nd wives should have no secrets from one
another?" he asked abruptly.

Diana had never really given the matter consideration--never formulated
such a question in her mind. But now, in the light of love's
awakening; she instinctively knew the answer to it. Her opinion leaped
into life fully formed; she was aware, without the shadow of a doubt,
of her own feelings on the subject.

"Certainly they shouldn't," she answered promptly. "Why, Max, that
would be breaking the very link that binds them together--their
_oneness_ each with the other. You think that, too, don't you?
Why--why did you ask me?" A premonition of evil assailed her, and her
voice trembled a little.

"I asked you because--because if you marry me you will have to face the
fact that there is a secret in my life which I cannot share with
you--something I can't tell you about." Then, as he saw the blank look
on her face, he went on rapidly: "It will be the only thing, beloved.
There shall be nothing else in life that will not be 'ours,' between
us, shared by us both. I swear it! . . . Diana, I must make you
understand. It was because of this--this secret--that I kept away from
you. You couldn't understand--oh! I saw it in your face sometimes.
You were hurt by what I did and said, and it tortured me to hurt
you--to see your lip quiver, your eyes suddenly grow misty, and to know
it was I who had wounded you, I, who would give the last drop of blood
in my body to save you pain."

There was a curious stricken expression on the face Diana turned
towards him.

"So that was it!"

"Yes, that was it. I tried to put you out of my life, for I'd no right
to ask you into it. And I've failed! I can't do without you"--his
voice gathered intensity--"I want you--body and soul I want you. And
yet--a secret between husband and wife is a burden no man should ask a
woman to bear."

When next Diana spoke it was in a curiously cold, collected voice. She
felt stunned. A great wall seemed to be rising up betwixt herself and
Max; all her golden visions for the future were falling about her in
ruins.

"You are right," she said slowly. "No man should ask--that--of his
wife."

Errington's face twisted with pain.

"I never meant to let you know I cared," he answered. "I fought down
my love for you just because of that. And then--it grew too strong for
me. . . . My God! If you knew what it's been like--to be near you,
with you, constantly, and yet to feel