“Shall you require me with you, madam?” asked her maid respectfully.

Diana regarded her thoughtfully.  She was an excellent servant and thoroughly understood maiding a professional singer; moreover, she was much attached to her mistress.  Probably she would be glad of her services later on.

“Oh, if I should make a long stay, I’ll send for you, Milling, and you can bring on the rest of my things.  I shall want some of my concert gowns the week after next,” she told her, in casual tones.

As soon as she had dismissed the girl to her work, Diana made her way into her husband’s study, and, seating herself at his desk, drew a sheet of notepaper towards her.

She began to write impulsively, as she did everything else:—­

“This is just to say good-bye,”—­her pen flew over the paper—­“I can’t bear our life together any longer, so I’m going away.  Perhaps you will blame me because my faith wasn’t equal to the task you set it.  But I don’t think any woman’s would be—­not if she cared at all.  And I did care, Max.  It hurts to care as I did—­and I’m so tired of being hurt that I’m running away from it.  It will be of no use your asking me to return, because I have made up my mind never to come back to you again.  I told you that you must choose between Adrienne and me, and you’ve chosen—­Adrienne.  I am going to live with Baroni and his sister, Signora Evanci.  It is all arranged.  They are glad to have me, and it will be much easier for me as regards my singing.  So you needn’t worry about me.—­But perhaps, you wouldn’t have done!

“DIANA.

“P.S.—­Please don’t be vexed with Jerry for going away.  I gave him leave of absence myself, and I told him I would make it all right with you.—­D.”

She folded the letter with a curious kind of precision, slipped it into an envelope, sealed and addressed it, and propped it up against the inkpot on her husband’s desk, so that he could not fail to find it.

Then, when it was time to dress for dinner, she went upstairs and let her maid put her into an evening frock, exactly as though nothing out of the ordinary were going on, just as though to-day—­the last day she would ever spend in her husband’s home—­were no different from any other day.

She made a pretence of eating dinner, and afterwards sat in her own little sitting-room, with a book in front of her, of which she read not a single line.

Presently, when she was quite sure that all the servants had gone to bed, she made a pilgrimage through the house, moving reluctantly from room to room, taking a silent farewell of the place where she had known such happiness—­and afterwards, such pain.

At last she went to bed, but she felt too restless and keyed up to sleep, so she slipped into a soft, silken wrapper and established herself in a big easy-chair by the fire.

The latter had died down into a dull, red glow, but she prodded the embers into a flame, adding fresh coal, and as the pleasant warmth of it lapped her round, a feeling of gentle languor gradually stole over her, and at length she slept. . . .