nt the constraint was painful. Meryl had grown as white as
the tablecloth, and Mr. Pym looked thoroughly worried. Diana, however,
had quickly recovered herself, and was now the most composed of any.
She gave a little sniff and glanced defiantly at van Hert. His eyes
roved round the table and finally fixed themselves upon hers. She did
not waver, but looked steadily back at him. He gave a self-conscious,
constrained laugh. "I presume you had your reasons?" he said.

She narrowed her eyes a little as she replied with a directness
probably he alone understood, "Yes, I suppose I had. It was yesterday,
Tuesday. Tuesday is often a queer day with me."

And he knew she was referring to their conversation during the
morning's ride.

Then Meryl got up to relieve the tension, and because she began to
feel a little uncertain of herself.

"Di often has queer days, but they have nothing to do with your
feverishness, William. Jackson had better go back with you, and we
will telephone Dr. Smythe to look in and see how you are." She went
away to order the motor, and van Hert seized an opportunity to speak
to Diana unheard.

"I know what you are alluding to," he said, gravely. "We cannot very
well leave it like this. Will you ride the same way to-morrow?"

"But if you have fever?" hesitatingly.

"In the war I fought all day long with fever on me. Surely I can ride!
You will be there?"

"Yes."

When van Hert arrived at the meeting-place next morning, he wore an
overcoat and looked as if he ought to be in bed, and Diana's heart
smote her. But she comforted herself with the thought that his fever
was very much of the mind, and her medicine, if drastic, might still
do him more good than any physician's.

They rode side by side to the seat they had sat upon before, and
without saying much he helped her to alight and gave the reins of both
horses to the black groom.

Once seated, however, he turned to her and said, gravely, "Of course,
that remark of yours had to do with our conversation the last time we
sat here?"

"Of course," agreed Diana, calmly. The intricacies of the task she had
set herself were beginning to interest more than scare her, and she
was not afraid as to her skill in handling van Hert.

"May I ask in what exact particular?"

"Merely that you are the man about to marry a woman you do not love."

He opened his lips to expostulate and deny, but she rested a little
hand on his arm a moment and interrupted. "N