"I don't know," answered David. "I suppose the keen look-out one has to keep for unexpected and sometimes dangerous happenings, at all gatherings of our poor wild people, has trained one to it. I admit, I would sooner see the glitter of an African spear poised in my direction from behind a tree trunk, than see Mrs. Smith nudge her husband, in obvious disagreement with the most important point in my sermon."

"Well," continued Diana, "I came. And what do you think brought me?"

David had no suggestion to make as to what had brought Diana.

"Why, after you had come down for an interview with my god-father and spent a night at the Rectory, I motored over to see him, just before he went for his cure. He told me all about you; and, among other things, that you were going back knowing that the climate out there could only mean for you a very few years of life; and I came to church because I wanted to see a man whose religion meant more to him than even life itself—I, who rated life and health as highest of all good; most valuable of all possessions.

"I came to see—wondering, doubting, incredulous. I stayed to listen—troubled, conscience-stricken, perplexed. First, I believed in you, Cousin David. Then I saw the Christ-life in you. Then I longed to have what you had—to find Him myself. Yesterday, He found me. To-day, I can humbly, trustfully say: 'I know Whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.' I am far from being what I ought to be; my life just now is one tangle of perplexities; but the darkness is over, and the true light now shineth. I hope, from this time onward, to be a follower of the Star."

"I thank God," said David Rivers.

"And now," continued Diana, after a few moments of happy silence, "I am going to burden you, Cousin David, with a recital of my difficulties; and I am going to ask your advice. Let me tell you my past history, as shortly as possible.