"You must not mind my going to the hospital. I shall find it easier to bear my sorrow, while working day and night for others. For, David—oh, David, it is a terrible sorrow!
"I must not worry you now, with tales of my own poor heart; but ever since I lost you, David; ever since our wedding-day evening, I have loved you, and longed for you, more, and more, and more. When you called me your wife on the gangway, it revealed to me, suddenly, what it really meant to be your wife.
"Oh, my Boy, my Darling, when I lose you, I shall be a widow indeed! But you must not let the thought of my sorrow disturb your last moments. Perhaps, when you reach the Land that is very far off, I shall feel you less far away than in Central Africa. Be near me, sometimes, if you can, David.
"I shall go on striving to offer my gifts; though the gold and the frankincense will be overwhelmed by the myrrh. But the Star we have followed together, will still lead me on. And perhaps it will guide me at last to the foot of the shining throne, where my Darling will sit in splendour. And I shall see his look call me to him, as it called in old St. Botolph's; and I shall pass up the aisle of glory, and hear him say: 'Come, my wife.' Then I shall kneel at his feet, and lay my head on his knees. Oh, David, David!
"Your own wife, who loves you and longs for you,
"Diana Rivers."
There was much she would have expressed otherwise; there were some things she would have left unsaid; but there was no time to rewrite her letter. So Diana let it go as it was; and it caught the evening mail.
But even so, David never saw it; for it arrived, alas, just twenty-four hours too late.