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.