intervals by one or two items of instrumental music, and
then Diana found herself mounting the little platform, and a hush
descended anew upon the throng of people, the last eager chatterers
twittering into silence as Olga Lermontof struck the first note of the
song's prelude.

Diana was conscious of a small sea of faces all turned towards her,
most of them unfamiliar. She could just see Adrienne smiling at her
from the back of the room, and near the double doors Jerry was standing
next a tall man whose back was towards the platform as he bent to move
aside a chair that was in the way. The next moment he had straightened
himself and turned round, and with a sudden, almost agonising leap of
the heart Diana saw that it was Max Errington.

He had come back! After that first wild throb her heart seemed, to
stand still, the room grew dark around her, and, she swayed a little
where she stood.

"Nervous!" murmured one man to another, beneath his breath.

Olga Lermontof had finished the prelude, and, finding that Diana had
failed to come in, composedly recommenced it. Diana was dimly
conscious of the repetition, and then the mist gradually cleared away
from before her eyes, and this time, when the accompanist played the
bar of her entry, the habit of long practice prevailed and she took up
the voice part with accurate precision.

The hush deepened in the room. Perhaps the very emotion under which
Diana was labouring added to the charm of her wonderful voice--gave it
an indescribable appeal which held the critical audience, familiar with
all the best that the musical world could offer, spell-bound.

When she ceased, and the last exquisite note had vibrated into silence,
the enthusiasm of the applause that broke out would have done justice
to a theatre pit audience rather than to a more or less blase society
crowd. And when the whisper went round that this was to be her only
song--that Baroni had laid his veto upon her singing twice--the
clapping and demands for an encore were redoubled.

Olga Lermontof's eyes, roaming over the room, rested at last upon the
face of Max Errington, and with the recollection of Diana's hesitancy
at the beginning of the song a brief smile flashed across her face.

"What shall I do?" Diana, who had bowed repeatedly without stemming
the applause, turned to the accompanist, a little flushed with the
thrill of this first public recognition of her gifts.

"Sing 'The Haven of Memory,'" wh