Almost as in a dream, Diana waited for the applause to subside, her eyes roaming halt-unconsciously over the big assembly.

It was all so stalely familiar—the little rustle of excitement, the preliminary clapping, the settling down to listen, and then the sea of upturned faces spread out beneath her.

The memory of the first time that she had sung in public, at Adrienne's house in Somervell Street, came back to her. It had been just such an occasion as this. . . .

(Olga was playing the introductory bars of accompaniment to her song, and, still as in a dream, she began to sing, the exquisite voice thrilling out into the vast room, golden and perfect.)

. . . Adrienne had smiled at her encouragingly from across the room, and Jerry Leigh had been standing at the far end near some big double doors. There were double doors to this room, too, flung wide open. (It was odd how clearly she could recall it all; her mind seemed to be working quite independently of what was going on around her.) And Max had been there. She remembered how she had believed him to be still abroad, and then, how she had looked up and suddenly met his gaze across those rows and rows of unfamiliar faces. He had come back.

Instinctively she glanced towards the far end of the room, where, on that other night and in that other room, he had been standing, and then . . . then . . . was it still only the dream, the memory of long ago? . . . Or had God worked a miracle? . . . Over the heads of the people, Max's eyes, grave and tender, but unspeakably sad, looked into hers!

A hand seemed to grip her heart, squeezing it so that she could not draw her breath. Everything grew blurred and dim about her, but through the blur she could still see Max, standing with his head thrown back against the panelling of the door, his arms folded across his chest, and his eyes—those grave, questioning eyes—fixed on her face.

Presently the darkness cleared away and she found that she was still singing—mechanically her voice had answered to the long training of years. But the audience had heard the great prima donna catch her breath and falter in her song. For an instant it had seemed almost as though she might break down. Then the tension passed, and the lovely voice, upborne by a limitless technique, had floated out again, golden and perfect as before.

It was only the habit of surpassing art which had enabled Diana to finish her song. Since last night, when she had seen Max for that brief moment at the Embassy, she had passed through the whole gamut of emotion, glimpsed the vision of coming happiness, only to believe that with her own hands she had pushed it aside. And now she was conscious of nothing but that Max—Max, the man she loved—was here, close to her once again, and that her heart was crying out for him. He was hers, her mate out of the whole world, and in a sudden blinding flash of self-revelation, she recognised in her refusal to return to him a sheer denial of the divine altruism of love.

The blank, bewildering chaos of the last twelve hours, with its turmoil of conflicting passions, took on a new aspect, and all at once that which had been dark was become light.

From the moment she had learned the truth about her husband, her thoughts had centred solely round herself, dwelling—in, all humility, it is true—but still dwelling none the less egotistically upon her personal failure, her own irreparable mistake, her self-wrought bankruptcy of all the faith and absolute belief a woman loves to give her lover. She had thrust these things before his happiness, whereas the stern and simple creed of love places the loved one first and everything else immeasurably second.

But now, in this quickened moment of revelation, Diana knew that she loved Max utterly and entirely, that his happiness was her supreme need, and that if she let him go from her again, life would be henceforth a poor, maimed thing, shorn of all meaning.

It no longer mattered that she had sinned against him, that she had nothing to bring, that she must go to him a beggar. The scales had fallen from her eyes, and she realised that in love there is no reckoning—no pitiful making-up of accounts. The pride that cannot take has no place there; where love is, giving and taking are one and indivisible.

Nothing mattered any longer—nothing except that Max was here—here, within reach of the great love in her heart that was stretching out its arms to him . . . calling him back.

The audience, ardently applauding her first song, saw her turn and give some brief instruction to her accompanist, who nodded, laying aside the song which she had just placed upon the music-desk. A little whisper ran through the assembly as people asked each other what song was about to be substituted for the one on the programme, and when the sad, appealing music of "The Haven of Memory," stole out into the room, they smiled and nodded to one another, pleased that the great singer was giving them the song in which they loved best to hear her.

Do you remember Our great love's pure unfolding, The troth you gave, And prayed, for God's upholding, Long and long ago?

Out of the past A dream—and then the waking— Comes back to me Of love, and love's forsaking, Ere the summer waned.

Ah! Let me dream That still a little kindness Dwelt in the smile That chid my foolish blindness, When you said good-bye.

Let me remember When I am very lonely, How once your love But crowned and blessed me only, Long and long ago.

There was no faltering now. The beautiful voice had never been more touching in its exquisite appeal. All the unutterable sweetness and humility and faith, the wistful memories, the passion and surrender that love holds, dwelt in the throbbing notes.

To Max, standing a little apart, the width of the room betwixt him and the woman singing, it seemed as though she were entreating him . . . calling to him. . . .

The sad, tender words, poignant with regret and infinite beseeching, clamoured against his heart, and as the last note trembled into silence, he turned and made his way blindly out of the room.



CHAPTER XXIX

SACRIFICE

"Did you mean it?"

Errington's voice broke harshly through the silence of the little anteroom where Diana waited alone. It had a curious, cracked sound, and his breath laboured like that of a man who has run himself out.

For a moment she kept her face hidden, trying to steady herself, but at last she turned towards him, and in her eyes was a soft shining—a strange, sweet fire.

"Max!" The whispered name was hardly audible; tremulous and wistful it seemed to creep across the room.

But he heard it. In a moment his arms were round her, and he had gathered her close against his heart. And so they remained for a space, neither speaking.

Presently Diana lifted her head.

"Max, it was because I loved you so that I was so hard and bitter—only because I loved you so."

"I know," was all he said. And he kissed her hair.

"Do you?"—wistfully. "I wonder if—if a man can understand how a woman can be so cruel to what she loves?"

And as he had no answer to this (since, after all, a man cannot be expected to understand all—or even very much—that a woman does), he kissed her lips.

She crept a little nearer to him.

"Max! Do you still care for me—like that?" There was wonder and thanksgiving in her voice. "Oh, my dear, I'm down in the dust at your feet—I've failed you utterly, wronged you every way. Even if you forgive me, I shall never forgive myself. But I'm—all yours, Max."

With a sudden jealous movement he folded her more closely in his arms.

"Let me have a few moments of this," he muttered, a little breathlessly. "A few moments of thinking you have come back to me."

"But I have come back to you!" Her eyes grew wide and startled with a sudden, desperate apprehension. "You won't send me away again—not now?"

His face twisted with pain.

"Beloved, I must! God knows how hard it will be—but there is no other way."

"No other way?" She broke from his arms, searching his face with her frightened eyes. "What do you mean? . . . What do you mean? Don't you—care—any longer?"

He smiled, as a man may who is asked whether the sun will rise to-morrow.

"Not that, beloved. Never that. I've always cared, and I shall go on caring through this world and into the next—even though, after to-night, we may never be together again."

"Never—together again?" She clung to him. "Oh, why do you say such things? I can't—I can't live without you now. Max, I'm sorry—sorry! I've been punished enough—don't punish me any more by sending me away from you."

"Punish you! Heart's dearest, there has never been any thought of punishment in my mind. Heaven knows, I've reproached myself bitterly enough for all the misery I've brought on you."

"Then why—why do you talk of sending me away?"

"I'm not going to send you away. It is I who have to go. Oh, beloved! I ought never to have come here this evening. But I thought if I might see you—just once again—before I went out into the night, I should at least have that to remember. . . . And then you sang, and it seemed as though you were calling me. . . ."

"Yes," she said very softly. "I called you. I wanted you so." Then, after a moment, with sudden, womanish curiosity: "How did you know I was singing here to-night?"

"Olga told me. She's bitterly opposed to all that I've been doing, but"—smiling faintly—"she has occasional spasms of compassion, when she remembers that, after all, I'm a poor devil who's being thrust out of paradise."

"She loves you," Diana answered simply. "I think she has loved you—better—than I did, Max. But not more!" she added jealously. "No one could love you more, dear."

After a pause, she asked:

"I suppose Olga told you that I know—everything?"

"Yes. I'm glad you know"—quietly. "It makes it easier for me to tell you why I must go away—out of your life."

She leaned nearer to him, her hands on his shoulders.

"Don't go!" she whispered. "Ah, don't go!"

"I must," he said hoarsely. "Listen, beloved, and then you will see that there is no other way. . . . I married you, believing that when Nadine would be safely settled on the throne, I should be free to live my own life, free to come back to England—and you. If I had not believed that, I shouldn't have told you that I cared; I should have gone away and never seen you again. But now—now I know that I shall never be free, never able to live in England."

He paused, gathering her a little closer into his arms.

"Everything is settled. Russia has helped, and Ruvania is ready to welcome Nadine's return. . . . She is in Paris, now, waiting for me to take her there. . . . It has been a long and difficult matter, and the responsibility of Nadine's well-being in England has been immense. A year ago, the truth as to her identity leaked out somehow—reached our enemies' ears, and since then I've never really known an instant's peace concerning her safety. You remember the attack which was made on her outside the theatre?"

Diana nodded, shame-faced, remembering its ultimate outcome.

"Well, the man who shot at her was in the pay of the Republic—German pay, actually. That yarn about the actor down on his luck was cooked up for the papers, just to throw dust in the eyes of the public. . . . To watch over Nadine's safety has been my work. Now the time has come when she can go back and take her place as Grand Duchess of Ruvania. And I must go with her."

"No, no. Why need you go? You'll have done your work, set her securely on the throne. Ah, Max! don't speak of going, dear." Her voice shook incontrollably.

"There is other work still to be done, beloved—harder work, man's work. And I can't turn away and take my shoulder from the wheel. It needs no great foresight to tell that there is trouble brewing on the Continent; a very little thing would set the whole of Europe in a blaze. And when that time arrives, if Ruvania is to come out of the struggle with her independence unimpaired, it will only be by the utmost effort of all her sons. Nadine cannot stand alone. What can a woman do unaided when the nations are fighting for supremacy? The country will need a man at the helm, and I must stand by Nadine."

"But why you? Why not another?"

"No other is under the same compulsion as I. As you know, my father put his wife first and his country second. It is difficult to blame him . . . she was very beautiful, my mother. But no man has the right to turn away from his allotted task. And because my father did that, the call to me to serve my country is doubly strong. I have to pay back that of which he robbed her."

"And have I no claim? Max! Max! Doesn't your love count at all?"

The sad, grieving words wrung his heart.

"Why, yes," he said unsteadily. "That's the biggest thing in the world—our love—isn't it? But this other is a debt of honour, and you wouldn't want me to shirk that, would you, sweet? I must pay—even if it costs me my happiness. . . . It may seem to you as though I'd set your happiness, too, aside. God knows, it hasn't been easy! But what could I do? I conceive that a man's honour stands before everything. That was why I let you believe—what you did. My word was given. I couldn't clear myself. . . . So you see, now, beloved, why we must part."

"No," she said quietly. "I don't see. Why can't I come to Ruvania with you?"

A sudden light leaped into his eyes, but it died away almost instantly. He shook his head.

"No, you can't come with me. Because—don't you see, dear?"—very gently and pitifully. "As my wife, as cousin of the Grand Duchess herself, you couldn't still be—a professional singer."

There was a long silence. Slowly Diana drew away from her husband, staring at him with dilated eyes.

"Then that—that was what Baroni meant when, he told me a time would come when your wife could no longer sing in public?"

Max bent his head.

"Yes. That was what he meant."

Diana stood silently clasping and unclasping her hands. Presently she spoke again, and there was a new note in her voice—a note of quiet gravity and steadfast decision.

"Dear, I am coming with you. The singing"—smiling a little tremulously—"doesn't count—against love."

Max made a sudden movement as though to take her in his arms, then checked himself as suddenly.

"No," he said quietly. "You can't come with me. It would be impossible—out of the question. You haven't realised all it would entail. After being a famous singer—to become merely a private gentlewoman—a lady of a little unimportant Court! The very idea is absurd. Always you would miss the splendour of your life, the triumphs, the being feted and made much of—everything that your singing has brought you. It would be inevitable. And I couldn't endure to see the regret growing in your eyes day by day. Oh, my dear, don't think I don't realise the generosity of the thought—and bless you for it a thousand times! But I won't let you pay with the rest of your life for a heaven-kind impulse of the moment."

His words fell on Diana's consciousness, each one weighted with a world of significance, for she knew, even as she listened, that he spoke but the bare truth.

Very quietly she moved away from him and stood by the chimney-piece, staring down into the grate where the embers lay dying. It seemed to typify what her life would be, shorn of the glamour with which her glorious voice had decked it. It would be as though one had plucked out the glowing heart of a fire, leaving only ashes—dead ashes of remembrance.

And in exchange for the joyous freedom of Bohemia, the happy brotherhood of artistes, there would be the deadly, daily ceremonial of a court, the petty jealousies and intrigues of a palace!

Very clearly Diana saw what the choice involved, and with that clear vision came the realisation that here was a sacrifice which she, who had so profaned love's temple, could yet make at the foot of the altar. And within her grew and deepened the certainty that no sacrifice in the world is too great to make for the sake of love, except the sacrifice of honour.

Here at last was something she could give to the man she loved. She need not go to him with empty hands. . . .

She turned again to her husband, and her eyes were radiant with the same soft shining that had lit them when he had first come to her in answer to her singing.

"Dear," she said, and her voice broke softly. "Take me with you. Oh, but you must think me very slow and stupid not to have learned—yet—what love means! . . . Ah, Max! Max! What am I to do, dear, if you won't let me go with you? What shall I do with all the love that is in my heart—if you won't take it?" For a moment she stood there tremulously smiling, while he stared at her, in his eyes a kind of bewilderment and unbelief fighting the dawn of an unutterable joy.

Then at last he understood, and his arms went round her.

"If I won't take it!" he cried, his voice all shaken with the wonder of it. "Oh, my sweet! I'll take it as a beggar takes a gift, as a blind man sight—on my knees, thanking God for it—and for you."

And so Diana came again into her kingdom, whence she had wandered outcast so many bitter months.

Presently she drew him down beside her on to a big, cushioned divan.

"Max, what a lot of time we've wasted!"

"So much, sweet, that all the rest of life we'll be making up for it." And he kissed her on the mouth by way of a beginning.

"What will Baroni say?" she whispered, with a covert smile.

"He'll wish he was young, as we are, so that he could love—as we do," he replied triumphantly.

Diana laughed at him for an arrogant lover, then sighed at a memory she knew of.

"I think he has loved—as we do," she chided gently.

Max's arm tightened round her.

"Then he's in need of envy, beloved, for love like ours is the most wonderful thing life has to give."

They were silent a moment, and then the quick instinct of lovers told them they were no longer alone.

Baroni stood on the threshold of the room, frowning heavily.

"So!" he exclaimed, grimly addressing Max. "This, then, is how you travel in haste to Paris?"

Startled, Diana sprang to her feet, and would have drawn herself away, but Max laughed joyously, and still keeping her hand in his, led her towards Baroni.

"We travel to Paris to-morrow," he said. "Won't you—wish us luck, Baroni?"

But luck was the last thing which the old maestro was by way of wishing them. For long he argued and expostulated upon the madness, as he termed it, of Diana's renouncing her career, trying his utmost to dissuade her.

"You haf not counted the cost!" he fumed at her. "You cannot haf counted the cost!"

But Diana only smiled at him.

"Yes, I have. And I'm glad it's going to cost me something—a good deal, in fact—to go back to Max. Don't you see, Maestro, it kind of squares things the tiniest bit?" She paused, adding, after a moment: "And it's such a little price to pay—for love."

Baroni, who, after all, knew a good deal about love as well as music, regarded her a moment in silence. Then, with a characteristic shrug of his massive shoulders, he yielded.

"So, then, the most marvellous voice of the century is to be wasted reading aloud to a Grand Duchess! Ah! Dearest of all my pupils, there is no folly in all the world at once so foolish and so splendid as the folly of love."

THE END