Diana’s face was beginning to show signs of the mental struggle through which she was passing.  Dark shadows lay beneath her eyes, and her cheeks, even in so short a time, had hollowed a little.  She was irritable, too, and unlike herself, and at last Stair, whose watchful eyes had noted all these things, though he had refrained from comment, taxed her with keeping him outside her confidence.

“Can’t I help, Di?” he asked, laying his hand on her shoulder, and twisting her round so that she faced him.

The quick colour flew into her cheeks.  For a moment she hesitated, while Stair, releasing his hold of her, dropped into a chair and busied himself filling and lighting his pipe.

“Well?” he queried at last, smiling whimsically.  “Won’t you give me an old friend’s right to ask impertinent questions?”

Impulsively she yielded.

“You needn’t, Pobs.  I’ll tell you all about it.”

When she had finished, a long silence ensued.  Not that Stair was in any doubt as to what form his advice should take—­idealist that he was, there did not seem to him to be any question in the matter.  He only hesitated as to how he could best word his counsel.

At last he spoke, very gently, his eyes lit with that inner radiance which gave such an arresting charm of expression to his face.

“My dear,” he said, “it seems to me that if you love him you needs must trust him.  ‘Perfect love casteth out fear.’”

Diana shook her head.

“Mightn’t you reverse that, Pobs, and say that he would trust me—­if he loves me?”

“No, not necessarily.”  Alan sucked at his pipe.  “He knows what his secret is, and whether it is right or wrong for you to share it.  You haven’t that knowledge.  And that’s where your trust must come in.  You have to believe in him enough to leave it to him to decide whether you ought to be told or not.  Have you no confidence in his judgment?”

“I don’t think husbands and wives should have secrets from one another,” protested Diana obstinately.

“Does he propose to have any other than this one?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t see that you need complain.  The present and the future are yours, but you’ve no right to demand the past as well.  And this secret, whatever it may be, belongs to the past.”

“As far as I can see it will be cropping up in the future as well,” said Diana ruefully.  “It seems to be a ‘continued in our next’ kind of mystery.”

Stair laughed boyishly.

“It should add a zest to life if that’s the case,” he retorted.

Diana was silent a moment.  Then she said suddenly:—­

“Pobs, what am I to do?”

Instantly Stair became grave again.

“My dear, do you love him?”

Diana nodded, her eyes replying.

“Then nothing else matters a straw.  If you love him enough to trust him with the whole of the rest of your life, you can surely trust him over a twopenny-halfpenny little secret which, after all, has nothing in the world to do with you.  If you can’t, do you know what it looks like?”