The Following of the Star Part 39

CHAPTER x.x.xI

"I CAN STAND ALONE"

In the early summer following the first anniversary of their wedding-day, Diana's anxiety about David increased.

His letters became less regular. Sometimes they were written in pencil, with more or less incoherent apologies for not using ink. The writing was larger than David's usual neat small handwriting; the letters, less firmly formed.

After receiving one of these, Diana experimented. She lay upon a couch, raised herself on her left elbow, and wrote a few lines upon paper lying beside her. This produced in her own writing exactly the same variation as she saw in David's.

She felt certain that David was having frequent and severe attacks of fever; but he still ignored all questions concerning his own health; or merely answered: "All is well, thank you"; and Diana had cause to fear that this answer was given in the spirit of the Shunammite woman who, when Elisha questioned: "Is it well with the child?" answered: "It is well"; yet her little son lay dead at home.

In June, Diana wrote to David's colleague, asking him privately for an exact account of her husband's health. But the colleague was loyal.

David answered the letter.

As usual, all was well; but it was _not_ well that Diana had tried to learn from some one else a thing which she had reason to suppose David himself did not wish to tell her. He wrote very sternly, and did not veil his displeasure.

Womanlike, Diana loved him for it.

"Oh, my Boy!" she said, smiling through her tears; "my David, with his thin, white face, tumbled hair, and boyish figure! Sick or well, absent or present, he would always be master. I must try Sir Deryck."

But she got nothing out of her friend the doctor, beyond a somewhat stiff reminder that he had told her on her wedding-day that her husband ought to return from Central Africa within the year. Had she really allowed him to go, without exacting a promise that he would do so? He might live through two years of that climate; but his const.i.tution could not possibly stand a third.

Her question, as to whether Sir Deryck had received recent news of David's health, remained unanswered.

Diana felt annoyed and indignant. A naturally sympathetic man is expected to be unfailingly sympathetic. But the doctor was strong as well as kind. He had been perplexed by the suddenly arranged marriage; surprised at David's reticence over it; and when he realised that David was sailing, without his bride, on the afternoon of his wedding-day, he had been inclined to disapprove altogether.

Diana sensed this disapproval in the doctor's letter. It hurt her; but it also stimulated her pride, toward him, and, in a lesser degree, toward David. That which they did not choose to tell her, she would no longer ask.

She was acquainted with at least half a dozen women who, under similar circ.u.mstances, would have telegraphed for an appointment, rushed up to town, and poured out the whole story to Sir Deryck in his consulting-room.

But Diana was not that kind of woman. Her pain made her silent. Her stricken heart called in pride, lest courage should fail. The tragic situation was of her own creating. That which resulted therefrom, she would bear alone.

She could not see herself a penitent, in the green leather armchair, in Sir Deryck's consulting-room. A grander woman than she had sat there once, humbled to the very dust, that she might win the crown of love.

But Diana's strength was of a weaker calibre. Her escutcheon was also the pure true heart, but its supporters were Courage on the one side, and Pride on the other; her motto: "I can stand alone."

So she lived on, calmly, through the summer months, while David's letters grew less and less frequent; and, at last, in October, the blow fell.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

THE BLOW FALLS

In October, during the second autumn of their married life, the blow fell.

A letter came from David; very clear, very concise, very much to the point; written in ink, in his small neat writing.

"MY DEAR WIFE--" wrote David, "I hope you will try to understand what I am about to write and not think, for a moment, that I under-value the pleasure and help I have received from our correspondence, during the year and nine months which have elapsed since my departure from England.

Your letters have been a greater cheer and blessing than you can possibly know. Also it has been an untold help to be able to write and share with you, all the little details of my interests out here.

"I am afraid these undeniable facts will make it seem even stranger to you, that I am now writing to ask that our correspondence should cease.

"I daresay you have noticed that my letters lately have been irregular, and often, I am afraid, short and unsatisfactory. The fact is--I have required all my remaining energy for the completion of my work out here.

"I want to bid you farewell, my wife, while I still have strength to write hopefully of my present work, and joyously of the future. I will not, now, hide from you, Diana, that my time here is nearly over. Do you remember how I said: 'I cannot _promise_ to die, you know'? I might have promised, with a good grace, after all.

"This will be the last letter I shall write; and when you have answered it, _do not write again_. I may be moved from here, any day; and can give you no address.

"You must not suppose, my wife, that, owing to the ceasing of our correspondence, you will be left in any uncertainty as to when the merely nominal bond which has bound us together is severed, leaving you completely free.

"I have written you a letter, which I carry, sealed and addressed, in the breast pocket of my coat. It bears full instructions that it is to be forwarded to you immediately after my death. A copy of it is also in my despatch-box; so that--in case of anything unforeseen happening to my clothes--the letter would without fail be sent to you, so soon as my belongings came into the hands of our Society.

"This letter is not, therefore, my final farewell; so I do not make it anything of a good-bye; though it puts an end to our regular correspondence. And may I ask you to believe that there is a reason for this breaking off of our correspondence; a reason which I cannot feel free to tell you now; but which I have explained fully, in the letter you will receive after my death? If you now find this step somewhat difficult to understand, believe me, that when you have read my other letter, you will at once admit that I could not do otherwise. I would not give your generous heart a moment's pain; even through a misunderstanding.

"And now, from the bottom of my heart, may I thank you for all you have done for me and for my work? Any little service I was able to render you, was as nothing compared with all you have so generously done for me, and been to me, since the Feast of Epiphany, nearly two years ago.

"Your help has meant simply everything to the work out here. I am able to feel that I shall leave behind me a fully established, flourishing, growing, eager young Church. My colleague is a splendid fellow, keen, earnest, and a good churchman. If you feel able to continue your support, he will be most grateful, and I can vouch for him as did the Jews of old, for the Roman centurion: 'He is worthy, for whom thou shouldest do this thing.'

"And, oh, if some day, Diana, you yourself could visit the Church of the Holy Star! Some day; but not yet.

"For this brings me to the closing request of my letter.

"I cannot but suspect that your kind and generous heart may incline you--as soon as you receive this letter, and know that I am dying--to come out here at once, in order to bid a personal farewell to your friend.

"_Do not do so._ Do not leave England until you receive word of my death. I have a reason, which you will understand by and by, for laying special stress upon this request; in fact it is my last wish and command, my wife.

(I have not had much opportunity for tyranny, have I?)

"How much your sympathy, and gay bright friendship, have meant to me, in this somewhat lonely life, no words can say.

"Just now I wrote of the time, so soon coming, when the nominal bond between us would be severed, leaving you completely free. You must not even feel yourself a widow, Diana; because you will not really be one. I have called you my 'wife,' I know; but it has just been a courtesy t.i.tle. Has n't it?

"Yet--may I say it?--I trust and believe the very perfect friendship between us will be a lasting link, which even death cannot sever. And there is a yet closer bond: One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism. This is eternal.

"So--I say again as I said, with my hands on your bowed head, on that Christmas night so long ago, before we knew all that was to be between us:

"The Lord bless thee, and keep thee; The Lord make His face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee; The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

"Good-bye, my wife.

"Yours ever,

"DAVID RIVERS."