his hair.

As she softly closed the door and crossed the room he looked up. Diana
warm-hearted to a degree when she deeply loved, slipped on to her
knees beside him, and taking the hand hanging limply at his side in
both hers, raised it to her lips.

Henry Pym looked down into her eyes, and for the first time guessed
from whence the solution had come.

"You saved her?..." he said a little huskily.

Diana nestled up against him. "I saved _them_," she corrected. "Van
Hert is a fine man; he deserves a wife who gives him her whole heart,
just as truly as Meryl deserves a husband who has no thought for
anyone else in the world."

"Then you knew he cared for someone else?"

"Did he tell her so?" She lowered her head that he might not see her
face.

"Yes."

"Did he say whom?"

"I do not know."

"Perhaps Meryl knew?"

"She did not say."

She kissed his hand again, and asked in low tones, "Why was she crying
when she came out of the study? She ... she ... is not sorry about
things?..."

"No; she is glad. She sees she made a mistake."

"Then why was she crying?"

She saw him flinch, and read in his face all the pain in his heart.
Evidently he knew of that hidden sorrow shadowing his child's life;
evidently her sorrow was his sorrow. The wedding he so dreaded was
safely prevented, but would the happiness come back?... the happiness
that had been in that household before they went to Rhodesia? Could
all his love and hope and tenderness bring back joy to the eyes that
were his heaven and his earth?

"Dearie," murmured Diana again, "was she crying because of that big
soldier-policeman up north?"

He did not reply, and suddenly she knelt upright, and took his sad,
careworn face in her hands and nestled her soft cheek against it.

"Because he's coming on Saturday, dearie. Hush! don't breathe a word;
it is my secret; only I had to tell you because of what I saw in your
face just now. He is coming because he loves her."

Then slowly a great tear gathered in Henry Pym's eyes and fell
unheeded upon Diana's hand. He held her fast and made no attempt to
speak. And Diana hid her face because there were great tears in her
eyes also.

After a moment she got up, and shook the hair back from her face, and
rallied him tenderly.

"You see, Meryl must 'mother' something in the way of a country: it is
her tremendous Imperial instinct; so I thought she had better 'mother'
Rhodesia." And with a last tender kiss she went