There was a tender, almost compassionate expression in his eyes as he answered, rather sadly:-- "Ah, my dear, we don't know what 'trust' really means until we are called upon to give it. . . . And I want so much from you!" Diana slipped her hand confidently into his. "Tell me," she said, smiling at him. "I don't think I shall fail you." He was silent for a while, wondering if the next words he spoke would set them as far apart as though the previous hour had never been. At last he spoke. "Do you believe that husbands and wives should have no secrets from one another?" he asked abruptly. Diana had never really given the matter consideration--never formulated such a question in her mind. But now, in the light of love's awakening; she instinctively knew the answer to it. Her opinion leaped into life fully formed; she was aware, without the shadow of a doubt, of her own feelings on the subject. "Certainly they shouldn't," she answered promptly. "Why, Max, that would be breaking the very link that binds them together--their _oneness_ each with the other. You think that, too, don't you? Why--why did you ask me?" A premonition of evil assailed her, and her voice trembled a little. "I asked you because--because if you marry me you will have to face the fact that there is a secret in my life which I cannot share with you--something I can't tell you about." Then, as he saw the blank look on her face, he went on rapidly: "It will be the only thing, beloved. There shall be nothing else in life that will not be 'ours,' between us, shared by us both. I swear it! . . . Diana, I must make you understand. It was because of this--this secret--that I kept away from you. You couldn't understand--oh! I saw it in your face sometimes. You were hurt by what I did and said, and it tortured me to hurt you--to see your lip quiver, your eyes suddenly grow misty, and to know it was I who had wounded you, I, who would give the last drop of blood in my body to save you pain." There was a curious stricken expression on the face Diana turned towards him. "So that was it!" "Yes, that was it. I tried to put you out of my life, for I'd no right to ask you into it. And I've failed! I can't do without you"--his voice gathered intensity--"I want you--body and soul I want you. And yet--a secret between husband and wife is a burden no man should ask a woman to bear." When next Diana spoke it was in a curiously cold, collected voice. She felt stunned. A great wall seemed to be rising up betwixt herself and Max; all her golden visions for the future were falling about her in ruins. "You are right," she said slowly. "No man should ask--that--of his wife." Errington's face twisted with pain.