time to lose now. You will be claimed. Come, and let us two cut
the knot. It is the best th