"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."

"I want you—to have—the best," whispered David, with effort.

"This is the best, my dearest, my own," she answered, firmly. "To hold you in my arms, at last—at last. David, David; they would have been hungry always, if you had not come back. Now they will try to be content."

"I wish—" gasped the weak voice, "I wish—I need not—"

"Thine eyes shall see the King in His beauty," said Diana, bravely.

She felt the responsive thrill in him. She knew he was smiling again.

"Ah yes," he said. "Yes. In the Land that is very far off. Not so far as—as—"

"No, darling. Not so far as Central Africa."

"But—no—return," whispered David.

"Yet always near, my own, if I keep close to Him. You will be in His presence; and He will keep me close to Him. So we cannot be far apart."

He put up his hand again, and touched her lips. She kissed the cold fingers before they dropped, once more, to her breast.

"Has our love—helped?" asked David.

"Yes," she said. "It brought me to the King. It was the guiding Star."

"The King of Love," murmured David. "The King of Love—my Shepherd is. Can you—say it?"

Then, controlling her voice for David's sake, Diana repeated, softly: