The Following of the Star: A Romance

Her gift of gold seemed worth little or nothing.

Her gift of frankincense had ended in heart-broken failure.

What was left now, save myrrh – David's gift of myrrh, and her anguish in the fact that he offered it?

During this period of blank despair, Diana went one afternoon to a service in a place where many earnest hearts gathered each week for praise, prayer, and Bible study. She went to please a friend, without having personally any special expectation of profit or of enjoyment.

The proceedings opened with a hymn – a very short hymn of three verses, which Diana had never before heard. Yet those words, in their inspired simplicity, were to mean more to her than anything had ever as yet meant in her whole life. Before the audience rose to sing, she had time to read the three verses through.

"Jesus, stand among us,In Thy risen power;Let this time of worshipBe a hallowed hour."Breathe Thy Holy SpiritInto every heart;Bid the fears and sorrows,From each soul depart."Thus, with quickened footsteps,We'll pursue our way;Watching for the dawningOf the eternal day."

Who can gauge the power of an inspired hymn of prayer? As the simple melody rose and fell, sung by hundreds of believing, expectant hearts, Diana became conscious of an unseen Presence in the midst, overshadowing the personality of the minister, just as in the noble monument to Phillips Brooks, outside his church in the beautiful city of Boston, the mighty tender figure of his Master, standing behind him, overshadows the sculptured form of the great preacher.

The Presence of the risen Christ was there; the Power of the risen Christ, then and there, laid hold upon Diana.

"Jesus, stand among us,In Thy risen power – "

pleaded a great assemblage of believing hearts; and, in very deed, He stood among them; and He drew near in tenderness to the one lonely soul who, more than all others, needed Him.

None other human words reached Diana during that "hour of worship." He, Who stood in the midst, dealt with her Himself, in the secret of her own spirit-chamber.

She saw the happenings of the past in a new light.

First of all, Self had reigned supreme.

Then – when the great earthly love had ousted Self – she had placed David upon the throne.

Now the true and only King of Love drew near in risen power; and she realised that He was come, in deepest tenderness, to claim the place which should all along have been His own.

"Bid the fears and sorrowsFrom each soul depart."

"Fear not; I am the First and the Last, and the Living One."

Her whole life just now had seemed to be made up of fears and sorrows; but they all vanished in the light of this new revelation: "Christ is all, and in all."

Her broken heart arose, and crowned Him King.

Her love for David, her anguish over David, were not lessened; but her heart's chief love was given to Him unto Whom it rightfully belonged; and her soul found, at last, its deepest rest and peace.

"Thus, with quickened footsteps,We'll pursue our way;Watching for the dawningOf the eternal day."

Diana went out, when that hour was over, with footsteps quickened indeed. Hitherto she had been watching, in hopeless foreboding, for news of David's death. Now she was watching, in glad certainty, for the eternal dawn, which should bring her belovèd and herself to kneel together at the foot of the throne. For He Who sat thereon was no longer David, but David's Lord.

At last she realised that she too could bring her offering of myrrh. She remembered David's words in that Christmas-eve sermon, so long ago: "Your present offering of myrrh is the death of self, the daily crucifying of the self-life. 'For the love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge: that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they which live, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him, Who died for them, and rose again.' Your response to that constraining love; your acceptance of that atoning death; your acquiescence in that crucifixion of self, constitute your offering of myrrh."

She understood it now; and she felt strangely, sweetly, one with David. He, in the wilds of Central Africa; she, in a hospital in the heart of London's busy life, were each presenting their offering of myrrh; and God, Who alone can make all things work together for good, had overruled their great mistake, and was guiding them, across life's lonely desert, to the feet of the King.

From that hour, Diana's life was one of calm strength and beauty. Her heart still momentarily ceased beating at the arrival of each mail; she still yearned for the assurance that David had received her letter; but the risen power which had touched her life had bestowed upon it a deep inward calm, which nothing could ruffle or remove.

Yet this Christmas-eve, so full of recollections, brought with it an almost overwhelming longing for David.

As she lay back in her chair, the scene in the vestry rose so clearly before her. She could see him seated on the high stool, little piles of money and the open book in front of him, two wax candles on the table. She could see David's luminous eyes as he said: "I cannot stand for my King. I am but His messenger; the voice in the wilderness crying: Prepare ye the way of the Lord; make His paths straight."

Poor David! All unbeknown to himself, she had made him stand for his King. Yet truly he had prepared the way; and now, at last, the King was on the throne.

Diana roused herself and looked at the clock: five minutes to seven.

She rose, and going to the window, drew aside the curtain. The fog had partially lifted; the sky was clearing. Through a forest of chimneys there shone, clear and distinct, one brilliant star.

"And when they saw the star they rejoiced," quoted Diana. "Oh, my Boy, are you now beyond the stars, or do you still lift dear tired eyes to watch their shining?"

Then she dropped the curtain, left her room, and passed down the flight of stone stairs, to meet Sir Deryck.

CHAPTER XXXV

THE LETTER COMES

As Diana and the great specialist passed through the lower hall the ambulance bell sounded, sharply.

They mounted the stairs together.

"Ambulance call from Euston Station," shouted the porter, from below.

Diana sighed. "That will most likely mean another bad operation to-night," she remarked to Sir Deryck. "These fogs work pitiless havoc among poor fellows on the line. We had a double amputation this afternoon – a plate-layer, with both legs crushed. The worst case I have ever seen. Yet we hope to save him. How little the outside world knows of the awful sights we are suddenly called upon to face, in these places, at all hours of the day and night!"

"Does it try your nerve?" asked the doctor, as they paused a moment at the entrance to the ward.

Diana smiled, meeting his clear eyes with the steadfast courage of her own.

"No," she said. "My hunting-field experiences stand me in good stead. Also, when one is responsible for every preparation which is to ensure success for the surgeon's skill, one has no time to encourage or to contemplate one's own squeamishness."

The doctor smiled, comprehendingly.

"Hospital life eliminates self," he said.

"All life worth living does that," rejoined Diana, and they entered the ward.

Half an hour later they stood together near the top of the staircase, talking, in low voices, over the case in which Sir Deryck was interested. They heard, below, the measured tread on the stone floor, of the ambulance men returning with their burden. It was the "call" from Euston Station.

The little procession slowly mounted the stairs: two men carrying a stretcher, a nurse preceding, the house surgeon following.

Diana rested her hand on the rail, and bent over to look.

A slight, unconscious figure lay on the stretcher. The light fell full on the deathly pallor of the worn face. The head moved from side to side, as the bearers mounted the steps. One arm slipped down, and hung limp and helpless.

"Steady!" called the house-surgeon, from below.

The nurse turned, gently lifted the nerveless hand, and laid it across the breast.

Diana, clutching the rail, gazed down speechless at the face, on which lay already the unmistakable shadow of death.

Then she turned, seized Sir Deryck's arm, and shook it.

"It is David," she said. "Do you hear? Oh, my God, it is David!"

The doctor did not answer; but, as the little procession reached the top of the staircase, he stepped forward.

"Found unconscious in the Liverpool train," said the house-surgeon. "Seems a bad case; but still alive."

The bearers moved towards the ward; but Diana, white and rigid, barred the way.

"Not here," she said, and her voice seemed to her to come from miles away. "Not here. Into the private ward."

They turned to the left and entered a small quiet room.

"It is David," repeated Diana, mechanically. "It is David."

They placed the stretcher near the bed, which the nurse was quickly making ready.

As if conscious of some unexpected development, all stood away from it, in silence.

Diana and the doctor drew near. Their eyes met across the stretcher.

"It is David," said Diana. "He has come back to me. Dear God, he has come back to me!"

Her grey eyes widened. She gazed at the doctor, in startled unseeing anguish.

"Just help me a moment, Mrs. Rivers, will you?" said Sir Deryck's quiet, steady voice. "You and I will place him on the bed; and then, with Dr. Walters's help, we can soon see what to do next. Put your hands so… That is right. Now, lift carefully. Do not shake him."

Together they lifted David's wasted form, and laid it gently on the bed.

"Go and open the window," whispered Sir Deryck to Diana. "Stand there a moment or two; then close it again. Do as I tell you, my dear girl. Do it, for David's sake."

Mechanically, Diana obeyed. She knew that if she wished to keep control over herself, she must not look just yet on that dear dying face; she must not see the thin travel-stained figure.

She stood at the open window, and the breath of night air seemed to restore her powers of thought and action. She steadied herself against the window frame, and lifted her eyes. Above the forest of chimney stacks, shone one brilliant star.

Her Boy was going quickly – beyond the stars. But he had come back to her first.

Suddenly she understood why he had stopped the correspondence. He was on the eve of his brave struggle to reach home. And why he had begged her to remain in England – oh, God, of course! Not because he did not want her, but because he himself was coming home. Oh, David, David!

She turned back into the room.

Skilful hands were undressing David.

Something lay on the floor. Mechanically Diana stooped and picked it up. It was his little short black jacket; the rather threadbare "old friend."

Diana gave one loud sudden cry, and put her hand to her throat.

Sir Deryck stepped quickly between her and the bed; then led her firmly to the door.

"Go to your room," he said. "It is so far better that you should not be here just now. Everything possible shall be done. You know you can confidently leave him to us. David himself would wish you to leave him to us. Sit down and face the situation calmly. He may regain consciousness, and if he does, you must be ready, and you must have yourself well in hand."

The doctor put her gently out, through the half-open door.

Diana turned, hesitating.

"You would call me – if?"

"Yes," said the doctor; "I will call you – then."

Diana still held David's jacket. She slipped her hand into the breast-pocket, and drew out a sealed envelope.

"Sir Deryck," she said, "this is a letter from David to me, which I was to receive after his death. Do you think I may read it now?"

The doctor glanced back at the bed. A nurse stood waiting with the hypodermic and the strychnine for which he had asked. The house surgeon, on one knee, had his fingers on David's wrist. He met the question in the doctor's eyes, and shook his head.

"Yes, I think you may read it now," said Sir Deryck gently; and closed the door.

CHAPTER XXXVI

DIANA LEARNS THE TRUTH

Diana passed to her room, with the sense of all around her being dream-like and unreal.

When the unexpected, beyond all imagining, suddenly takes place in a life, its every-day setting loses reality; its commonplace surroundings become intangible and vague. There seemed no solidity about the stone floors and passages of the hospital; no reality about the ceaseless roar of London traffic without.

The only real things to Diana, as she sank into her armchair, were that she held David's coat clasped in her arms; that David's sealed letter was in her hand; that David himself lay, hovering between life and death, just down the corridor.

At first she could only clasp his coat to her breast, whispering brokenly: "He has come back to me! David, David! He has come back to me!"

Then she realised how all-important it was, in case he suddenly recovered consciousness, that she should know at once what he had said to her in his farewell letter.

With an effort she opened it, drew out the closely written sheets, and read it; holding the worn and dusty coat still clasped closely to her.

"My dear Wife, – When you read these lines, I shall have reached the Land from whence there is no return – 'the Land that is very far off.'

"Very far off; yet not so far as Central Africa. Perhaps, as you are reading, Diana, I shall be nearer to you than we think; nearer, in spirit, than now seems possible. So do not let this farewell letter bring you a sense of loneliness, my wife. If spirits can draw near, and hover round their best belovèd, mine will bend over you, as you read.

"Does it startle you, that I should call you this? Be brave, dear heart, and read on; because – as I shall be at last in the Land from whence there is no return – I am going to tell you the whole truth; trusting you to understand, and to forgive.

"Oh, my wife, my belovèd! I have loved you from the very first; loved you with my whole being; as any man who loved you, would be bound to love.

"I did not know it, myself, until after I had made up my mind to do as you wished about our marriage. I had sat up all night, pondering the problem; and at dawn, after I had realised that without transgressing against the Divine Will I could marry you, I suddenly knew – in one revealing flash – that I loved you, my belovèd —I loved you.

"How I carried the thing through, without letting it be more than you wished, I scarcely know now. It seems to me, looking back upon those days from this great solitude, that it was a task beyond the strength of mortal man.

"And it was, Diana. But not beyond the strength of my love for you. If, as you look back upon our wedding, and the hours which followed, and – and the parting, my wife, it seems to you that I pulled it through all right, gauge, by that, the strength of my love.

"Oh, that evening of our wedding-day! May I tell you? It is such a relief to be able to tell you, at last. It cannot harm you to learn how deeply you have been loved. It need not sadden you, Diana; because every man is the better for having given his best.

"The longing for you, during those first hours, was so terrible. I went down to my cabin – you remember that jolly big cabin, 'with the compliments of the company' – but your violets stood on the table, everything spoke of you; yet your sweet presence was not there; and each revolution of the screw widened the distance between us – the distance which was never to be recrossed.

"I tried to pray, but could only groan. I took off my coat; but when I turned to hang it up, I saw my hat, hanging where you had placed it. I slipped on my coat again. I could not stay in this fragrance of violets, and in the desperate sense of loneliness they caused.

"I mounted to the hurricane deck, and paced up and down, up and down. For one wild moment I thought I would go off, when the pilot left; hurry back to you, confess all, and throw myself on your mercy – my wife, my wife!

"Then I knew I could never be such a hound as to do that. You had chosen me, because you trusted me. You had wedded me, on the distinct understanding that it was to mean nothing of what marriage usually means. I had agreed to this; therefore you were the one woman on the face of God's earth, whom I was bound in honour not to seek to win.

"Yet, I wanted you, my wife; and the hunger of that need was such fierce agony.

"I went to the side of the ship. Beating my clenched fists on the woodwork, seemed to help a little. Then – I looked over.

"We were surging along through the darkness. I could see the white foam on the waves, far down below.

"Then – Diana, dare I tell you all? – then the black waters tempted me. I was alone up there. It would mean only one headlong plunge – then silence and oblivion. God forgive me, that in the agony of that moment of Time, I forgot Eternity.

"But, lifting my eyes, I looked away from those black waters to where – clear on the horizon – shone a star.

"Somehow that star brought you nearer. It was a thing you might be seeing also, on this, our wedding-night. I stood very still and watched it, and it seemed to speak of hope. I prayed to be forgiven the sin of having harboured, even for a moment, that black, cowardly temptation.

"Then, all at once, I remembered something. May I tell you, my wife, my wife? It cannot harm you, after I am dead, that I should tell you. I remembered that you had laid your hand for one moment on the pillow in my bunk. At once, I seemed rich beyond compare. Your hand – your own dear hand!

"I ran down quickly, and in five minutes I was lying in the dark, the scent of violets all about me, and my head where your dear hand had rested. And then – God gave me sleep.

"My wife, I have often had hard times since then; but never so bad as that first night. And, though I have longed for you always, I would not have had less suffering; because, to have suffered less would have been to have loved you less; and to have loved you less would have been unworthy of you, Diana; – of you and of myself.

"But what an outpouring! And I meant to write entirely of bigger and more vital things, in this last letter. Yet I suppose I love you is the most vital thing of all to me; and, when it came to being able to tell you fully, I felt like writing it all down, exactly as it happened. I think you will understand.

"And now about the present.

"I can't die, miles away from you! Since death has been coming nearer, a grave out here seems to hold such a horror of loneliness. It would be rest, to lie beneath the ground on which your dear feet tread. Also, I am possessed by a yearning so unutterable to see your face once more, that I doubt if I can die, until I have seen it.

"So I am coming back to England, by the quickest route; and, if I live through the journey, I shall get down into the vicinity of Riverscourt somehow, and just once see you drive by. You will not see me, or know that I am near; so I don't break our compact, Diana. It may be a sick man's fancy, to think that I can do it; yet I believe I shall pull it through. So, if this comes into your hands, from an English address, you will know that, most likely, before I died, I had my heart's desire – one sight of your sweet face; and, having had it, I died content.

"Ah, what a difference love – the real thing – makes in a man's life! God forgive me, I can't think or write of my work. Everything has now slipped away, save thoughts of you. However, you know all the rest.

"I am writing to ask you not to write again, as I shall be coming home – only I daren't give you that, as the reason! And also to beg of you not to leave England. Think what it would be, if I reached there, only to find you gone!

"And now about the future, my beloved; your future.

"Oh, that picture! You know, – the big one? I can't put on paper all I thought about it; but – it showed me – I knew at once – that somehow, some one had been teaching you – what love means.

"Diana, don't misunderstand me! I trust you always, utterly. But we both made a horrible mistake. Our marriage was an unnatural, unlawful thing. It is no fault of yours, if some one – before you knew what was happening – has made you care, in something the way I suddenly found I cared for you.

"And I want to say, that this possibility makes me glad to leave you free – absolutely free, my wife.

"You must always remember that I want you to have the best, and to know the best. And if some happy man who loves you and is worthy can win you, and fill your dear life with the golden joy of loving – why, God knows, I wouldn't be such a dog in the manger, as to begrudge you that joy, or to wish to stand between.

"So don't give me a thought, if it makes you happier to forget me. Only – if you do remember me sometimes – remember that I have loved you, always, from the very first, with a love which would have gladly lived for you, had that been possible; but, not being possible, gladly dies for you, that you – at last – may have the best.

"And so, good-bye, my wife."Yours ever,"David Rivers."

CHAPTER XXXVII

"GOOD-NIGHT, DAVID"

When Diana had finished reading David's letter, she folded it, replaced it in the envelope; rose, laid aside her uniform, slipping on a grey cashmere wrapper, with soft white silk frills at neck and wrists.

Then she passed down the stone corridor, and quietly entered the darkened room where David was lying.

A screen was drawn partly round the bed.

A nurse sat, silent and watchful, her eyes upon the pillow.

She rose, as Diana entered, and came forward quickly.

"I am left in charge, Mrs. Rivers," she whispered. "I was to call you at once when I saw the change. The doctors have been gone ten minutes. Sir Deryck expects to return in an hour. He is fetching an antitoxin which he proposes trying, if the patient lives until his return. Dr. Walters thinks it useless to attempt anything further. No more strychnine is to be used."

"Thank you," said Diana, gently. "Now you can go into the ward, nurse. I will take charge here. If I want help, I will call. Close the door softly behind you. I wish to be alone."

She stood quite still, while the nurse, after a moment's hesitation, left the room.

Then she came round to the right side of the bed, knelt down, and drew David into her arms, pillowing his head against her breast. She held him close, resting her cheek upon his tumbled hair, and waited.

At length David sighed, and stirred feebly. Then he opened his eyes.

"Where – am I?" he asked, in a bewildered voice.

"In your wife's arms," said Diana, slowly and clearly.

"In – my wife's – arms?" The weak voice, incredulous in its amazed wonder, tore her heart; but she answered, unfaltering:

"Yes, David. In your wife's arms. Don't you feel them round you? Don't you feel her heart beating beneath your cheek? You were found unconscious in the train, and they brought you to the Hospital of the Holy Star, where, thank God, I chanced to be. My darling, can you understand what I am saying? Oh, David, try to listen! Don't go, until I have told you. David – I have read your letter; the letter you carried in your breast-pocket. But, oh darling, it has been the same with me as with you! I have loved you and longed for you all the time. Ever since you called me your wife on the boat, ever since our wedding-evening, I have loved you, my Boy, my darling – loved you, and wanted you. David, can you understand?"

"Loved – loved me?" he said. Then he lay quite still, as if striving to take in so unbelievable a thing. Then he laughed – a little low laugh, half laugh, half sob – a sound unutterably happy, yet piteously weak. And, lifting his wasted hand, he touched her lips; then, for very weakness, let it fall upon her breast.

"Tell me – again," whispered David.

She told him again; low and tenderly, as a mother might croon to her sick child, Diana told again the story of her love; and, bending over, she saw the radiance of the smile upon that dying face. She knew he understood.

"Darling, it was love for you which brought the look you saw in the photograph. There was no other man. There never will be, David."