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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
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