John wrestled with his voice, and forced it back, harsh and unfamiliar, to do his bidding. "Di," he said, "I believe in truth even between men and women. I know what you are feeling about me at this moment. Well, that, even that, is better than a mistake; and you were making one. You had not the faintest suspicion of what has been the one object of my life since the day I first met you. The fault was mine, not yours. You could not see what was not on the surface to be seen. You would have gone on for the remainder of your natural life liking me in a way I--I cannot tolerate, if I had not--done as I did. I have not the power like some men of showing their feelings. I can't say the little things and do the little things that come to others by instinct. My instinct is to keep things to myself. I always have--till now." Silence again; a silence which seemed to grow in a moment to such colossal dimensions that it was hardly credible a voice would have power to break it. The twilight had advanced suddenly upon them. The young pheasants crept and called among the bracken. The night-birds passed swift and silent as sudden thoughts. Di struggled with an unreasoning, furious anger, which, like a fiery horse, took her whole strength to control. "I love you," said John, "and I shall go on loving you; and it is better you should know it." And as he spoke she became aware that her anger was but a little thing beside his. "What is the good of telling me," she said, "what I--what you know I--don't wish to hear?" "What good?" said John, fiercely, his face working. "Great God! do you imagine I have put myself through the torture of making myself intolerable to you for no purpose? Do you think that you can dismiss me with a few angry words? What good? The greatest good in the world, which I would turn heaven and earth to win; which please God I will win." Di became as white as he. He was too strong, this man, with his set face, and clenched trembling hand. She was horribly frightened, but she kept a brave front. She turned towards him and would have spoken, but her lips only moved. "You need not speak," he said more gently. "You cannot refuse what you have not been asked for. I ask nothing of you. Do you understand? _Nothing._ When I ask it will be time enough to refuse. It is getting late. Let us go home." CHAPTER XI. "Those who have called the world profane have succeeded in making it so."--J. H. THOM.