"No," he said quietly. "You can't come with me. It would be impossible--out of the question. You haven't realised all it would entail. After being a famous singer--to become merely a private gentlewoman--a lady of a little unimportant Court! The very idea is absurd. Always you would miss the splendour of your life, the triumphs, the being feted and made much of--everything that your singing has brought you. It would be inevitable. And I couldn't endure to see the regret growing in your eyes day by day. Oh, my dear, don't think I don't realise the generosity of the thought--and bless you for it a thousand times! But I won't let you pay with the rest of your life for a heaven-kind impulse of the moment." His words fell on Diana's consciousness, each one weighted with a world of significance, for she knew, even as she listened, that he spoke but the bare truth. Very quietly she moved away from him and stood by the chimney-piece, staring down into the grate where the embers lay dying. It seemed to typify what her life would be, shorn of the glamour with which her glorious voice had decked it. It would be as though one had plucked out the glowing heart of a fire, leaving only ashes--dead ashes of remembrance. And in exchange for the joyous freedom of Bohemia, the happy brotherhood of artistes, there would be the deadly, daily ceremonial of a court, the petty jealousies and intrigues of a palace! Very clearly Diana saw what the choice involved, and with that clear vision came the realisation that here was a sacrifice which she, who had so profaned love's temple, could yet make at the foot of the altar. And within her grew and deepened the certainty that no sacrifice in the world is too great to make for the sake of love, except the sacrifice of honour. Here at last was something she could give to the man she loved. She need not go to him with empty hands. . . . She turned again to her husband, and her eyes were radiant with the same soft shining that had lit them when he had first come to her in answer to her singing. "Dear," she said, and her voice broke softly. "Take me with you. Oh, but you must think me very slow and stupid not to have learned--yet--what love means! . . . Ah, Max! Max! What am I to do, dear, if you won't let me go with you? What shall I do with all the love that is in my heart--if you won't take it?" For a moment she stood there tremulously smiling, while he stared at her, in his eyes a kind of bewilderment and unbelief fighting the dawn of an unutterable joy. Then at last he understood, and his arms went round her. "If I won't take it!" he cried, his voice all shaken with the wonder of it. "Oh, my sweet! I'll take it as a beggar takes a gift, as a blind man sight--on my knees, thanking God for it--and for you." And so Diana came again into her kingdom, whence she had wandered outcast so many bitter months. Presently she drew him down beside her on to a big, cushioned divan.