e, beloved--harder work, man's work.
And I can't turn away and take my shoulder from the wheel. It needs no
great foresight to tell that there is trouble brewing on the Continent; a
very little thing would set the whole of Europe in a blaze. And when
that time arrives, if Ruvania is to come out of the struggle with her
independence unimpaired, it will only be by the utmost effort of all her
sons. Nadine cannot stand alone. What can a woman do unaided when the
nations are fighting for supremacy? The country will need a man at the
helm, and I must stand by Nadine."

"But why you? Why not another?"

"No other is under the same compulsion as I. As you know, my father put
his wife first and his country second. It is difficult to blame
him . . . she was very beautiful, my mother. But no man has the right to
turn away from his allotted task. And because my father did that, the
call to me to serve my country is doubly strong. I have to pay back that
of which he robbed her."

"And have I no claim? Max! Max! Doesn't your love count at all?"

The sad, grieving words wrung his heart.

"Why, yes," he said unsteadily. "That's the biggest thing in the
world--our love--isn't it? But this other is a debt of honour, and you
wouldn't want me to shirk that, would you, sweet? I must pay--even if it
costs me my happiness. . . . It may seem to you as though I'd set your
happiness, too, aside. God knows, it hasn't been easy! But what could I
do? I conceive that a man's honour stands before everything. That was
why I let you believe--what you did. My word was given. I couldn't
clear myself. . . . So you see, now, beloved, why we must part."

"No," she said quietly. "I don't see. Why can't I come to Ruvania with
you?"

A sudden light leaped into his eyes, but it died away almost instantly.
He shook his head.

"No, you can't come with me. Because--don't you see, dear?"--very gently
and pitifully. "As my wife, as cousin of the Grand Duchess herself, you
couldn't still be--a professional singer."

There was a long silence. Slowly Diana drew away from her husband,
staring at him with dilated eyes.

"Then that--that was what Baroni meant when, he told me a time would come
when your wife could no longer sing in public?"

Max bent his head.

"Yes. That was what he meant."

Diana stood silently clasping and unclasping her hands. Presently she
spoke again, and there was a new note in her voice--a note of qu