"It does with me. I don't see why she shouldn't be told. Baroni knows, and Olga--you have to trust them." "Baroni will be silent for the sake of the dead, and Olga out of her love--or fear"--with a bitter smile--"of me." "And wouldn't Diana, too, be silent for your sake?" "My dear Adrienne"--a little irritably--"Englishwomen are so frank--so indiscreetly trusting. That's where the difficulty lies, and I dare not risk it. There's too much at stake. But can you imagine any agent they may have put upon our track surprising her knowledge out of Olga?" He laughed contemptuously. "I fancy not! If Olga hadn't been a woman she'd have made her mark in the Diplomatic Service." "Yet what is there to make her keep faith with us?" said Adrienne doubtfully. "She is poor--" "Her own doing, that!" "True, but the fact remains. And those others would pay a fortune for the information she could give. Besides, I believe she frankly hates me." "Possibly. But she would never, I think, allow her personal feelings to override everything else. After all, she was one of us--is still, really, though she would gladly disown the connection." "Well, when you've looked at every side of the matter, we only come back to the same point. I think you're acting wrongly. You're letting Diana pledge herself blindly, when you're not free to give her the confidence a man should give his wife--when you don't even know--yet--how it may all end." Almost Baroni's very words! Max winced. "No. I don't know how it will end, as you say. But surely there _will_ come a time when I shall be free to live my own life?" Adrienne smiled a trifle wistfully. "If your conscience ever lets you," she said. There was a long silence. Presently she resumed:--- "I never thought, when you first told me about your engagement, that the position of affairs need make any difference. I was so pleased to think that you cared for each other! And now--where will it all end? How many lives are going to be darkened by the same shadow? Oh, it's terrible, Max, terrible!" The tears filled her eyes. "Don't!" said Max unsteadily. "Don't! I know it's bad enough. Perhaps you're right--I oughtn't to have spoken to Diana, I hoped things would right themselves eventually, but you and Baroni have put another complexion upon matters. It's all an inextricable tangle, whichever way one looks at it--come good luck or bad! . . . I suppose I was wrong--I ought to have waited. But now . . . now . . . Before God, Adrienne! I can't, give her up--not now!" CHAPTER XVII "WHOM GOD HATH JOINED TOGETHER"