But, with the reading of his first letter, the words, "my dear wife," stole around her as protective arms, shielding her from shame, and comforting her in her loneliness, with the fact of how much she had, after all, been able to give him. Yet never—never—must word from her reveal to David that she had given him, unasked, the whole love of her woman's heart. Should he come to need it, and ask for it, he would find it had all along been his.

At first, Diana's life had moved along its accustomed lines; with David, and all he was to her, as a sweet central secret, hidden deeply in her heart of hearts.

But, before long, she began to experience that which has been beautifully described as "the expulsive power of a new affection." David—like the little leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal—David, working outward, from that inner shrine, leavened her whole life.

He had not asked her to give up hunting, or dancing, or any of the gaiety in which she delighted. Yet the more she lived in touch with his strenuous life of earnest self-sacrifice, the less these things attracted her.

Diana's friends never found her dull; but they gradually grew to realise that her horizon had widened immeasurably beyond their own; that the focussing points in her field of vision were things totally unseen by themselves; that, in some subtle way, she had developed and grown beyond their comprehension. They loved her still, but they left her. Diana Rivers, of Riverscourt, ceased to be the centre of an admiring crowd.

They left her; but she was not conscious of their going.

She stood alone; yet did not know that she was lonely.

The only leaving of which she was aware, was that David had left her on their wedding-day; the only loneliness, that David never intended to return.

Truly, the little leaven had leavened the whole lump.

The glitter and the glamour of the kingdoms of this world had passed away. The kingdom of heaven held sway in Diana's heart.

But the King of that kingdom, at this period of Diana's life, was David.

Chapter XXV - The Property of the Crown

*

The summer passed in perpetual expectation; which, when autumn arrived, seemed ripe for fulfilment.

Diana's mind was so absorbed by her love for David, that she scarcely realised how completely she kept it out of her letters; or that his reticence might merely have been a reflection of her own. Also she every now and then relieved her feelings by writing him a complete outpouring. This, often written side by side with her letter for the mail, she would seal up in an envelope addressed to David, and place in a compartment of the sandal-wood box in which she kept all his letters, with a vague idea that some day she herself would be able to place in his hands these unposted missives.