"This is lovely beyond words, of course; and immensely artistic; but it gives me more the feeling of an extremely beautiful fancy picture. You see, I never saw you look as you are looking in this portrait, whereas the Town Hall picture is you, exactly as I remember you always; tall and gay, and immensely enjoying life, and life's best gifts.

"Conscious of ingratitude, I put the portrait up on the wall of my hut; but I could not leave it there; and it is now safely locked away in my desk.

"I could not leave it there for two reasons: its effect on myself; and its effect on the natives.

"Reason No. 1. Its effect on myself: I could not work, while it was where I could see it. It set me wondering; and a fellow is lost if he once starts wondering, out in the wilds of Central Africa.

"Reason No. 2. Its effect on the natives: They all began worshipping it. It became a second goddess fallen from heaven, like unto your namesake at Ephesus. They had seen a Madonna, brought here by an artist travelling through. They took this for a Madonna—and well they might. They asked: Where was the little child? I said: There was no little child. Yet still they worshipped. So I placed it under lock and key."

Diana laid her head down on the letter, after reading these words. When she lifted it, the page was blotted with her tears. Sometimes her punishment seemed heavier than she could bear.

She took up her pen, and added a postscript to the letter she was just mailing.

"Dear David, what did you wonder? Tell me."

And David, with white set face, wrote in answer: "I wondered who—" then started up, and tore the sheet to fragments; threw prudence to the winds; went out and beat his way for hours through the swampy jungle, fighting the long grasses, and the evil clinging tendrils of poisonous growths.

When he regained his hut, worn out and exhausted, the stars were pricking in golden pin-points through the sky; one planet hung luminous and low on the horizon.

David stood in his doorway, trying to gain a little refreshment from the night wind, blowing up from the river.

Suddenly he laughed, long and wildly; then caught his breath, in a short dry sob.

"My God," he said, "I have so little! Let me keep to the end the one thing in my wife which I possess: my faith in her."

Then he passed into the hut, closing the door; groped his way to the rough wooden table; lighted a lamp, and sitting down at his desk, drew Diana's portrait from its silver wrappings; placed it in front of him, and sat long, looking at it intently; his head in his hands.