ugh the man's whole nature.
Passionate, obstinate, unyielding--he could be each and all in turn,
but, side by side with these exterior characteristics, there ran a
streak of almost feminine delicacy of perception and ideality of
purpose. Diana had once told him, laughingly, that he was of the stuff
of which martyrs were made in the old days of persecution, and in this
she had haphazard lit upon the fundamental force that shaped his
actions. The burden which fate, or his own deeds, might lay upon his
shoulders, that he would bear, be it what it might.

"Everything's got to be paid for," he had said one day. "It's
inevitable. So what's the use of jibing at the price?"

Diana wondered whether the price of that mysterious something which lay
in his past, and which not even intimate friendship had revealed to
her, would mean that this comradeship must always remain only that--and
never anything more?

A warm flush mounted to her face as the unbidden thought crept into her
mind. Errington had been down at Crailing most of the summer, staying
at Red Gables, and during the long, lazy days they had spent together,
motoring, or sailing, or tramping over Dartmoor with the keen moorland
air, like sparkling wine, in their nostrils, it seemed as though a
deeper note had sounded than merely that of friendship.

And yet he had said nothing, although his eyes had spoken--those vivid
blue eyes which sometimes blazed with a white heat of smouldering
passion that set her heart racing madly within her.

She flinched shyly away from her own thoughts, pulling restlessly at
the dried weed which clung about the surface of the rock. A little
brown crab ran out from a crevice, and, terrified by the big human hand
which he espied meddling with the clump of weed and threatening to
interfere with the liberty of the subject, skedaddled sideways into the
safety of another cranny.

The hurried rush of the little live thing roused Diana from her
day-dreams, and looking up, she saw Max coming to her across the sands.

She watched the proud, free gait of the tall figure with appreciation
in her eyes. There was something very individual and characteristic
about Max's walk--a suggestion as of immense vitality held in check,
together with a certain air of haughty resolution and command.

"I thought I might find you here," he said, when they had shaken hands.

"Did you want me?"

He looked at her with a curious expression in his eyes.

"I