attraction he had held for
her in that far-away time.

That he still visited Adrienne very frequently she was aware, but often,
on his return from Somervell Street, he seemed so much depressed that she
began at last to wonder whether those visits were really productive of
any actual enjoyment. Possibly she had misjudged them--her husband and
her friend--and it might conceivably be really only business matters
which bound them together after all.

If so--if that were true--how wantonly she had flung away her happiness!

Late one afternoon, Max, who had been out since early morning, came in
looking thoroughly worn out. His eyes, ringed with fatigue, held an
alert look of strain and anxiety for which Diana was at a loss to account.

She was at the piano when he entered the room, idly trying over some MS.
songs that had been submitted by aspiring composers anxious to secure her
interest.

"Why, Max," she exclaimed, genuine concern in her voice, as she rose from
the piano. "How worried you look! What is the matter?"

"Nothing," he returned. "At least, nothing in which you can help," he
added hastily. "Unless--"

"Unless what? Please . . . let me help . . . if I can." Diana spoke
rather nervously. She was suddenly struck by the fact that the last few
months had been responsible for a great change in her husband's
appearance. He looked much thinner and older than formerly, she thought.
There were harassed lines in his face, and its worn contours and shadowed
eyes called aloud to the compassionate womanhood within her, to the
mother-instinct that involuntarily longs to heal and soothe.

"Tell me what I can do, Max?"

A smile curved his lips, half whimsical, half sad.

"You can do for me what you do for all the rest of the world--I won't ask
more of you," he replied. "Sing to me."

Diana coloured warmly. The first part of his speech stung her unbearably.

"Sing to you?" she repeated.

"Yes. I'm very tired, and nothing is more restful than music." Then, as
she hesitated, he added, "Unless, of course, I'm asking too much."

"You know you are not," she answered swiftly.

She resumed her place at the piano, and, while he lay back in his chair
with closed eyes, she sang to him--the music of the old masters who loved
melody, and into whose songs the bitterness and unrest of the twentieth
century had not crept.

Presently, she thought, he slept, and very softly her hands strayed into
the simple, sorrow