f the sick mother who had crept back after
years of absence to die in her own town, of the girl and her loneliness,
of her child-like faith in him.

When he had finished, she had laid her hand on his arm. "But do you love
her, do you really love her, Anthony?" had been her desolate demand.

He had drawn back, and not meeting her eyes, had said, very low, "You
haven't the right to ask that question, Di, or I to answer it----"

And in that moment she had realized that the barrier which separated
herself and Anthony was high enough to shut out happiness.

"Oh--oh." As Diana's thoughts came back to the present, she sat up in
bed and wept helplessly. "Oh, I don't know what I am going to do,
Sophie. I've always been so self-sufficient, and now it seems as if my
whole world revolves about one man----"

Never before had Diana, self-contained Diana, talked to her friend of
the things which lay deep beneath the surface, but now she revealed her
soul to the little woman who had known love in all its fulfilment, and
who, having lost that love, still lived.

"What you must do," said Sophie, softly, "is to face it. You've got to
look at the thing squarely, dearest-dear. It is because you and Anthony
forgot to keep burning the sacred fires that this trouble has come upon
you."

"What do you mean, Sophie?"

"When two people love each other," said Sophie, slowly, "it is a
wonderful thing, a sacred thing, Diana. What you gave Ulric was not
love--you were fascinated for the moment, and when you found him
disappointing, you let him go lightly, yet all the time, deep in your
heart, was this great Anthony--is it not so, my Diana?"

"Yes," the other whispered, with her face hidden.

"And Anthony, when he thought he had lost you, took this little girl to
fill your place--and she can never fill it, and so because each of you
has made of love a light thing, you must have your punishment. We must
reap what we sow, Diana.

"Don't think I am not sympathetic, liebchen," she went on, "but, oh,
Diana, I'd rather see you this way than with Ulric Van Rosen as your
lover."

She knelt by the bed with her arms about her friend. Two years before
Diana had comforted Sophie when death had claimed the great-hearted
husband who had made the little woman's life complete. Since then they
had clung together, and there had developed in Sophie an almost maternal
devotion for the brilliant girl who had hitherto moved through life
triumphant and serene.