There was a long silence. At last Diana spoke in low, shaken tones, her head bowed.
"I can't!" she whispered. "I shall never forgive myself. And I can't ask Max to—forgive me. . . . He couldn't." The last words were hardly audible.
For a moment Olga stood quite still, gazing with hard eyes at the slight figure hunched into drooping lines of utter weariness. Once her lips moved, but no sound came. Then she turned away, walking with lagging footsteps, and a minute later the door opened and closed quietly again behind her.
CHAPTER XXVII
CARLO BARONI EXPLAINS
Diana sat on, very still, very silent, staring straight in front of her with wide, tearless eyes. Only now and again a long, shuddering sigh escaped her, like the caught breath of a child that has cried till it is utterly exhausted and can cry no more.
She felt that she had come to an end of things. Nothing could undo the past, and ahead of her stretched the future, empty and void of promise.
Presently the creak of the door reopening roused her, and she turned, instantly on the defensive, anticipating that Olga had come back to renew the struggle. But it was only Baroni, who approached her with a look of infinite concern on his kind old face.
"My child!" he began. "My child! . . . So, then! You know all that there is to know."
Diana looked up wearily.