The Following of the Star Part 32

_Yours affectionately_, _Diana Rivers_, was in her hand. _Your wife_, _who loves you and longs for you_, had gone to David!

Rodgers reported, in an unmoved undertone, that the man with the post-bag had started for Riversmead, on his bicycle, twenty minutes ago.

"Order the motor," commanded Diana. "Tell Knox to come round as quickly as possible. I must overtake the post-bag."

She placed her letter in a fresh envelope, rapidly addressed, sealed, and stamped it; flew up for a hat and coat, and was downstairs, ready to start, within five minutes of her discovery of the mistake.

She paced the hall like a caged lion. Every word she had written stood out in letters of fire. Oh folly, folly, to have let the two letters lie side by side!

"It meant no more than we intended it should mean".... _Your wife, who loves you and longs for you._

At last the motor hummed up to the portico. Diana was in it before it drew up.

"Overtake Jarvis," she said, and sat back, palpitating.

They flew down the avenue, and along the high road. But Jarvis had had nearly half-an-hour's start, and was a dependable man. A little way from the lodge gates they met him returning.

"On! To the post-office!" cried Diana.

It so happened that a smart, new post-office had lately been opened, in the centre of the little town--a stone building, very official in appearance. Its workings were carried out with great precision and authority. The old postmaster was living up to the grandeur of his new building.

Diana walked in, letting the door swing behind her.

"Has the Riverscourt bag been emptied yet?" she enquired. "If not, bring it to me, unopened."

A clerk went into the sorting-room, and returned in a few minutes with the letter-bag, open and empty.

"Has the mail gone?" demanded Diana.

No, the mail had not gone. It was due out, in a few minutes.

The letters were being sorted. She could hear the double bang-bang of the postmarking.

"I wish to see the Postmaster," said Diana.

The Postmaster was summoned, and, hurrying out, bowed low before the mistress of Riverscourt. She did not often come, in person, even to the _new_ post-office.

Diana knew she had a difficult matter to broach, and realised that she must not be imperious.

D. R. might reign at Riverscourt; but E. R. was sovereign of the realm!

Her love-letter to David had now become the property of the King; and this courteous little person, bowing before her, was, very consciously, the King's official in Riversmead. Was not E. R. carved with many flourishes on a stone escutcheon on the face of the new post-office?

Diana, curbing her impatience, smiled graciously at the Postmaster.

"May I have a few words with you, in your private room, Mr. Holdsworth?"

she said.

Full of pleased importance, the little great man ushered her into his private sanctum, adjoining the sorting-room.

A bright fire burned in the grate. The room was new, and not yet papered; and the autumn evening was chill. Diana walked up to the fire, drew off her gloves, and, stooping, warmed her hands at the blaze.

Then she turned and faced the Postmaster.

"Mr. Holdsworth, I want you to do me a great kindness. An hour ago, I put by mistake into our post-bag, a letter addressed to my husband, which it is most important that he should not receive. It was a mistake.

Here is the letter I intended for him. I want you to find the other in the sorting-room, and to get it back for me."

The little man stiffened visibly. E. R. seemed writ large all over him.

"That is impossible, madam," he said, "absolutely impossible. Once posted, a letter becomes the property of the Crown until it reaches the hands of the addressee. I, as a servant of the King, have to see that all Crown-property is safeguarded. I could not, under any circ.u.mstances whatever, return a letter once posted."

"But it is my own letter!" exclaimed Diana. "An hour ago it lay on my writing-table, side by side with this one, for which it was mistaken. It is my own property; and I _must_ have it back."

"It ceased to be your property, Mrs. Rivers, when it was taken from your private post-bag and placed among other posted letters. Neither you nor I have any further control over it."

Diana's imperious temper flashed from her eyes, and flamed into her cheeks. Her first impulse was to fling this little person aside, stride into the sorting-room, and retrieve her letter to David, at any cost.

Then a wiser mood prevailed. She came a step nearer, looking down upon him with soft pleading eyes.

"Mr. Holdsworth," she said, "you are an official of the Crown, and a faithful one; but, even before that, you are a man. Listen! I shall suffer days and nights of unspeakable anguish of mind, if that letter goes. My husband is out in the far wilds of Central Africa. That letter would mean endless worry and perplexity to him, in the midst of his important work; and also the wrecking of a thing very dear to us both.

So strongly do I feel about it, that, if it goes, I shall sail on the same boat, travelling night and day, by the fastest route, in order to intercept it at his very gate! See how I trust you, when I tell you all this!"

The Postmaster hesitated. "You could cable him to return it to you unopened," he said.

"I could," replied Diana; "but that would involve a mystery and a worry; and I would give my life to s.h.i.+eld him from worry. See! Here is the letter intended for this mail, ready stamped and sealed. All I ask you to do, is to subst.i.tute this one for the other."

She held out the letter, and looked at the Postmaster.

His eyes fell before the pleading in hers.

He was a Crown official and an Englishman. Had she offered him a hundred pounds to do this thing, he would have shown her out of his office with scant ceremony. But the haughty young lady of Riverscourt, in all her fearless beauty, had looked at him with tears in her grey eyes, and had said: "See how I trust you."

He hesitated: his hand moved in the direction of the letter, his fingers working nervously.

Diana laid her hand upon his arm, bending towards him.

"_Please_," she said.

He took the letter.

"I will see whether the other is already gone," he mumbled, and disappeared through a side door, into the sorting-room.

In a few moments he returned, still holding Diana's letter. His plump face was rather pale, and his hand shook. He laid Diana's letter on the table between them.

"I am very sorry, Mrs. Rivers," he said. "I cannot possibly give you back a letter once posted. Were I known to have done such a thing, I should at once be dismissed."

Diana paled, and stood very still, considering her next move.

"I cannot _give_ you back the letter," said the Postmaster. His eyes met hers; then dropped to the letter lying on the table between them.