“Then—­then”—­her voice trembled—­“you mean you won’t tell me anything more?”

“I can’t.”

“And—­and Adrienne?  Everything must go on just the same?”

“Just the same”—­implacably.

She looked at him, curiously.

“And you expect me still to feel the same towards you, I suppose?  To behave as though nothing had come between us?”

For a moment his control gave way.

“I expect nothing,” he said hoarsely.  “I shall never ask you for anything again—­neither love nor friendship.  As you have decreed, so it shall be!”

Slowly, with bent head, Diana turned and left the room.

So this was the end!  She had made her appeal, risked everything on his love for her—­and lost.  Adrienne de Gervais was stronger than she!

Hereafter, she supposed, they would live as so many other husbands and wives lived—­outwardly good friends, but actually with all the beautiful links of love and understanding shattered and broken.

* * * * * *

“Since the first night of the play they’ve hardly said a word to each other—­only when it’s absolutely necessary.”  Joan spoke dejectedly, her chin cupped in her hand.

Jerry nodded.

“I know,” he agreed.  “It’s pretty awful.”

He and Joan were having tea alone together, cosily, by the library fire.  Diana had gone out to a singing-lesson, and Errington was shut up in his study attending to certain letters, written in cipher—­letters which reached him frequently, bearing a foreign postmark, and the answers to which he never by any chance dictated to his secretary.

“Surely they can’t have quarrelled, just because he didn’t come to the theatre with us that night,” pursued Joan.  “Do you think Diana could have been offended because he came down afterwards to please Miss Gervais?”

“Partly that.  But it’s a lot of things together, really.  I’ve seen it coming.  Diana’s been getting restive for some time.  There are—­Look here!  I don’t wish to pry into what’s not my business, but a fellow can’t live in a house without seeing things, and there’s something in Errington’s life which Di knows nothing about.  And it’s that—­just the not knowing—­which is coming between them.”

“Well, then, why on earth doesn’t he tell her about it, whatever it is?”

Jerry shrugged his shoulders.

“Can’t say. I don’t know what it is; it’s not my business to know.  But his wife’s another proposition altogether.”

“I suppose he expects her to trust him over it,” said Joan thoughtfully.

“That’s about the size of it.  And Diana isn’t taking any.”

“I should trust him with anything in the world—­a man with that face!” observed Joan, after a pause.

“There you go!” cried Jerry discontentedly.  “There you go, with your unfailing faith in the visible object.  A man’s got to look a hero before you think twice about him!  Mark my words, Jo—­many a saint’s face has hidden the heart of a devil.”