A sudden eager light sprang into his face. Swiftly he same to her side and stood looking down at her. "Diana," he said tensely, "must it always remain--the hell of memory?" They were very near to each other in that moment; the great wall fashioned of jealousy and distrust was tottering to its foundations. And then, from the street below came the high-pitched, raucous sound of the newsboy's voice:-- "_Attempted Murder of Miss Adrian Jervis! Premier Theatre Besieged._" The words, with their deadly import, cut between husband and wife like a sword. "Good God!" The exclamation burst from Max with a cry of horror. In an instant he was out of the room, down the stairs, and running bareheaded along the street in pursuit of the newsboy, and a few seconds later he was back with a newspaper, damp from the press, in his hands. Diana had remained sitting just as he had left her. She felt numbed. The look of dread and consternation that had leaped into her husband's face, as the news came shrilling up from the street below, had told her, more eloquently than any words could do, how absolutely his life was bound up in that of Adrienne de Gervais. A man whose heart's desire has been suddenly snatched from him might look so; no other. Max, oblivious of everything else, was reading the brief newspaper account at lightning speed. At last-- "I must go!" he said. "I must go round to Somervell Street at once." When he had gone, Diana picked up the newspaper from the floor where he had tossed it, and smoothing out its crumpled sheet, proceeded to read the short paragraph, surmounted by staring head-lines, which had sent her husband hurrying hot-foot to Adrienne's house. "MURDEROUS ATTACK ON MISS ADRIENNE DE GERVAIS. "As Miss Adrienne de Gervais, the popular actress, was leaving the Premier Theatre after the matinee performance to-day, a man rushed out from a side street and fired three shots at her, wounding her severely. Miss de Gervais was carried into the theatre, where a doctor who chanced to be passing rendered first aid. Within a very few minutes the news of the outrage became known and the theatre was besieged by inquirers. The would-be assassin, who made good his escape, was a man of unmistakably foreign appearance." Diana laid the paper down very quietly. This, then, was the news which had power to bring that look of fear and dread to her husband's face--which could instantly wipe out from his mind all thoughts of his wife and of everything that concerned her. Perhaps, she reflected scornfully, it was as well that the revelation had come when it did! Otherwise--otherwise, she had been almost on the verge of forgetting her just cause for jealousy, forgetting all the past months of misery, and believing in her husband once again. The trill of the telephone from below checked her bitter thoughts, and hurrying downstairs into the hall, she lifted the receiver and held it to her ear. "Yes. Who is it?"