Bid her good-bye for me."
All who were going, seemed to have gone. The gangway was empty.
Pa.s.sengers crowded to the side of the ship, waving in tearful silence, or gaily shouting last words, to friends lined up on the dock.
"All ash.o.r.e!" shouted the sailor in charge of the gangway, looking at Diana.
She moved toward it, slowly; David at her side.
"Look here," said David, speaking hurriedly; "I should hate to watch you standing alone in that crowd, while we slowly pull out into mid-stream.
Don"t do it. Don"t wait to see us go. I would so much rather you went straight to your car. It is just within sight. I shall see William arrange the rug, and shut you in. I shall be able to watch you actually safely on your way to Riverscourt; which will be much better than gradually losing sight of you in the midst of a crowd of strange faces.
You don"t know how long-drawn-out these dock partings are. Will you--will you do as I ask?"
"Why of course, I will, David," she said. "It is the only thing you have bidden me do since I promised to obey." Her lips trembled. "I hate saying good-bye, David. And you really look ill. I wish I had insisted on seeing Martin"s mate."
"I"m all right," said David, with dry lips. "Don"t you worry."
"All ash.o.r.e!" remarked the sailor, confidentially, in their direction.
Diana placed one foot on the gangway; then turned, and put her hand into David"s.
"Good-bye, David," said Diana.
His deep eyes looked hungrily into her face--one last long earnest look.
Then he loosed her hand, and bent over her, as she began to descend the gangway.
"Good-bye--_my wife_"--said David Rivers.
CHAPTER XXII
DIANA WINS
The steady hum, and rapid onward rush, of the motor were a physical relief to Diana, after the continuous strain of the happenings of that eventful day.
She lay back, watching the flying houses, hedges, trees, and meadows,--and allowed every nerve to relax.
She felt so thankful it was all over, and that she was going home--alone.
She felt very much as she had felt on her return to Riverscourt after Uncle Falcon"s funeral. It had been such a relief then to be returning to a perfectly normal house, where every-day life could be resumed as usual. She had realised with thankfulness that the blinds would be up once more. There would be no hushed and silent room, which must be pa.s.sed with reverent step, and bated breath, because of the awesome unnaturalness of the Thing which lay within. She had lost Uncle Falcon on the night of his death. The day of the funeral involved no further loss. It simply brought relief from a time of unnatural strain and tension.
This shrinking of Life from Death, is the strongest verification of the statement of Holy Scripture, that death came by sin. The redeemed soul in its pure radiance has gone on to fuller life. "The body is dead, because of sin." All that is left behind is "sinful flesh." Death lays a relentless hand on this, claiming it as his due. Change and decay set in; and even the tenderest mourning heart has to welcome the coffin lid, grateful to kind Mother Earth for receiving and hiding that which--once so precious--has now become a burden. Happy they who, standing at the open grave, can appropriate and realise the great resurrection message: "He is not here! He is risen!"
Diana shifted her seat in the bounding car, drawing the rugs more closely around her.
Why was her mind dwelling thus on death and funerals, on the afternoon of her wedding-day?
How wonderful it was that this should actually be her wedding-day; and yet that she should still be Diana Rivers of Riverscourt, returning alone to her own domain, free and unfettered.
How well her plan had succeeded; and what an unexpected touch of pure romance had been added thereto, by the fact that, after all, she had, at the last, done for David"s sake, that which he thought he was doing for hers. There was a selflessness about the motives of both, in this marriage, which made it fragrant with the sublimest essence of frankincense. Surely only good and blessing could ensue.
Diana contemplated with satisfaction the additional prestige and a.s.surance given to her position in the neighbourhood, by the fact that she could now take her place in society as a married woman.
How much hateful gossip would be silenced forever; how many insolent expectations would be disappointed; how many prudish criticisms and censorious remarks would have to whisper themselves into shame-faced silence.
Diana looked forward with gleeful amus.e.m.e.nt to answering the astonished questions of her many friends. How perfectly she had vindicated the line she had always taken up. Here she was, safely established, with all a married woman"s privileges, and none of her odious obligations.
The old frumps, whom it was amusing to shock, would be more shocked than ever; while the younger spirits, who acclaimed her already, would hail her more loudly than ever: "Diana! Victress! Queen!"
And all this she undoubtedly owed to David, who had made her his----
Then suddenly she found herself confronted by that which, ever since the motor started, she had been fighting resolutely into her mental background; a quiet retrospection of the moment of her parting with David.
Brought face to face with it, by the chance mention of one word, Diana at once--giving up fencing with side issues, past and future--turned and faced this problem of the present. Brave at all times, she was not a coward when alone.
She took off her hat, rested her head against the soft springiness of the padded back of her motor; closed her eyes, and pressed both hands tightly against her breast.
David had said: "Good-bye, my wife." It was the name he meant to use in all his letters. "Good-bye, _my wife_."
It now seemed to Diana that the happenings of that whole day had been moving toward that culminating moment, when David"s deep tender voice should call her his wife; yet he had not done so, until only a narrow shifting plank, on which her feet already stood, lay between them, and a last earthly farewell.
Diana had sped down the gangway; and when her feet touched the wharf she had fled to her car, without looking back; knowing that if she looked back, and saw David"s earnest eyes watching her from the top, his boyish figure standing, slim and erect--she would have turned and rushed back up the gangway, caught his hand to her breast, and asked him to say those words again. And, if David had called her his wife again--in that tone which made all things sway and reel around her, and fortune, home, friends, position seem as nothing to the fact that she was _that_ to him--she could never have let go his hand again. They must have remained forever on the same side of the gangway; either she sailing with David to Central Africa, or David returning with her to Riverscourt.
Yet she did not want to go to Africa; and she certainly did not want David at Riverscourt! Her whole plan of life was to reign supreme in her own possessions, mistress of her home, mistress of her time, and, most important of all, mistress of herself.
Then what was the meaning of this strange disturbance in the hitherto unruffled calm of her inner being? What angel had come down, on lightning wing, to trouble the still waters of her deepest self?
Diana was confronted by that most illusive of psychological problems, the solving of the mystery of a woman"s heart--and she possessed no key thereto. Her knowledge of the world, her advanced ideas, her indiscriminate reading, had not supplied her with the golden key, which lies in the fact of the utter surrender of a n.o.ble woman, to the mighty love, and the infinite need, of a strong, good, man.
She had chosen to go home alone. She had preferred this parting of the ways. Then why was it so desperately sweet to recall David"s voice saying: "Good-bye, _my wife_"? Why did nothing still this strange aching at her breast, save the remembrance of the touch of his hand, as she had pressed it against her?
She would have stopped the motor and bidden her man race back to the wharf, on the chance of having a last sight of David, standing on the deck of the liner, had he not bidden her go at once, without delay; so that, in thus going, she was rendering him the one act of obedience possible, in their brief wedded life.
The wintry sun soon set behind the Hampshire hills.
The primrose of the sky faded into purple twilight; twilight was quickly merged in chilly darkness.
The car paused a moment for the kindling of its huge acetylene lamps; then rushed onward, more rapidly than before.
Diana sat on in shadow. One touch of a b.u.t.ton would have flooded the interior of her motor with light; but she preferred the quiet darkness.
In it she could better hear her husband"s voice, and see the gleam of his deep earnest eyes.