r, I said you must go,
and you laughed at the idea. Yet the very next morning, by the first
train, you start."

"Only because I am obliged to," I hazarded in spite of the Foreign
Secretary and his precautions. But I was punished for my lack of them by
making matters worse instead of better for myself.

"Obliged to!" she echoed. "Then there's something you must settle with
her, before you can be--free."

The guard was shutting the carriage doors. In another minute I should
lose the train. And I must not lose the train. For her future and mine,
as well as Maxine's, I must not.

"Dearest," I said hurriedly, "I am free. There's no question of freedom.
Yet I shall have to go. I hold you to your word. Trust me."

"Not if you go to her--this day of all days." The words were wrung from
the poor child's lips, I could see, by sheer anguish, and it was like
death to me that I should have to cause her this anguish, instead of
soothing it.

"You shall. You must," I commanded, rather than implored. "Good-bye,
darling--precious one. I shall think of you every instant, and I shall
come back to you to-morrow."

"You needn't. You need never come to me again," she said, white lipped.
And the guard whistled, waving his green flag.

"Don't dare to say such a cruel thing--a thing you don't mean!" I cried,
catching at the closed door of a first-class compartment. As I did so, a
little man inside jumped to the window and shouted, "Reserved! Don't you
see it's reserved?" which explained the fact that the door seemed to be
fastened.

I stepped back, my eyes falling on the label to which the man pointed,
and would have tried the handle of the next carriage, had not two men
rushed at the door as the train began to move, and dexterously opened it
with a railway key. Their throwing themselves thus in my way would have
lost me my last chance of catching the moving train, had I not dashed in
after them. If I could choose, I would be the last man to obtrude myself
where I was not wanted, but there was no time to choose; and I was
thankful to get in anywhere, rather than break my word. Besides, my
heart was too sore at leaving Diana as I had had to leave her, to care
much for anything else. I had just sense enough to fight my way in,
though the two men with the key (not the one who had occupied the
compartment first), now yelled that it was reserved, and would have
pushed me out if I hadn't been too strong for them. I had a dim
impression th