"I thought it best not to correspond during the five years," continued David, "considering what we had been to one another. But when I was invalided home, I looked forward, in the eager sort of way you do when you are very weak, to seeing Amy again. I had no one else. As soon as I could manage the journey, I went down—home; and—and called at Amy's house. I asked for Mrs. Robert Carsdale—Amy's married name. A very masculine noisy lady, whom I had never seen before, walked into the room where I stood awaiting Amy. She had just come in from hunting, and flicked her boot with her hunting-crop as she asked me what I wanted. I said: "I have called to see Mrs. Robert Carsdale." She said: "Well? I am Mrs. Robert Carsdale," and stared at me, in astonishment.

"So I asked for Amy. She told me where to—to find Amy, and opened the hall door. Amy had been dead three years. Robert Carsdale had married again. I found Amy's grave, in our little churchyard, quite near my own parents'. Also the grave of her baby boy. It was all that was left of Amy; and, do you know, she had named her little son 'David.'"

"Oh, you poor boy!" said Diana. "You poor, poor boy! But, do you know, I think Amy in heaven was better for you, than Amy on earth. I don't hold with marriage. Had you cared very much?"

"Yes, I had cared a good deal," replied David, in a low voice; "but as a boy cares, I think. Not as I should imagine a man would care. A man who really cared could not have left her to another man, could he?"

"I don't hold with matrimony," said Diana again; and she said it with forceful emphasis.

"Nor do I," said David; "and my people out in Africa are all the family I shall ever know. I faced that out, when I accepted the call. No man has a right to allow a woman to face nameless horrors and hardships, or to make a home in a climate where little children cannot live."