ome bad news," she said, looking at him piteously, and holding
out her hand again. "It is too bad of me to greet you like this."

He took her hand, and his own self-control broke down. He raised it to
his lips with a stifled cry.

"Don't!--don't!" said Diana, helplessly. "Indeed--there is nothing the
matter--I am only foolish. It is so--so good of you to care." She drew
her hand from his, raised it to her brow, and, drawing a long breath,
pushed back the hair from her face. She was like a person struggling
against some torturing restraint, not knowing where to turn for help.

[Illustration: "ROUGHSEDGE STOOD NEAR, RELUCTANTLY WAITING"]

But at the word "care" he pulled himself together. He sat down beside
her, and plunged straight into his declaration. He went at it with the
same resolute simplicity that he was accustomed to throw into his
military duty, nor could she stop him in the least. His unalterable
affection; his changed and improved prospects; a staff appointment at
home if she accepted him; the Nigerian post if she refused him--these
things he put before her in the natural manly speech of a young
Englishman sorely in love, yet quite incapable of "high flights," It was
very evident that he had pondered what he was to say through the days
and nights of his exile; that he was doing precisely what he had always
planned to do, and with his whole heart in the business. She tried once
or twice to interrupt him, but he did not mean to be interrupted, and
she was forced to hear it out.

At the end she gave a little gasp.

"Oh, Hugh!" His name, given him for the first time, fell so
forlornly--it was such a breathing out of trouble and pity and
despair--that his heart took another and a final plunge downward. He had
known all through that there was no hope for him; this tone, this aspect
settled it. But she stretched out her hands to him, tenderly--appealing.
"Hugh--I shall have to tell you--but I am ashamed."

He looked at her in silence a moment, then asked her why. The tears rose
brimming in her eyes--her hands still in his.

"Hugh--I--I--have always loved Oliver Marsham--and I--cannot think of
any one else. You know what has happened?"

He saw the sob swelling in her white throat.

"Yes!" he said, passionately. "It is horrible. But you cannot go to
him--you cannot marry him. He was a coward when he should have stood by
you. He cannot claim you now."

She withdrew her hands.

"No!" The passion in her voi