"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 constitution 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
circumstances, 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.