The Following of the Star Part 33

Then the stars in their courses fought against David, for suddenly Diana understood. This was the letter she wanted, placed within her reach.

With a rapid movement she pounced upon it, verified it at a glance; tore it to fragments, and flung them into the flames.

"There!" she said. "You did not give it to me, and I have not taken it.

It is simply gone--as if it had never been either written or posted."

Then she turned to the little fat man near the door, and impulsively held out her hand. "G.o.d bless you, my friend!" she said. "I shall never forget what you have done for me this day."

"We had best both forget it," whispered the Postmaster, thickly. "If a word of it gets about, I lose my place."

"Never you fear!" cried Diana, her buoyancy returning, in her relief and thankfulness. "I trusted you, and you may safely trust me."

"Hush," cautioned Mr. Holdsworth, as he opened the door; "we had best both forget." Then, as she pa.s.sed out: "Your letter was just in time, m'am," he remarked aloud, for the benefit of the clerks in the office.

"I placed it in the bag myself."

"Thank you," said Diana. "It would have troubled me greatly to have missed this evening's mail. I am much obliged to you, Mr. Holdsworth."

Leaning back in the motor, on her homeward way, her heart felt sick at the suspense through which she had pa.s.sed.

A reaction set in. The chill of a second winter nipped the bloom of her summer, and the rich fulfilment promised by her golden autumn. The fact that it seemed such an impossible horror that one of her tender love-letters should really reach David, proved to her the fallacy of the consolation she had found in writing them.

It placed him far away--and far away forever. He would never know; he would never care; he would never come.... _It meant no more than we intended it should mean_.... _Good-bye, my wife._

Tears stole from beneath Diana's closed lids, and rolled silently down her cheeks.

_Your wife, who loves you and longs for you!_ But David would never know. It was so true--oh, so true! But David would never know.

And, away in the African swamps, at that very hour, David, lying in his wooden hut, recovering from one of the short bouts of fever, now becoming so frequent, leaned upon his elbow and drew from beneath his pillow Diana's last letter, which he had been too ill to read when the mail came in; scanned it through eagerly, seeking for some word which might breathe more than mere friendliness; pressed his hot lips against the signature, _yours affectionately_, _Diana Rivers_; then lay back and fought the hopeless consuming longing, which grew as the months pa.s.sed by, strengthening as he weakened.

"I promised it should never mean more than she intended," he said. "She chose me, because she trusted me. I should be a hound, to go back! But oh, my wife--my wife--my wife!"

"You can serve dinner for me in the library to-night, Rodgers," said Diana. "Tell Mrs. Mallory I shall dine there alone. I am tired. Yes, thank you; I caught the mail."

She s.h.i.+vered. "Order fires everywhere, please. The place is like an ice-house. Winter has taken us unawares."

She moved wearily across the great silent hall, and slowly mounted the staircase.

No light shone through the stained-gla.s.s window at the bend of the staircase; the stern outline of Rivers knights stood unrelieved by glow of colour. The knight with the dark bared head, his helmet beneath his arm, more than ever seemed to resemble David; not David in his usual quiet gentleness; but David, standing white and rigid, protesting, in startled dismay: "Why not? Why, because, even if I wished--even if you wished--even if we both wished for each other--in that way, Central Africa is no place for a woman. I would never take a woman there."

As she looked at the young knight with the close-cropped dark head, and white face, she remembered her sudden gust of fury against David; and the mighty effort with which she had surmounted it. Her answer came back to her with merciless accuracy; and, turning half way up the second flight of stairs, she faced the shadowy knight, and repeated it in low tones.

"My dear Cousin David, you absolutely mistake my meaning. I gave you credit for more perspicacity. I have not the smallest intention of going to Central Africa, or of ever inflicting my presence or my companions.h.i.+p, upon you.... And you yourself have told me, over and over, that you never expect to return to England."

Diana's hand tightened upon the bal.u.s.trade, as she stood looking across at the big window. These were the words she had spoken to David.

The bareheaded knight remained immovable; but his face seemed to whiten, and his outline to become more uncompromisingly mail-clad.

"David," came the low tender voice from the staircase, "oh, David, I _do_ want you--'in that way'! I would go to Central Africa or anywhere else in the wide world to be with you, David. Send for me, David, or come to me--oh, David, come to me!"

The tall slim figure on the staircase leaned towards the shadowy window, holding out appealing arms.

A bitter smile seemed to gather on the white face of the steel-clad knight. "_I_ am to provide the myrrh," said David's voice.

Diana turned and moved slowly upward.

She could hear the log fire in the hall beginning to hiss and crackle.

She s.h.i.+vered. "Yes, it is winter," she said; "it is winter again; and it has taken us unawares."

CHAPTER XXVI

A PILGRIMAGE

On the afternoon of Christmas-eve, Diana sat in the library writing to David. She had drawn up a small table close to the fire. The room was cosy, and perfectly quiet, excepting for the leap and crackle of flames among the huge pine logs.

Diana dated her letter; then laid aside her pen, and, resting her chin in her hand, read over once again David's Christmas letter, which had reached her that morning.

It was very full of the consecration of the Church of the Holy Star, which was to take place before the Feast of Epiphany.

It held no allusions to the anniversaries, so soon coming round; the days which, a year ago, had been fraught with happenings of such deep importance to them both.

Long after she had reached _Yours ever_, _David Rivers_, Diana sat with bent head, pondering over the closely written sheets, so pregnant with omissions, trying to make up her mind as to whether she should take her cue from David, and ignore the significance of these days; or whether she should act upon her first instinctive impulse, and write freely of them.

The firelight flickered on her coils of golden hair, and revealed the fact that her face had lost the rounded contour of that perfect buoyancy of health, which had been hers a year ago. Its thinness, and the purple shadows beneath the eyes, made her look older; but, as she lifted her eyes from the closely written sheets of foreign paper, and gazed, with a wistful little smile, into the fire, there was in them such a depth of chastened tenderness, and in her whole expression so gentle a look of quiet patience--as of a heart keeping long vigil, and not yet within sight of dawn--that the mellowing and softening of the spirit looking forth from it, fully compensated for the thinning and aging of the lovely face. Diana, in her independent radiance, was there no longer; but David's wife took up her pen to write to David, with a look upon her face, which would have brought David to his knees at her feet, could he but have seen it.

Uncle Falcon's amber eyes gleamed down upon her. They had never twinkled since her wedding night; but they often shone with a strangely comprehending light. Sometimes they said: "We have both won, Diana;" at other times: "We have both lost;" according to her mood. But always they were kindly; and always they gave her sympathy; and, unfailingly, they understood.

The old house rang with the merry voices of children. Notwithstanding the solemn protestations of old Rodgers, they were apparently playing hide-and-seek up and down the oak staircase, along the upper corridors, and in and out of the deep hall cupboards.

Diana was not fond of children. An extra loud whoop or bang in her vicinity, did not call up an indulgent smile upon her face; and, at last, when the whole party apparently fell headlong down the stairs together, Diana, with a frown of annoyance, rang the bell and told Rodgers to request Mrs. Mallory to see that there was less roughness in the games.

Certainly Diana was not naturally fond of children. Yet during these years in which she was striving to let her whole life be a perpetual offering of frankincense, she filled her house with them, at Christmas, Easter, and mid-summer.

They were the children of missionaries; boys and girls at school in England, whose parents in far distant parts of the world, could give them no welcome home in holiday time. They would have had a sad travesty of holidays, at school, had not Diana invited them to Riverscourt, giving them a right royal time, under the gentle supervision of Mrs.

Mallory, the young widow of a missionary killed in China, who now lived with Diana, as her companion and secretary. Mrs. Marmaduke Vane had wedded Mr. Inglestry, within three months of Diana's own marriage.

As the house grew more quiet, Diana again took up her pen. She could hear Mrs. Mallory shepherding the children along the upper corridors, into a play-room at the further end of the house.