She had failed her man in the hour of his need, and henceforth she must walk outcast in desert places.

There were still many gaps in the story to be filled in.  But one thing stood out clearly from amidst the chaos which enveloped her, and that was, that she had misjudged her husband—­terribly, unforgivably misjudged him.

It was loyalty, not love, that he had given Adrienne, and he had been right—­a thousand times right—­in refusing to reveal, even to his wife, the secret which was not his alone, and upon which hung issues of life and death and the ultimate destiny of a country—­perhaps, even, of Europe itself!

It was to save his country from the Prussian claw that Max had sacrificed himself with the pure fervour of a patriot, at no matter what cost!  And she, Diana, by her lack of faith, her petty jealousy, had sent him from her, had seen to it that that cost included even his happiness!

She had failed him every way—­trailing the glory of love’s golden raiment in the dust of the highway.

If she had but fulfilled her womanhood, what might not her unshaken faith have meant to a man fighting a battle against such bitter odds?  No matter how worn with the stress of incessant watchfulness, or wearied by the strain of constant planning and the need to forestall each move of the enemy, he would have found, always waiting for him, a refuge, a quiet haven where love dwelt and where he might forget for a space and be at rest.  All this, which had been hers to give, she had withheld.

The silence deepened in the room.  The brilliant sunshine, slanting in through the slats of the Venetian blinds, seemed out of place in what had suddenly become a temple of pain.  Somewhere outside a robin chirruped, the cheery little sound holding, for one of the two women sitting there, a note of hitter mockery.

Suddenly Diana dropped her head on her hands with a shudder.

“Oh, God!” she whispered.  “Oh, God!”

Olga leaned forward and laid a hand on her knee.

“You can go back to him now, and give him all the happiness that he has missed,” she said steadily.

“Go back to him?” Diana lifted her head and stared at her with dull eyes.  “Oh, no.  I shan’t do that.”

“You won’t go back?” Olga spoke slowly, as though she doubted her own hearing.

A faint, derisive smile flickered across Diana’s lips.  “How could I?  Do you suppose that—­that having failed him when he asked me to believe in him, I could go back to him now—­now that I know everything? . . .  Oh, no, I couldn’t do that.  I’ve nothing to offer him—­now—­nothing to give—­neither faith nor trust, because I know the whole truth.”  She spoke with the quiet finality of one who can see no hope, no possibility of better things, anywhere.  The words “Too late!” beat in her brain like the pendulum of a clock, maddeningly insistent.

“If only I had been content to go to him without knowing!” she went on tonelessly.  “But that paragraph in the paper—­it frightened me.  I felt that I must know if—­if I had been wronging him all the time.  And I had!” she ended wearily.  “I had.”  Then, after a moment:  “So you see, I can’t go back to him.”