When at length he released her, all her reserves were down.

“Max . . .  Max . . .  I love you!”

The confession fell from her lips with a timid, exquisite abandon.  He was her mate and she recognised it.  He had conquered her.

Presently he put her from him, very gently, but decisively.

“Diana, heart’s dearest, there is something more—­something I have not told you yet.”

She looked at him with sudden apprehension in her eyes.

“Max! . . .  Nothing—­nothing that need come between us?”

Memories of the past, of all the incomprehensible episodes of their acquaintance—­his refusal to recognise her, his reluctance to accept her friendship—­came crowding in upon her, threatening the destruction of her new-found happiness.

“Not if you can be strong—­not if you’ll trust me.”  He looked at her searchingly.

“Trust you?  But I do trust you.  Should I have . . .  Oh, Max!” the warm colour dyed her face from chin to brow—­“Could I love you if I didn’t trust you?”

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.”