And at last he had asked, "Why didn't you marry that fellow in Berlin, Di?"
"Because I didn't love him, Anthony. I found out just in time—and I found out, too, just in time that—it was you—Anthony."
Then he had said, "Hush," and had dropped her hands, and after a long time, he had spoken. "Di, I've asked another woman to marry me, and she has said, 'Yes.'"
Out of a stunned silence she had whispered. "How—did it happen?"
"Don't ask me—it is done—and it can't be undone—we have made a mess of things, Diana——"
He gave the bare details; of the sick mother who had crept back after years of absence to die in her own town, of the girl and her loneliness, of her child-like faith in him.
When he had finished, she had laid her hand on his arm. "But do you love her, do you really love her, Anthony?" had been her desolate demand.
He had drawn back, and not meeting her eyes, had said, very low, "You haven't the right to ask that question, Di, or I to answer it——"
And in that moment she had realized that the barrier which separated herself and Anthony was high enough to shut out happiness.
"Oh—oh." As Diana's thoughts came back to the present, she sat up in bed and wept helplessly. "Oh, I don't know what I am going to do, Sophie. I've always been so self-sufficient, and now it seems as if my whole world revolves about one man——"