The letter to Rosa was sealed.  The two letters made quite a packet; for, in the letter to his beloved Rosa, he told her everything that had befallen him.  It was a romance, and a picture of love; a letter to lift a loving woman to heaven, and almost reconcile her to all her bereaved heart had suffered.

This letter, written with many tears from the heart that had so suffered, and was now softened by good fortune and bounding with joy, Staines entrusted to Falcon, together with the other diamonds, and with many warm shakings of the hand, started him on his way.

“But mind, Falcon,” said Christopher, “I shall expect an answer from Mrs. Falcon in twenty days at farthest.  I do not feel so sure as you do that she wants to go to England; and, if not, I must write to Uncle Philip.  Give me your solemn promise, old fellow, an answer in twenty days—­if you have to send a Kafir on horseback.”

“I give you my honor,” said Falcon superbly.

“Send it to me at Bulteel’s Farm.”

“All right.  ‘Dr. Christie, Bulteel’s Farm.’”

“Well—­no.  Why should I conceal my real name any longer from such friends as you and your wife?  Christie is short for Christopher—­that is my Christian name; but my surname is Staines.  Write to ‘Dr. Staines.’”

“Dr. Staines!”

“Yes.  Did you ever hear of me?”

Falcon wore a strange look.  “I almost think I have.  Down at Gravesend, or somewhere.”

“That is curious.  Yes, I married my Rosa there; poor thing!  God bless her; God comfort her.  She thinks me dead.”

His voice trembled, he grasped Falcon’s cold hand till the latter winced again, and so they parted, and Falcon rode off muttering, “Dr. Staines! so then you are Dr. Staines.”

CHAPTER XXII.

Rosa Staines had youth on her side, and it is an old saying that youth will not be denied.  Youth struggled with death for her, and won the battle.

But she came out of that terrible fight weak as a child.  The sweet pale face, the widow’s cap, the suit of deep black—­it was long ere these came down from the sickroom.  And when they did, oh, the dead blank!  The weary, listless life!  The days spent in sighs, and tears, and desolation.  Solitude! solitude!  Her husband was gone, and a strange woman played the mother to her child before her eyes.

Uncle Philip was devotedly kind to her, and so was her father; but they could do nothing for her.

Months rolled on, and skinned the wound over.  Months could not heal.  Her boy became dearer and dearer, and it was from him came the first real drops of comfort, however feeble.

She used to read her lost one’s diary every day, and worship, in deep sorrow, the mind she had scarcely respected until it was too late.  She searched in his diary to find his will, and often she mourned that he had written on it so few things she could obey.  Her desire to obey the dead, whom, living, she had often disobeyed, was really simple and touching.  She would mourn to her father that there were so few commands to her in his diary.  “But,” said she, “memory brings me back his will in many things, and to obey is now the only sad comfort I have.”