ight, is at an end. If ever God sent
a man to a woman's aid, He has sent me to yours; and you must let me do
what I'm appointed for. You must come to me for comfort in your
loneliness. You must come to me for care in your necessity. I have both
care and comfort for you here; and you must come."

Without moving toward her he stood with open arms.

"Come!" he cried again, commandingly.

The tears coursed down her cheeks, but she gave no sign of obeying him,
except to drag one hand from the protecting bookcase ledge, to which she
seemed to cling.

"Come, Diane!" he repeated! "Come to me!"

The other hand fell to her side, while she gazed at him piteously, as
though in reluctant submission to his will.

"Come!" he said once more, in a tone of authority mingled with appeal.

Drawn by a force she had no power to withstand, she took one slow,
hesitating step toward him.

"I haven't yielded," she stammered. "I haven't consented. I can't
consent--yet."

"No, dearest, no," he murmured, with arms yearning to her as she
approached him; "nevertheless--come!"

X

Notwithstanding the fact that she had wept in his arms--wept as women
weep who are brave in the hour of trial, only to break down in the
moment of relief--Diane would give Derek Pruyn no other answer. She
could not consent--yet. With this reply he was obliged to sail away,
getting what comfort he might from its implications.

During the three months of his absence Diane took knowledge of herself,
appraising her strength and probing her weakness. She was too honest not
to own that there were desires in her nature which leaped into newness
of life at the thought that there might again be means to support them.
Diane de la Ferronaise was not dead, but sleeping. Her love of luxury
and pleasure--her joy in jewels, equipage, and dress--her woman's
elemental weaknesses, second only to the instinct for maternity--all
these, grown lethargic from hunger, were ready to awake again at the
mere possibility of food. She was forced to confront the fact that, with
the same opportunities, she had it in her to go back to the same life.
It was a humiliating fact, but it stared her in the face, that
experience had shown her a creature for a man to be afraid of. Derek
Pruyn had seen her subdued by circumstances, as the panther is subdued
by famine; but it was not yet proved that the savage, preying thing was
tamed.

There was only one force that would tame her; but there