But on that last night Sir Eustace was more ardent than she had ever known him. He seemed to be almost fiercely resentful of the coming separation, brief though it was to be, and he would not suffer her out of reach of his hand.

Wedding presents had begun to arrive, and in some fashion they seemed to increase his impatience.

"I can't think what we are waiting for," he said, with his arm about her, drawing her close. "All this pomp and circumstance is nothing but a hindrance. It's you I want, not your wedding finery. You had better be married first and get the finery afterwards, as it isn't to be in town."

"Oh, but I want a big wedding," protested Dinah. "It's going to be such fun."

He laughed, holding her pointed chin between his finger and thumb. "I believe that's all you care about, you little heartless witch. I don't count at all. You'd have enjoyed this week every bit as well if I hadn't been here."

She winced a little at his words, for somehow they went home. "There hasn't been much time for anything, has there?" she said. "But—but I've enjoyed the motor rides, and—and I ought to thank you for being so very good to me."

He kissed the quivering lips, and she slipped a shy arm round his neck with the feeling that she owed it to him. But she did not return his kisses, for she was afraid to feed the flame that already leapt so high.

"You've nothing to thank me for," he said presently, when she turned her face at last abashed into his shoulder. "I may be giving more than you at this stage, but it won't be so later. You shall have the opportunity of paying me back in full. How does that appeal to you, Daphne the demure? Are you going to be a good little wife to me?"

"I'll try," she whispered.

"And give me all I ask—always?"

"I'll try," she whispered again more faintly, conscious of that terrifying sense of being so merged into his overwhelming personality that the very breath she drew seemed not her own.

He lifted her into his arms, holding her hard pressed against the throbbing of his heart. "You wisp of thistledown!" he said. "You feather! How have you managed to set me on fire like this? I think of nothing but you—the fairy wonder of you—day and night. If you were to slip out of my reach now, I believe I should follow and kill you."

Dinah lay across his breast in palpitating submission to his will. She could hear his heart beating like a rising tempest, and the force of his passion overcame her like a tornado. His kisses were like the flames of a fiery furnace. She felt stifled, shattered by his violence. But in the room beyond she still heard that steady voice reading aloud, and it kept her from panic. She knew that she had only to raise her own voice, and he would be with her,—Greatheart of the golden armour, strong and fearless in her defence.

Sir Eustace heard that quiet voice also, as one hears the warning of conscience. He slackened his hold upon her, with a quivering, half-shamed laugh.

"Only another fortnight," he said, "and I shall have you to myself—all day and all night too." He looked at her with sudden critical attention. "You had better go to bed, child. You look like a little tired ghost."

She did not feel like a ghost, for she was burning from head to foot. But as she slipped from his arms the ground seemed to be rocking all around her. She stretched out her hands blindly, gasping, feeling for support.

He was up in a moment, holding her. "What is it? Aren't you well?"

She sank against him for she could not stand. He held her with a tenderness that was new to her.

"My darling, have I tired you out? What a thoughtless brute I am!"

It was the first time she had ever heard a word of self-reproach upon his lips; the first time, though she knew it not, that actual love inspired him, entering as it were through that breach in the wall of overbearing pride that girt him round.

She leaned against him with more confidence than she had ever before known, dizzy still, and conscious of a rush of tears behind her closed lids. For that sudden compunction of his hurt her oddly. She did not know how to meet it.

He bent over her. "Getting better, little sweetheart? Oh, don't cry! What happened? Did I hurt you—frighten you?"

He was stroking her hair soothingly, persuasively, his dark face so close to hers that when she opened her eyes they looked up straight into his. But she saw nought to frighten her there, and after a moment she reached up and kissed him apologetically.

"I'm only silly—only silly," she murmured confusedly. "Good night—good night—Apollo!"

And with the words she stood up, summoning her strength, smiled upon him, and slipped free from his encircling arm.

He did not seek to detain her. She flitted from his presence like a fluttering white moth, and he was left alone. He stood quite motionless in the semi-darkness, breathing deeply, his clenched hands pressed against his sides.

That moment had been a revelation to him also. He was abruptly conscious of the spirit so dominating the body that the fierce, ungoverned heart of him drew back ashamed as a beast will shrink from the flare of a torch, and he felt strangely conquered, almost cowed, as though an angel with a flaming sword had suddenly intervened between him and his desire.

The madness of his passion was yet beating in his veins, but this—this was another and a stronger element before which all else became contemptible. The soul of the man had sprung from sleep like an awaking giant. Half in wonder and half in awe, he watched the kindling of the Divine Spark that outshineth every earthly fire.



CHAPTER XIII

THE BROKEN HEART

The return home was to Dinah like a sudden plunge into icy depths after a brief sojourn in the tropics. The change of atmosphere was such that she seemed actually to feel it in her bones, and her whole being, physical and mental contracted in consequence. Her mother treated her with all her customary harshness, and Dinah, grown sensitive by reason of much petting, shrank almost with horror whenever she came in contact with the iron will that had subjugated her from babyhood.

Before the first week was over, she was counting the days to her deliverance; but of this fact she hinted nothing in her letters to her lover. These were carefully worded, demure little epistles that gave him not the smallest inkling of her state of mind. She was far too much afraid of him to betray that.

Had she been writing to Scott she could scarcely have repressed it. In one letter to Isabel indeed something of her yearning for the vanished sunshine leaked out; but very strangely Isabel did not respond to the pathetic little confidence, and Dinah did not venture to repeat it. Perhaps Isabel was shocked.

The last week came, and with it the arrival of wedding-presents from her father and friends that lifted Dinah out of her depression and even softened her mother into occasional good-humour. Preparations for the wedding began in earnest. Billy, released somewhat before the holidays for the occasion, returned home, and everything took a more cheerful aspect.

Dinah could not feel that her mother's attitude towards herself had materially altered. It was sullen and threatening at times, almost as if she resented her daughter's good fortune, and she lived in continual dread of an outbreak of the cruel temper that had so embittered her home life. But Billy's presence made a difference even to that. His influence was entirely wholesome, and he feared no one.

"Why don't you stand up to her?" he said to his sister on one occasion when he found her weeping after an overwhelming brow-beating over some failure in the kitchen. "She'd think something of you then."

Dinah had no answer. She could not convince him that her spirit had been broken for such encounters long ago. Billy had never been tied up to a bed-post and whipped till limp with exhaustion, but such treatment had been her portion more times than she could number.

But every hour brought her deliverance nearer, and so far she had managed to avoid physical violence though the dread of it always menaced her.

"Why does she hate me so?" Over and over again she asked herself the question, but she never found any answer thereto; and she was fain to believe her father's easy-going verdict: "There's no accounting for your mother's tantrums; they've got to be visited on somebody."

She wondered what would happen when she was no longer at hand to act as scapegoat, and yet it seemed to her that her mother longed to be rid of her.

"I'll get things into good order when you're out of the way," she said to her on the last evening but one before the wedding-day, the evening on which the Studleys were to arrive at the Court. "You're just a born muddler, and you'll never be anything else, Lady Studley or no Lady Studley. Get along upstairs and dress yourself for your precious dinner-party, or your father will be ready first! Oh, it'll be a good thing when it's all over and done with, but if you think you'll ever get treated as a grand lady here, you're very much mistaken. Home broth is all you'll ever get from me, so you needn't expect anything different. If you don't like it, you can stop away."

Dinah escaped from the rating tongue as swiftly as she dared. She knew that her mother had been asked to dine at the Court also—for the first time in her life—and had tersely refused. She wasn't going to be condescended to by anybody, she had told her husband in Dinah's hearing, and he had merely shrugged his shoulders and advised her to please herself.

Billy had not been asked, somewhat to his disgust; but he looked forward to seeing Scott again in the morning and ordered Dinah to ask him to lunch with them.

So finally Dinah and her father set forth alone in one of the motors from the Court to attend the gathering of County magnates that the de Vignes had summoned in honour of Sir Eustace Studley and his chosen bride.

She wore one of her trousseau gowns for the occasion, a pale green gossamer-like garment that made her look more nymph-like than ever. Her mother had surveyed it with narrowed eyes and a bitter sneer.

"Ok yes, you'll pass for one of the quality," she had said. "No one would take you for a child of mine any way."

"That's no fault of the child's, Lydia," her father had rejoined good-humouredly, and in the car he had taken her little cold hand into his and asked her kindly enough if she were happy.

She answered him tremulously in the affirmative, the dread of her mother still so strong upon her that she could think of nothing but the relief of escape. And then before she had time to prepare herself in any way for the sudden transition she found herself back in that tropical, brilliant atmosphere in which thenceforth she was to move and have her being.

She could not feel that she would ever shine there. There were so many bright lights, and though her father was instantly and completely at home she felt dazzled and strange, till all-unexpectedly someone came to her through the great lamp-lit hall, haltingly yet with purpose, and held her hand and asked her how she was.

The quiet grasp steadied her, and in a moment she was radiantly happy, all her troubles and anxieties swept from her path. "Oh, Scott!" she said, and her eyes beamed upon him the greeting her lips somehow refused to utter.

He was laughing a little; his look was quizzical. "I have been on the look-out for you," he told her. "It's the best man's privilege, isn't it? Won't you introduce me to your father?"

She did so, and then Rose glided forward, exquisite in maize satin and pearls, and smilingly detached her from the two men and led her upstairs.

"We are to have a little informal dance presently," she said. "Did I tell you in my note? No? Oh, well, no doubt it will be a pleasant little surprise for you. How very charming you are looking, my dear! I didn't know you had it in you. Did you choose that pretty frock yourself?"

Dinah, with something of her mother's bluntness of speech, explained that the creation in question had been Isabel's choice, and Rose smiled as one who fully understood the situation.

"She has been very good to you, poor soul, has she not?" she said. "She is not coming down to-night. The journey has fatigued her terribly. That funny, old-fashioned nurse of hers has asked very particularly that she may not be disturbed, except to see you for a few minutes later."

"Is she worse?" asked Dinah, startled.

Whereat Rose shook her dainty head. "Has she ever been better? No, poor thing, I am afraid her days are numbered, nor could one in kindness wish it otherwise. Still, I mustn't sadden you, dear. You have got to look your very best to-night, or Sir Eustace will be disappointed. There are quite a lot of pretty girls coming, and you know what he is." Rose uttered a little self-conscious laugh. "Put on a tinge of colour, dear!" she said, as Dinah stood before the mirror in her room. "You look such a little brown thing; just a faint glow on your cheeks would be such an improvement."

"No, thank you," said Dinah, and flushed suddenly and hotly at the thought of what she had once endured at her mother's hands for daring to pencil the shadows under her eyes. It had been no more than a girlish trick—an experiment to pass an idle moment. But it had been treated as an offence of immeasurable enormity, and she winced still at the memory of all that that moment's vanity had entailed.

Rose looked at her appraisingly. "No, perhaps you don't need it after all, not anyhow when you blush like that. You have quite a pretty blush, Dinah, and you are wise to make the most of it. Are you ready, dear? Then we will go down."

She rustled forth with Dinah beside her, shedding a soft fragrance of some Indian scent as she moved that somehow filled Dinah with indignation, like a resentful butterfly in search of more wholesome delights.

Eustace was in the hall when they descended. He came forward to meet his fiancee, and her heart throbbed fast and hard at the sight of him. But his manner was so strictly casual and impersonal that her agitation speedily passed, and by the time they were seated side by side at dinner—for the last time in their lives, as the Colonel jocosely remarked—she could not feel that she had ever been anything nearer to him than a passing acquaintance.

She was shy and very quiet. The hubbub of voices, the brilliance of it all, overwhelmed her. If Scott had been on her other side, she would have been much happier, but he was far away making courteous conversation for the benefit of a deaf old lady whom no one else made the smallest effort to entertain.

Suddenly Sir Eustace disengaged himself from the general talk and turned to her. "Dinah!" he said.

Her heart leapt again. She glanced at him and caught the gleam of the hunter in those rapier-bright eyes of his.

He leaned slightly towards her, his smile like a shining cloak, hiding his soul. "Daphne," he said, and his voice came to her subtle, caressing, commanding, through the gay tumult all about them, "there is going to be dancing presently. Did you hear?"

"Yes," she whispered with lowered eyes.

"You will dance with only one to-night," he said. "That is understood, is it?"

"Yes," she whispered again.

"Good!" he said. And then imperiously, "Why don't you drink some wine?"

She made a slight, startled movement. "I never do, I don't like it."

"You need it," he said, and made a curt sign to one of the servants.

Wine was poured into her glass, and she drank submissively. The discipline of the past two weeks had made her wholly docile. And the wine warmed and cheered her in a fashion that made her think that perhaps he was right and she had needed it.

When the dinner came to an end she was feeling far less scared and strange. Guests were beginning to assemble for the dance, and as they passed out people whom she knew by sight but to whom she had never spoken came up and talked with her as though they were old friends. Several men asked her to dance, but she steadily refused them all. Her turn would come later.

"I am going up to see Mrs. Everard," was her excuse. "She is expecting me."

And then Scott came, and she turned to him with eager welcome. "Oh, please, will you take me to see Isabel?"

He gave her a straight, intent look, and led her out of the throng.

His hand rested upon her arm as they mounted the stairs and she thought he moved with deliberate slowness. At the top he spoke.

"Dinah, before you see her I ought to prepare you for a change. She has been losing ground lately. She is not—what she was."

Dinah stopped short. "Oh, Scott!" She said in breathless dismay.

His hand pressed upon her, but it seemed to be imparting strength rather than seeking it. "I think I told you that day at the Dower House that she was nearing the end of her journey. I don't want to sadden you. You mustn't be sad. But you couldn't see her without knowing. It won't be quite yet; but it will be—soon."

He spoke with the utmost quietness; his face never varied. His eyes with their steady comradeship looked straight into hers, stilling her distress.

"She is so tired," he said gently. "I don't think it ought to grieve us that her rest is drawing near at last. She has so longed for it, poor girl."

"Oh, Scott!" Dinah said again, but she said it this time without consternation. His steadfast strength had given her confidence.

"Shall we go to her?" he said. "At least, I think it would be better if you went alone. She is quite determined that nothing shall interfere with your coming happiness, so you mustn't let her think you shocked or grieved. I thought it best to prepare you, that's all."

He led her gravely along the passage, and presently stopped outside a closed door. He knocked three times as of old, and Dinah stood waiting as one on the threshold of a holy place.

The door, was opened by Biddy, and he pressed her forward. "Don't stay long!" he said. "She is very tired to-night, and Eustace will be wanting you."

She squeezed his hand in answer and passed within.

Biddy's wrinkled brown face smiled a brief welcome under its snowy cap. She motioned her to approach. "Ye'll not stay long, Miss Dinah dear," she whispered. "The poor lamb's very tired to-night."

Dinah went forward.

The window was wide open, and the rush of the west wind filled the room. Isabel was lying in bed with her face to the night, wide-eyed, intent, still as death.

Noiselessly Dinah drew near. There was something in the atmosphere—a ghostly, hovering presence—that awed her. In the sound of that racing wind she seemed to hear the beat of mighty wings.

She uttered no word, she was almost afraid to speak. But when she reached the bed, when she bent and looked into Isabel's face, she caught her breath in a gasping cry. For she was shocked—shocked unutterably—by what she saw. Shrivelled as the face of one who had come through fiery tortures, ashen-grey, with eyes in which the anguish of the burnt-out flame still lingered, eyes that were dead to hope, eyes that were open only to the darkness, such was the face upon which she looked.

Biddy was by her side in a moment, speaking in a rapid whisper. "Arrah thin, Miss Dinah darlint, don't ye be scared at all! She'll speak to ye in a minute, sure. It's only that she's tired to-night. She'll be more herself like in the morning."

Dinah hung over the still figure. Biddy's whispering was as the buzzing of a fly. She heard it with the outer sense alone.

"Isabel!" she said; and again with a passionate earnestness, "Isabel—darling—my darling—what has happened to you?"

At the sound of that pleading voice Isabel moved, seeming as it were to return slowly from afar.

"Why, Dinah dear!" she said.

Her dark eyes smiled up at her in welcome, but it was a smile that cut her to the heart with its aloofness, its total lack of gladness.

Dinah stooped to kiss her. "Are you so tired, dearest? Perhaps I had better go away."

But Isabel put up a trembling, skeleton hand and detained her. "No, dear, no! I am not so tired as that. I can't talk much; but I can listen. Sit down and tell me about yourself!"

Dinah sat down, but she could think of nothing but the piteous, lined face upon the pillow and the hopeless suffering of the eyes that looked forth from it.

She held Isabel's hand very tightly, though its terrible emaciation shocked her anew, and so for a time they were silent while Isabel seemed to drift back again into the limitless spaces out of which Dinah's coming had for a moment called her.

It was Biddy who broke the silence at last, laying a gnarled and quivering hand upon Dinah as she sat.

"Ye'd better come again in the morning, mavourneen," she said. "She's too far off to-night to heed ye."

Dinah started. Her eyes were full of tears as she bent and kissed the poor, wasted fingers she held, realizing with poignant certainty as she did it the truth of the old woman's statement. Isabel was too far off to heed.

Then, as she rose to go, a strange thing happened. The tender strains of a waltz, Simple Aveu, floated softly in broken snatches in on the west wind, and again—as one who hears a voice that calls—Isabel came back. She raised herself suddenly. Her face was alight, transfigured—the face of a woman on the threshold of Love's sanctuary.

"Oh, my dearest!" she said, and her voice thrilled as never Dinah had heard it thrill before. "How I have waited for this! How I have waited!"

She stretched out her arms in one second of rapture unutterable; and then almost in the same moment they fell. The youth went out of her, she crumpled like a withered flower.

"Biddy!" she said. "Oh, Biddy, tell them to stop! I can't bear it! I can't bear it!"

Dinah went to the window and closed it, shutting out the haunting strains. That waltz meant something to her also, something with which for the moment she felt she could not cope.

Turning, she saw that Isabel was clinging convulsively to the old nurse, and she was crying, crying, crying, as one who has lost all hope.

"But it's too late to do her any good," mourned Biddy over the bowed head. "It's the tears of a broken heart."



CHAPTER XIV

THE WRATH OF THE GODS

The paroxysm did not last long, and in that fact most poignantly did Dinah realize the waning strength.

Dumbly she stood and watched Biddy lay the inanimate figure back upon the pillows. Isabel had sunk into a state of exhaustion that was almost torpor.

"She'll sleep now, dear lamb," said Biddy, and tenderly covered her over as though she had been a child.

She turned round to Dinah, looking at her with shrewd darting eyes. "Ye'd better be getting along to your lover, Miss Dinah," she said. "He'll be wanting ye to dance with him."

But Dinah stood her ground with a little shiver. The bare thought of dancing at that moment made her feel physically sick. "Biddy! Biddy!" she whispered, "what has happened to make her—like this?"

"And ye may well ask!" said Biddy darkly. "But it's not for me to tell ye. Ye'd best run along, Miss Dinah dear, and be happy while ye can."

"But I'm not happy!" broke from Dinah. "How can I be? Biddy, what has happened? You must tell me if you can. She wasn't like this a fortnight ago. She has never been—quite like this—before."

Biddy pursed her lips. "Sure, we none of us travel the same road twice, Miss Dinah," she said.

But Dinah would not be satisfied with so vague an axiom.

"Something has happened," she said. "Come into the next room and tell me all about it! Please, Biddy!"

Biddy glanced at the bed. "She'll not hear ye in here, Miss Dinah," she said. "And what for should I be telling ye at all? Ye'll be Sir Eustace's bride in less than forty-eight hours from now, so it's maybe better ye shouldn't know."

"I must know," Dinah said, and with the words a great wave of resolution went through her, uplifting her, inspiring her. "I've got to know," she said. "Whatever happens, I've got to know."

Biddy left the bedside and came close to her. "If ye insist, Miss Dinah—" she said.

"I do—I do insist." Never in her life before had Dinah spoken with such authority, but a force within was urging her—a force irresistible; she spoke as one compelled.

Biddy came closer still. "Ye'll not tell Master Scott—nor any of 'em—if I tell ye?" she whispered.

"No, no; of course—no!" Dinah's voice came breathlessly; she had not the power to draw back.

"Ye promise, Miss Dinah?" Biddy could be insistent too; her eyes burned like live coals.

"I promise, yes." Dinah held out an impulsive hand. "You can trust me," she said.

Biddy's fingers closed claw-like upon it. "Whist now, Miss Dinah!" she said. "If Sir Eustace was to hear me, sure, he'd wring the neck on me like as if I was an old fowl. But ye've asked me what's happened, mavourneen, and sure, I'll tell ye. For it's the pretty young lady that ye are and a cruel shame that ye should ever belong to the likes of him. It's his doing, Miss Dinah, every bit of it, and it's the truth I'm speaking, as the Almighty Himself could tell ye if He'd a mind to. The poor lamb was fading away aisy like, but he came along and broke her heart. It was them letters, Miss Dinah. He took 'em. And he burned 'em, my dear, he burned 'em, and when ye were gone she missed 'em, and then he told her what he'd done, told her brutal-like that it was time she'd done with such litter. He said it was all damn' nonsense that she was wasting her life over 'em and over the dead. Oh, it was wicked, it was cruel. And she—poor innocent—she locked herself up when he'd gone and cried and cried and cried till the poor heart of her was broke entirely. She said she'd lost touch with her darling husband and he'd never come back to her again."

"Biddy!" Horror undisguised sounded in Dinah's low voice. "He never did such a thing as that!"

"He did that!" A queer species of triumph was apparent in Biddy's rejoinder; malice twinkled for a second in her eyes. "I've told ye! I've told ye!" she said. And then, with sharp anxiety. "But ye'll not tell anyone as ye know, Miss Dinah. Ye promised, now didn't ye? Miss Isabel wouldn't that any should know—not even Master Scott. He was away when it happened, dining down at the Vicarage he was. And Miss Isabel she says to me, 'For the life of ye, don't tell Master Scott! He'd be that angry,' she says, 'and Sir Eustace would murder him entirely if it came to a quarrel.' She was that insistent, Miss Dinah, and I knew there was truth in what she said. Master Scott has the heart of a lion. He never knew the meaning of fear from his babyhood. And Sir Eustace is a monster of destruction when once his blood's up. And he minds what Master Scott says more than anyone. So I promised, Miss Dinah dear, the same as you have. And so he doesn't know to this day. Sir Eustace, ye see, has been in a touchy mood all along, ever since ye left. Like gunpowder he's been, and Master Scott has had a difficult enough time with him; and Miss Isabel has kept it from him so that he thinks it was just your going again that made her fret so. There, now ye know all, Miss Dinah dear, and don't ye for the love of heaven tell a soul what I've told ye! Miss Isabel would never forgive me if she came to know. Ah, the saints preserve us, what's that?"

A brisk tap at the door had made her jump with violence. She went to parley with a guilty air.

In a moment or two she shut the door and came back. "It's that flighty young French hussy, Miss Dinah; her they call Yvonne. She says Sir Eustace is waiting for ye downstairs."

A great revulsion of feeling went through Dinah. It shook her like an overwhelming tempest and passed, leaving her deadly cold. She turned white to the lips.

"I can't go to him, Biddy," she said. "I can't dance to-night. Yvonne must tell him."

Biddy gave her a searching look. "Ye won't let him find out, Miss Dinah?" she urged. "Won't he guess now if ye stay up here?"

The earnest entreaty of the old bright eyes moved her. She turned to the door. "Oh, very well. I'll go myself and tell him."

"Ye won't let him suspect, mavourneen—mavourneen?" pleaded Biddy desperately.

"No, Biddy, no! Haven't I sworn it a dozen times already?" Dinah had reached the door; she looked back for a moment and her look was steadfast notwithstanding the deathly pallor of her face. Then she passed slowly forth, and heard old Biddy softly turn the key behind her, making assurance doubly sure.

Slowly she moved along the passage. It was deserted, but the sound of laughing voices and the tuning of violins floated up from below. Again that feeling that was akin to physical sickness assailed Dinah. Down there he was waiting for her, waiting to be intoxicated into headlong, devouring passion by her dancing. She seemed to feel his arms already holding her, straining her to him, so that the warmth of him was as a fiery atmosphere all about her, encompassing her, possessing her. Her whole body burned at the thought, and then again was cold—cold as though she had drunk a draught of poison. She stood still, feeling too sick to go on.

And then, while she waited, she heard a step. Her heart seemed to spring into her throat, throbbing wildly like a caged bird seeking freedom. She drew back against the wall, trembling from head to foot.

He came along the passage, magnificent, princely, confident, swinging his shoulders with that semi-conscious swagger she knew so well. He spied her where she stood, and she heard his brief, half-mocking laugh as he strode to her.

"Ah, Daphne! Hiding as usual!" he said.

He took her between his hands, and she felt the mastery of him in that free hold. She stood as a prisoner in his grasp. Her new-found resolution was gone at the first contact with that overwhelming personality of his. She hung her head in quivering distress.

He bent down, bringing his face close to hers. He tried to look into the eyes that she kept downcast.

And suddenly he spoke again, softly into her ear. "Why so shy, little sweetheart? Are you getting frightened now the time is so near?"

Her breathing quickened at his tone. Possessive though it was, it held that tender note that was harder to bear than all his fiercest passion. She could not speak in answer. No words would come.

He put his arm around her and held her close. "But you mustn't be afraid of me," he said. "Don't you know I love you? Don't you know I am going to make you the happiest little woman in the world?"

Dinah choked down some scalding tears. She longed to escape from the holding of his arm, and yet her torn spirit felt the comfort of it. She stood silent, shaken, unnerved, piteously conscious of her utter weakness—the weakness wrought by that iron discipline that had never suffered her to have any will of her own.

He put up a hand and pressed her drooping head against his shoulder. "There's nothing very dreadful in being married, dear," he told her. "I'm not such a devouring monster as I may seem. Why, I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head. They are all precious to me."

She quivered at his use of the word that Biddy had employed with such venom only a few minutes before; but still she said nothing. What could she say? Against this new weapon of his she was more helpless than ever. She hid her face against him and strove for self-control.

He kissed her temple and the clustering hair above it. "There now! You are not going to be a silly little scared fawn any more. Come along and dance it off!"

His arm encircled her shoulders; he began to lead her to the stairs.

And Dinah went, slave-like in her submission, but hating herself the more for every step she took.

They went to the ballroom, and presently they danced. But the old subtle charm was absent. Her feet moved to the rhythm of the music, her body swayed and pulsed to the behest of his; but her spirit stood apart, bruised and downcast and very much alone. Her gilded palace had fallen all about her in ruins. The deliverance to which she had looked forward so eagerly was but another bondage that would prove more cruel and more enslaving than the first. She longed with all her quivering heart to run away and hide.

He was very kind to her, more considerate than she had ever known him. Perhaps he missed the fairy abandonment which had so delighted him in her dancing of old; but he found no fault; and when the dance was over he did not lead her away to some private corner as she had dreaded, but took her instead to her father and stood with him for some time in talk.

She saw Scott in the distance, but he did not approach her while Eustace was with them, and when her fiance turned away at length he had disappeared.

They were left comparatively alone, and Dinah slipped an urgent hand into her father's. "I want to go home, Daddy. I'm so tired."

He looked at her in surprise, but she managed to muster a smile in reply, and he was not observant enough to note the distress that lay behind it.

"Had enough of it, eh?" he questioned. "Well, I think you're wise. You'll be busy to-morrow. By all means, let's go!"

It was not till the very last moment that she saw Scott again. He came forward just as she was passing through the hall to the front door.

He took the hand she held out to him, looking at her with those straight, steady eyes of his that there was no evading, but he made no comment of any sort.

"Mr. Grey is coming by a morning train to-morrow," he said. "May I bring him to call upon you in the afternoon? I believe he wants to run through the wedding-service with you beforehand."

He smiled as he said it, but Dinah could not smile in answer. There was something ominous to her in that last sentence, something that made her think of the clanking of chains. She was relieved to hear her father answer for her.

"Come by all means! Nothing like a dress rehearsal to make things go smoothly. I'll tell my wife to expect you."

Scott's hand relinquished hers, and she felt suddenly cold. She murmured a barely audible "Good night!" and turned away.

From the portico she glanced back and saw Sir Eustace leading Rose de Vigne to the ballroom. The light shone full upon them. They made a splendid couple. And a sudden bizarre thought smote her. This was what the gods had willed. This had been the weaving of destiny; and she—she—had dared to intervene, frustrating, tearing the gilded, smooth-wrought threads apart.

Ah well! It was done now. It was too late to draw back. But the wrath of the gods remained to be faced. Already it was upon her, and there was no escape.

As one who hears a voice speaking from a far distance, she heard herself telling her father that all was well with her and she had spent an enjoyable evening.

Then she lay back in the car with clenched hands, and listened trembling to the thundering wheels of Destiny.



CHAPTER XV

THE SAPPHIRE FOR FRIENDSHIP

No girl ever worked harder in preparation for her own wedding than did Dinah on the following day.

That she had scarcely slept all night was a fact that no one suspected. Work-a-day Dinah, as her father was wont to call her, was not an object of great solicitude to any in her home-circle, and for the first time in her life she was thankful that such was the case.

Her mother's hard gipsy eyes watched only for delinquencies, and her rating tongue was actually a relief to Dinah after the dread solitude of those long hours. She was like a prisoner awaiting execution, and even that harsh companionship was in a measure helpful to her.

The time passed with appalling swiftness. When the luncheon hour arrived she was horrified to find that the morning had gone. She could eat nothing, a fact which raised a jeering laugh from her mother and a chaffing remonstrance from her father. Billy had gone riding on Rupert and had not returned. Billy always came and went exactly as he pleased.

One or two more presents from friends of her father's had arrived by the midday post. Mrs. Bathurst unpacked them, admiring them with more than a touch of envy, assuring Dinah that she was a very lucky girl, luckier than she deserved to be; but Dinah, though she acquiesced, had no heart for presents. She could only see—as she had seen all through the night—the piteous, marred face of a woman who had passed through such an intensity of suffering as she could only dimly guess at into the dark of utter despair. She could only hear, whichever way she turned, the clanking of the chains that in so brief a time were to be welded irrevocably about herself.

Luncheon over, she went up to dress and to finish the packing of the new trunks which were to accompany her upon her honeymoon. She had not even yet begun to realize these strange belongings of hers. She could no longer visualize herself as a bride. She looked upon all the finery as destined for another, possibly Rose de Vigne, but emphatically not for herself.

The wedding-dress and veil lying in their box, swathed in tissue-paper, had a gossamer unreality about them that even the sense of touch could not dispel. No—no! The bride of to-morrow was surely, surely, not herself!

They were to spend the first part of their honeymoon at a little place on the Cornish coast, very far from everywhere, as Sir Eustace said. She thought of that little place with a vague wonder. It was the stepping-stone between the life she now knew and that new unknown life that awaited her. She would go there just Dinah—work-a-day Dinah—her own ordinary self. She would leave a fortnight after, possibly less, a totally different being—a married woman, Lady Studley, part and parcel of Sir Eustace's train, his most intimate belonging, most exclusively his own.

She trembled afresh as this thought came home to her. Despite his assurances, marriage seemed to her a terrible thing. It was like parting, not only with the old life, but with herself.

She dressed mechanically, scarcely thinking of her appearance, roused only at length from her pre-occupation by the tread of hoofs under her window. She leaned forth quickly and discerned Scott on horseback,—a trim, upright figure, very confident in the saddle—and with him Billy still mounted on Rupert and evidently in the highest spirits.

The latter spied her at once and accosted her in his cracked, cheerful voice. "Hi, Dinah! Come down! We're going to tea at the Court. Scott will walk with you, and I'm going to ride his gee."

He rolled off Rupert with the words. Scott looked up at her, faintly smiling as he lifted his hat. "I hope that plan will suit you," he said. "The fact is the padre has been detained and can't get here before tea-time. So we thought—Eustace thought—you wouldn't mind coming up to the Court to tea instead of waiting to see him here."

It crossed her mind to wonder why Eustace had not come himself to fetch her, but she was conscious of a deep, unreasoning thankfulness that he had not. Then, before she could reply, she heard her father's voice in the porch, inviting Scott to enter.

Scott accepted the invitation, and Dinah turned back into the room to prepare for the walk.

Her hands were trembling so much that they could scarcely serve her. She was in a state of violent and uncontrollable agitation, longing one moment to be gone, and the next desiring desperately to remain where she was. The thought of facing the crowd at the Court filled her with a positive tumult of apprehension, but breathlessly she kept telling herself that Scott would be there—Scott would be there. His sheltering presence would be her protection.

And then, still trembling, still unnerved, she descended to meet him.

He was with her father in the drawing-room. The place was littered with wedding-presents.

As she entered, he came towards her, and in a moment his quiet hand closed upon hers. Her father went out in search of her mother and they were alone.

"What a collection of beautiful things you have here!" he said.

She looked at him, met his steady eyes, and suddenly some force of speech broke loose within her; she uttered words wild and passionate, such as she had never till that moment dreamed of uttering.

"Oh, don't talk of them! Don't think of them! They suffocate me!"

She saw his face change, but she could not have analysed the expression it took. He was silent for a moment, and in that moment his fingers tightened hard and close upon her hand.

Then, "I have brought you a small offering on my own account," he said in his courteous, rather tired voice. "May I present it? Or would you rather I waited a little?"

She felt the tears welling up, swiftly, swiftly, and clasped her throat to stay them. "Of course I would like it," she murmured almost inarticulately. "That—that is different."

He took a small, white packet from his pocket and put it into the hand he had been holding, without a word.

Dumbly, with quivering fingers, she opened it. There was something of tragedy in the silence, something of despair.

The paper fluttered to the ground, leaving a leather case in her grasp. She glanced up at him.

"Won't you look inside?" he said gently.

She did so, in her eyes those burning tears she could not check. And there, gleaming on its bed of white velvet, she saw a wonderful jewel—a great star-shaped sapphire, deep as the heart of a fathomless pool, edged with diamonds that flashed like the sun upon the ripples of its shores. She gazed and gazed in silence. It was the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

Scott was watching her, his eyes very still, unchangeably steadfast. "The sapphire for friendship," he said.

She started as one awaking from a dream. In the passage outside the half-open door she heard the sound of her mother's voice approaching. With a swift movement she closed the case and hid it in her dress.

"I can't show it to anyone yet," she said hurriedly.

Her tone appealed. He answered her immediately. "It is for you and no one else."

His voice held nought but kindness, comprehension, comfort.

He turned from her the next moment to meet her mother, and she heard him speaking in his easy, leisured tones, gaining time for her, making her path easy, as had ever been his custom.

And again unbidden, unavoidable, there came to her the vision of Greatheart—Greatheart the valiant—her knight of the golden armour, going before her, strong to defend,—invincible, unafraid, sure by means of that sureness which is given only to those who draw upon a Higher Power than their own, given only to the serving-men of God.



CHAPTER XVI

THE OPEN DOOR

Billy had already departed upon Scott's mount era he and Dinah set forth to walk to the Court. It was threatening to rain, and the ground beneath their feet was sodden and heavy.

"It is rather a shame to ask you to walk," said Scott, as they turned up the muddy road. "They would have sent a car for you if I had thought."

"I would much rather walk," said Dinah. Her face was very pale. She looked years older than she had looked at Willowmount. After a moment she added, "We shall pass the church. Perhaps you would like to see it. They were going to decorate it this morning."

"I should," said Scott.

He limped beside her, and she curbed her pace to his though the fever of unrest that surged within her urged her forward. They went up the lane that led to the church in almost unbroken silence.

At the churchyard gate she paused. "I hope there is no one here," she said uneasily.

"We need not go in unless you wish," he answered.

But when they reached the porch, they found that the church was empty, and so they entered.

A heavy scent of lilies pervaded the place. There was a wonderful white arch of flowers at the top of the aisle, and the chancel was decked with them. The space above the altar was a mass of white, perfumed splendour. They had been sent down from the Court that morning.

Slowly Scott passed up the nave with the bride-elect by his side, straight to the chancel-steps, and there he paused. His pale face with its light eyes was absolutely composed and calm. He looked straight up to the dim richness of the stained-glass window above him as though he saw beyond the flowers.

For many seconds Dinah stood beside him, awed, waiting as it were for the coming of a revelation. Whatever it might be she knew already that she would not leave that holy place in the state of hopeless turmoil in which she had entered. Something was coming to her, some new thing, that might serve as an anchor in her distress even though it might not bring her ultimate deliverance.

Or stay! Was it a new thing? Was it not rather the unveiling of something which had always been? Her heart quickened and became audible in the stillness. She clasped her hands tightly together. And in that moment Scott turned his head and looked at her.

No word did he speak; only that straight, calm look—as of a man clean of soul and fearless of evil. It told her nothing, that look, it opened to her no secret chamber; neither did it probe her own quivering heart. It was the kindly, reassuring look of a friend ready to stand by, ready to lend a sure hand if such were needed.

But by that look Dinah's revelation burst upon her. In that moment she saw her own soul as never before had she seen it; and all the little things, the shallow things, the earthly things, faded quite away. With a deep, deep breath she opened her eyes upon the Vision of Love....

"Shall we go?" murmured Scott.

She looked at him vaguely for a second, feeling stunned and blinded by the radiance of that revelation. A black veil seemed to be descending upon her; she put out a groping hand.

He took it, and his hold was sustaining. He led her in silence down the long, shadowy building to the porch.

He would have led her further, but a sudden, heavy shower was falling, and he had to pause. She sank down trembling upon the stone seat.

"Scott! Oh, Scott!" she said. "Help me!"

He made a slight, involuntary movement that passed unexplained. "I am here to help you, my dear," he said, his voice very quiet and even. "You mustn't be scared, you know. You'll get through it all right."

She wrung her hands together in her extremity. "It isn't that," she told him. "I—I suppose I've got to go through it—as you say so. But—but—you'll think me very wicked, yet I must tell you—I've made—a dreadful mistake. I'm marrying for money, for position, to get away from home,—anything but love. I don't love him. I know now that I never shall—never can! And I'd give anything—anything—anything to escape!"

It was spoken. All the long-pent misgivings that had culminated in awful certainty the night before had so wrought in her that now—now that the revelation had come—she could no longer keep silence. But of that revelation she would sooner have died than speak.

Scott heard that wrung confession, standing before her with a stillness that gave him a look of sternness. He spoke as she ended, possibly because he realized that she would not be able to endure the briefest silence at that moment, possibly because he dreamed of filling up the gap ere it widened to an irreparable breach.

"But, Dinah," he said, "don't you know he loves you?"

She flung her hands wide in a gesture of the most utter despair. "That's just the very worst part of it," she said. "That's just why there is no getting away."

"You don't want his love?" Scott questioned, his voice very low.

She shook her head in instant negation. "Oh no, no, no!"

He bent slightly towards her, looking into her face of quivering agitation. "Dinah, are you sure it isn't all this pomp and circumstance that is frightening you? Are you sure you have no love at all in your heart for him?"

She did not shrink from his look. Though she thought his eyes were stern, she met them with the courage of desperation. "I am quite—quite—sure," she told him brokenly. "I never loved him. I was dazzled, that's all. But now—but now—the glamour is all gone. I would give anything—oh, anything in the world—if only he would marry Rose de Vigne instead!"

Her voice failed and with it her strength. She covered her face and wept hopelessly, tragically.

Scott stood motionless by her side. His brows were drawn as the brows of a man in pain, but the eyes below them had the brightness of unwavering resolution. There was something rocklike about his pose.

The pattering of the rain mingled with the sound of Dinah's anguished sobbing; there seemed to be no other sound in all the world.

He moved at last, and into his eyes there came a very human look, dispelling all hardness. He bent to her again, his hand upon her shoulder. "My child," he said gently, "don't be so distressed! It isn't too late—even now."

He felt her respond to his touch, but she could not lift her head. "I can never face him," she sobbed hopelessly. "I shall never, never dare!"

"You must face him," Scott said quietly but very firmly. "You owe it to him. Do you consider that you would be acting fairly by him if you married him solely for the reasons you have just given to me?"

She shrank at his words, trembling all over like a frightened child. But his hand was still upon her, restraining panic.

"He will be so angry—so furious," she faltered.

"I will help you," Scott said steadily.

"Ah!" she caught at the promise with an eagerness that was piteous. "You won't leave me? You won't let me be alone with him? He can make me do anything—anything—when I am alone with him. Oh, he is terrible enough—even when he is not angry. He told me once that—that—if I were to slip out of his reach, he would follow—and kill me!"

The brightness returned to Scott's eyes; they shone with an almost steely gleam. "You needn't be afraid of that," he said quietly. "Now tell me, Dinah, for I want to know; how long have you known that you didn't want to marry him?"

But Dinah shrank at the question, as though he had probed a wound. "Oh, I can't tell you that! As long as I have realized that I was bound to him—I have been afraid! And now—now that it has come so close—" She broke off. "Oh, but I can't draw back now," she said hopelessly. "Think—only think—what it will mean!"

Scott was silent for a few seconds, then: "If it would be easier for you to go on," he said slowly, "perhaps—in the end—it may be better for you; because he honestly loves you, and I think his love may make a difference—in the end. Possibly you are nearer to loving him even now than you imagine. If it is the dread of hurting him—not angering him—that holds you back, then I do not think you would be doing wrong to marry him. If you are just scared by the thought of to-morrow and possibly the day after—"

"Oh, but it isn't that! It isn't that!" Dinah cried the words out passionately like a prisoner who sees the door of his cell closing finally upon him. "It's because I'm not his! I don't belong to him! I don't want to belong to him! The very thought makes me feel—almost—sick!"

"Then there is someone else," Scott said, with grave conviction.

"Ah!" It was not so much a word as the sharp intake of breath that follows the last and keenest thrust of the probe that has reached the object of its search. Dinah suddenly became rigid and yet vibrant as stretched wire. Her silence was the silence of the victim who dreads so unspeakably the suffering to come as to be scarcely aware of present anguish.

But Scott was merciful. He withdrew the probe and very pitifully he closed the wound that he had opened. "No, no!" he said. "That has nothing to do with me—or with Eustace either. But it makes your case absolutely plain. Come with me now—before you feel any worse about it—and ask him to give you your release!"

"Oh, Scott!" She looked up at him at last, and though there was a measure of relief in her eyes, her face was deathly. "Oh, Scott,—dare I do that?"

"I shall be there," he said.

"Yes,—yes, you will be there! You won't leave me? Promise!" She clasped his arm in entreaty.

He looked into her eyes, and there was a great kindness in his own—-the kindness of Greatheart arming himself to defend his pilgrims. "Yes, I promise that," he said, adding, "unless I leave you at your own desire."

"You will never do that," Dinah said and smiled with quivering lips. "You are good to me. Oh, you are good! But—but—"

"But what?" he questioned gently.

"He may refuse to set me free," she said desperately. "What then?"

"My dear, no one is married by force now-a-days," he said.

Her face changed as a sudden memory swept across her. "And my mother! My mother!" she said.

"Don't you think we had better deal with one difficulty at a time?" suggested Scott.

His hand sought hers, he drew her to her feet.

And, as one having no choice, she submitted and went with him.

It was still raining, but the heaviest of the shower was over. A gleam of sunshine lit the distance as they went, and a faint, faint ray of hope dawned in Dinah's heart at the sight. Though her deliverance was yet to be achieved, though she dreaded unspeakably that which lay before her, at least the door was open, could she but reach it to pass through. She breathed a purer air already. And beside her stood Greatheart the valiant, covering her with his shield of gold.



CHAPTER XVII

THE LION IN THE PATH

A large and merry party of guests were congregated in the great hall at Perrythorpe Court, having tea. One of them—a young soldier-cousin of the Studleys—was singing a sentimental ditty at a piano to which no one was listening; and the hubbub was considerable.

Dinah, admitted into the outer hall that was curtained off from the gay crowd, shrank nearer to Scott as the cheery tumult reached her.

"Need we—must we—go in that way?" she whispered.

There was a door on the right of the porch. Scott turned towards it.

"I suppose we can go in there?" he said to the man who had admitted them.

"The gun-room, sir? Yes, if you wish, sir. Shall I bring tea?"

"No," Scott said quietly. "Find Sir Eustace Studley if you can, and ask him to join us there! Come along, Dinah!"

His hand touched her arm. She entered the little room as one seeking refuge. It led into a conservatory, and thence to the garden. The apartment itself was given up entirely to weapons or instruments of sport. Guns, fishing-rods, hunting-stocks, golf-clubs, tennis-rackets, were stored in various racks and stands. A smell of stale cigar-smoke pervaded it. Colonel de Vigne was wont to retire hither at night in preference to the less cosy and intimate smoking-room.

But there was no one here now, and Scott laid hat and riding-whip upon the table and drew forward a chair for his companion.

She looked at him and tried to thank him, but she was voiceless. Her pale lips moved without sound.

Scott's eyes were very kindly. "Don't be so frightened, child!" he said; and then, a sudden thought striking him, "Look here! You go and wait in the conservatory and let me speak to him first! Yes, that will be the best way. Come!"

His hand touched her again. She turned as one compelled. But as he opened the glass door, she found her voice.

"Oh, I ought not to—to let you face him alone. I must be brave. I must."

"Yes, you must," Scott answered. "But I will see him alone first. It will make it easier for everyone."

Yet for a moment she halted still. "You really mean it? You wish it?"

"Yes, I wish it," he said. "Wait in here till I call you!"

She took him at his word. There was no other course. He closed the door upon her and turned back alone.

He sat down in the chair that he had placed for her and became motionless as a figure carved in bronze. His pale face and trim, colourless beard were in shadow, his eyes were lowered. There was scarcely an inanimate object in the room as insignificant and unimposing as he, and yet in his stillness, in his utter unobtrusiveness, there lay a strength such as the strongest knight who ever rode in armour might have envied.

There came a careless step without, a hand upon the door. It opened, and Sir Eustace, handsome, self-assured, slightly haughty, strode into the room.

"Hullo, Stumpy! What do you want? I can't stop. I am booked to play billiards with Miss de Vigne. A test match to demonstrate the steadiness of my nerves!"

Scott stood up. "I have a bigger test for you than that, old chap," he said. "Shut the door if you don't mind!"

Sir Eustace sent him a swift, edged glance. "I can't stop," he said again. "What is it? Some mare's nest about Isabel?"

"No, nothing whatever to do with Isabel. Shut the door, man! I must be alone with you for a few minutes." Scott spoke with unwonted vehemence. The careless notes of the piano, the merry tumult of chattering voices, seemed to affect him oddly, almost to exasperate him.

Sir Eustace turned and swung the door shut; then with less than his customary arrogance he came to Scott. "What's the matter?" he said. "Out with it! Don't break the news if you can help it!"

His eyes belied the banter of his words. They shone as the eyes of a fighter meeting odds. There was something leonine about him at the moment, something of the primitive animal roused from its lair and scenting danger.

He looked into Scott's pale face with the dawning of a threatening expression upon his own.

And Scott met the threat full and square and unflinching. "I've come to tell you," he said, "about the hardest thing one man can tell another. Dinah wishes to be released from her engagement."

His words were brief but very distinct. He stiffened as he uttered them, almost as if he expected a blow.

But Sir Eustace stood silent and still, with only the growing menace in his eyes to show that he had heard.

Several seconds dragged away ere he made either sound or movement. Then, with a sudden, fierce gesture, he gripped Scott by the shoulder. "And you have the damnable impertinence to come and tell me!" he said.

There was violence barely restrained in voice and action. He held Scott as if he would fling him against the wall.

But Scott remained absolutely passive, enduring the savage grip with no sign of resentment. Only into his steady eyes there came that gleam as of steel that leaps to steel.

"I have told you," he said, "because I have no choice. She wishes to be set free, and—she fears you too much to tell you so herself."

Sir Eustace broke in upon him with a furious laugh that was in some fashion more insulting than a blow on the mouth. "And she has deputed you to do so on her behalf! Highly suitable! Or did you volunteer for the job, most fearless knight?"

"I offered to help her—certainly." Scott's voice was as free from agitation as his pose. "I would help any woman under such circumstances. It's no easy thing for her to break off her engagement at this stage. And she is such a child. She needs help."

"She shall have it," said Eustace grimly. "But—since you are here—I will deal with you first. Do you think I am going to endure any interference in this matter from you? Think it over calmly. Do you?"

His hold upon Scott had become an open threat. His eyes were a red blaze of anger. In that moment the animal in him was predominant, overwhelming. He was furious with the fury of the wounded beast that is beyond all control.

Scott realized the fact, and grasped his own self-control with a firmer hand. "It's no good my telling you that I hate my job," he said. "You'll hardly believe me if I do. But I've got to stick to it, beastly as it is. I can't stand by and see her married against her will. For that is what it amounts to. She would give anything she has to be free. She told me so. I'm infernally sorry. Perhaps you won't believe that either. But I've got to see this thing through now."

"Have you?" said Eustace, and suddenly his words came clipped and harsh from between set teeth. "And you think I'm going to endure it—stand aside tamely—while you turn an attack of stage-fright into a just cause and impediment to prevent my marriage! I should have thought you would have known me better by this time. But if you don't, you shall learn. Now listen! I am in dead earnest. If you don't drop this foolery, give me your word of honour here and now to leave this matter in my hands alone,—I'll thrash you to a pulp!"

He spoke with terrible intention. His whole being pulsated behind the words. And Scott's slight frame stiffened to rigidity in answer.

"You may grind me to powder!" he flung back, and in his voice there sounded a curiously vibrant quality as of finely-tempered steel that will bend but never break. "But you can't—and you shan't—force that child into marrying you against her will! That I swear—by God in Heaven!"

There was amazing force in the utterance, he also had thrown off the shackles. But his strength had about it nothing of the brute. Stripped to the soul, he stood up a man.

And against his will Eustace recognized the fact, realized the Invincible manifest in the clay, and in spite of himself was influenced thereby. The savage in him drew back abashed, aware of mastery.

Abruptly he released him and turned away. "You're a fool to tempt me," he said. "And a still greater fool to take her seriously. As I tell you, it's nothing but stage-fright. She had a touch of it yesterday. I'll come round presently and make it all right."

"You can only make it right by setting her free," Scott made answer. "There is no other course. Do you suppose I should have come to you in this way if there had been?"

Sir Eustace was moving to the door by which he had entered. He flung a backward look that was intensely evil over his shoulder at the puny figure of the man behind him.

"I can imagine you playing any damned trick under the sun to serve your own interests," he said, his lip curling in in an intolerable sneer. "But the deepest strategy fails occasionally. You haven't been quite subtle enough this time."

He was at the door as he uttered the last biting sentence, but so also was Scott. With a movement of incredible swiftness and impetuosity he flung himself forward. Their hands met upon the handle, and his remained in possession, for in sheer astonishment Eustace drew back.

They faced one another in the evening light, Scott pale to the lips, in his eyes an electric blaze that made them almost unbearably bright, Eustace, heavy-browed, lowering, the red glare of savagery gleaming like a smouldering flame, ready to leap forth in devastating fury to meet the fierce white heat that confronted him.

An awful silence hung between them—a silence of unutterable emotions, more poignant with passion than any strife or clash of weapons. And through it like a mocking under-current there ran the distant tinkle of the piano, the echoes of careless laughter beyond the closed door.

Then at last—it seemed with difficulty—Scott spoke, his voice very low, oddly jerky. "What do you mean by that? Tell me what you mean!"

Sir Eustace made an abrupt gesture,—the gesture of the swordsman on guard. He met the attack instantly and unwaveringly, but his look was wary. He did not seek to throw the lesser man from his path. As it were instinctively, though possibly for the first time in his life, he treated him as an equal.

"You know what I mean!" he made fierce rejoinder. "Even you can hardly pretend ignorance on that point."

"Even I!" Scott uttered a short, hard laugh that seemed to escape him against his will. "All the same, I will have an explanation," he said. "I prefer a straight charge, notwithstanding my damned subtlety. You will either explain or withdraw."

"As you like," Sir Eustace yielded the point, and again he acted instinctively, not realizing that he had no choice. "I mean that from the very beginning of things you have been influencing her against me, trying to win her from me. You never intended me to propose to her in the first place. You never imagined that I would do such a thing. You only thought of driving me off the ground and clearing it for yourself. I saw your game long ago. When you lost one trick, you tried for another. I knew—I knew all along. But the game is up now, and you've lost." A very bitter smile curved his mouth with the words. "There is your explanation," he said. "I hope you are satisfied."

"But I am not satisfied!" Quick as lightning came the riposte. Scott stood upright against the closed door. His eyes, unflickering, dazzlingly bright, were fixed upon his brother's face. "I am not satisfied," he repeated, and his words were as sternly direct as his look; he spoke as one compelled by some inner, driving force, "because what you have just said to me—this foul thing you believe of me—is utterly and absolutely without foundation. I have never tried—or dreamed of trying—to win her from you. I speak as before God. In this matter I have never been other than loyal either to you or to my own honour. If any other man insulted me in this fashion," his face worked a little, but he controlled it sharply, "I wouldn't have stooped to answer him. But you—I suppose I must allow you the—privilege of brotherhood. And so I ask you to believe—at least to make an effort to believe—that you have made a mistake."

His voice was absolutely quiet as he ended. The dignity of his utterance had in it even a touch of the sublime, and the elder man was aware of it, felt the force of it, was humbled by it. He stood a moment or two as one irresolute, halting at a difficult choice. Then, with an abrupt lift of the head as though his pride made fierce resistance, he gave ground.

"If I have wronged you, I apologize," he said with brevity.

Scott smiled faintly, wryly. "If—" he said.

"Very well, I withdraw the 'if.'" Sir Eustace spoke impatiently, not as one desiring reconciliation. "You laid yourself open to it by accepting the position of ambassador. I don't know how you could seriously imagine that I would treat with you in that capacity. If Dinah has anything to say to me, she must say it herself."

"She will do so," Scott spoke with steady assurance. "But before you see her, I think I ought to tell you that her reason for wishing to be set free is not stage-fright or any childish nonsense of that kind; but simply the plain fact that her heart is not in the compact. She has found out that she doesn't love you enough."

"She told you so?" demanded Sir Eustace.

Scott bent his head, for the first time averting his eyes from his brother's face. "Yes."

"And she wished you to tell me?" There was a metallic ring in Sir Eustace's voice; the red glare was gone from his eyes, they were cold and hard as a winter sky.

"Yes," Scott said again, still not looking at him.

"And why?" The words fell brief and imperious, compelling in their incisiveness.

Scott's eyes returned to his, almost in protest. "I told her you ought to know," he said.

"Then she would not have told me otherwise?"

"Possibly not."

There fell another silence. Sir Eustace looked hard and straight into the pale eyes, as though he would pierce to the soul behind. But though Scott met the look unwavering, his soul was beyond all scrutiny. There was something about him that baffled all search, something colossal that barred the way. For the second time Sir Eustace realized himself to be at a disadvantage; haughtily he passed the matter by.

"In that case there is nothing further to be said. You have fulfilled your somewhat rash undertaking, and that you have come out of the business with a whole skin is a bigger piece of luck than you deserved. If Dinah wishes this matter to go any further, she must come to me herself."

"Otherwise you will take no action?" Scott's voice had its old somewhat weary intonation. The animation seemed to have died out of him.

"Exactly." Sir Eustace answered him with equal deliberation. "So far as you are concerned the incident is now closed."

Scott took his hand from the door and moved slowly away. "I have put the whole case before you," he said. "I think you clearly understand that if you are going to try and use force, I am bound—as a friend—to take her part against you. She relies upon me for that, and—I shall not disappoint her. You see," a hint of compassion sounded in his voice, "she has always been afraid of you; and she knows that I am not."

Sir Eustace smiled cynically. "Oh, you have always been ready to rush in!" he said. "Doubtless your weakness is your strength."

Scott met the gibe with tightened lips. He made no attempt to reply to it. "The only thing left," he said quietly, "is for you to see her and hear what she has to say. She is waiting in the conservatory."

"She is waiting?" Eustace wheeled swiftly.

Scott was already half-way across the room. He strode forward, and intercepted him.

"You can go," he said curtly. "You have done your part. This business is mine, not yours."

Scott stood still. "I have promised to see her through," he said. "I must keep my promise."

Sir Eustace looked for a single instant as if he would strike him down; and then abruptly, inexplicably he gave way.

"Very well," he said. "Fetch her in!"



CHAPTER XVIII

THE TRUTH

At Scott's quiet summons Dinah entered. What she had passed through during those minutes of waiting was written in her face. She looked deathly.

Sir Eustace did not move to meet her. He stood by the table, very upright, very stern, uncompromisingly silent.

Dinah gave him one quivering glance, and turned appealingly to Scott.

"Don't be nervous!" he said gently. "There is no need. I have told him your wish."

She was terrified, but the ordeal had to be faced. She summoned all her strength, and went forward.

"Oh, Eustace," she said piteously, "I am so dreadfully sorry."

He looked down at her, his face like a marble mask. "So," he said, "you want to throw me over!"

She clasped her hands very tightly before her. "Oh, I know it's hateful of me," she said.

He made a slight, disdainful gesture. "Did you make up your mind or did Scott make it up for you?"

"No, no!" she cried in distress. "It was not his doing. I—I just told him, that was all."

"And you now desire him for a witness," suggested Sir Eustace cynically.

Dinah looked again towards Scott. He stood against the mantelpiece, as grimly upright as his brother and again oddly she was struck by the similarity between them. She could not have said wherein it lay, but she had never seen it more marked.

He spoke very quietly in answer to her look. "I have promised to stay for as long as you want me, but if you wish to be alone with Eustace for a few minutes, I will wait in the conservatory."

"Yes, let him do that!" Imperiously Eustace accepted the suggestion. "We shall not keep him long."

Dinah stood hesitating. Scott was looking at her very steadily and reassuringly. His eyes seemed to be telling her that she had nothing to fear. But he would not move without her word, and in the end reluctantly she gave in.

"Very well," she said, in a low voice. "If—if you will wait!"

"I will," Scott said.

He limped across the room to the open door, passed through, closed it softly behind him. And Dinah was left to face her monster alone.

She did not look at Sir Eustace in the first dreadful moments that followed Scott's exit. She was horribly afraid. There was to her something inexpressibly ruthless in his very silence. She longed yet dreaded to hear him speak.

He did not do so for many seconds, and she thought by his utter stillness that he must be listening to the wild throbbing of her heart.

Then at last, just as the tension of waiting was becoming unbearable and she was on the verge of piteous entreaty, he seated himself on the edge of the table and spoke.

"Well," he said, "we have got to get at the root of this trouble somehow. You don't propose to throw me over without telling me why, I suppose?"

His voice was perfectly calm. She even fancied that he was faintly smiling as he uttered the words, but she could not look at him to see. She found it difficult enough to speak in answer.

"I know I am treating you very badly," she said, wringing her clasped hands in her agitation. "You—of course you can make me marry you. I've promised myself to you. You have the right. But if you will only—only let me go, I am sure it will be much better for you too. Because—because—I've found out—I've found out—that I don't love you."

It was the greatest effort she had ever made in her life. She wondered afterwards how she had ever brought herself to accomplish it. It was so hard—so hideously hard—to face him, this man who loved her so overwhelmingly, and tell him that he had failed to win her love in return. And at the eleventh hour—to treat him thus! If he had taken her by the throat and wrung her neck, she would have considered him justified and herself but righteously punished.

But he did nothing of a violent nature. He only sat there looking at her, and though she could not bring herself to meet his look she knew that it held no anger.

He did not speak, and she went on with a species of desperate pleading, because silence was so intolerable. "It wouldn't be right of me to—to marry you and not tell you, would it? It wouldn't be fair. It would be like marrying you under false pretences. I only wish—oh, I do wish—that I had known sooner, when you first asked me. I might have known. I ought to have known! But—but—somehow—" she began to falter badly and finally concluded in a piteous whisper—"I didn't."

"How did you find out?" he said. His tone was still perfectly quiet; but he spoke judicially, as one who meant to have an answer.

But Dinah had no answer for him. It was the very question to which there could be no reply. Her fingers interlaced and strained against each other. She stood mute.

"I think you can tell me that," Eustace said.

She made a small but vehement gesture of negation. "I can't!" she said. "It's—it's—private."

"You mean you won't?" he questioned.

She nodded silently, too distressed for speech.

He got to his feet with finality. "That ends the case then," he said. "The appeal is dismissed. You can give me no adequate reason for releasing you. Therefore, I keep you to your engagement."

Dinah uttered a gasp. She had not expected this. For the first time she met his look fully, met the blue, dominant eyes, the faint, supercilious smile. And dismay struck through and through her as she realized that he had made her captive again with scarcely a struggle.

"Oh, but you can't—you can't!" she said.

He raised his brows. "We shall see," he said. "Mean-time—" He paused, looking at her, and suddenly the old hot glitter flashed forth, dazzling her, hypnotizing her; he uttered a low laugh and took her in his arms. "Daphne, you will-o'-the-wisp, you witch, how dare you?"

She made no outcry or resistance, realizing in a single stunning second the mastery that would not be denied; only ere his lips reached her, she sank down in his hold, hiding her face and praying him brokenly, imploringly, to let her go.

"Oh, please—oh, please—if you love me—do be kind—do be generous! I can't go on—indeed—indeed! Oh, Eustace,—Eustace—do forgive me—and let me go!"

"I will not!" he said. "I will not!"

She heard the rising passion in his voice, and her heart died within her; she sank lower, till but for his upholding arms she would have been kneeling at his feet. And then quite suddenly her strength went from her; she hung powerless, almost fainting in his grasp.

She scarcely knew what happened next, save that the fierceness went out of his hold like the passing of an evil dream. He lifted and held her while the darkness surged around.... And then presently she heard his voice, very low, amazingly tender, speaking into her ear. "Dinah! Dinah! What has come to you? Don't you know that I love you? Didn't I tell you so only last night?"

She leaned against him palpitating, unstrung, piteously distressed. "That's what makes it—so dreadful," she whispered. "I wish I were dead! Oh, I do wish I were dead!"

"Nonsense!" he said. "Nonsense!" He put his hand upon her head, pressing it against his breast. "Little sweetheart, what has happened to you? Tell me what is the matter!"

That was the hardest to face of all, that he should subdue himself, restrain his passion to pour out to her that which was infinitely greater than passion; she made a little sound that seemed to come straight from her heart.

"Oh, I can't tell you!" she sobbed into his shoulder. "I can't think how I ever made such a terrible mistake. But if only—oh, if only—you could marry Rose instead! It would be so very much better for everybody."

"Marry Rose!" he said. "What on earth made you think of that at this stage?"

"I always thought you would—in Switzerland," she explained rather incoherently. "I—never really thought—I could cut her out."

"Is that what you did it for?" An odd note sounded in Sir Eustace's voice, as though some irony of circumstance had forced his sense of humour.

"Just at first," whispered Dinah. "Oh, don't be angry! Please don't be angry! You—you weren't in earnest either just at first."

He considered the matter in silence for a few moments. Then half-quizzically, "I don't see that that is any reason for throwing me over now," he said. "If you don't love me to-day, you will to-morrow."

She shook her head.

"Quite sure?" he said.

"Quite," she answered faintly.

His hand was still upon her head, and it remained there. He held her closely pressed to him.

For a space again he was silent, his dark face bent over her, his lips actually touching her hair. Of what was passing in his mind she had no notion, and she dared not lift her head to look. She dreaded each moment a return of that tornado-like passion that had so often appalled her. But it did not come. His arms held her indeed, but without violence, and in his stillness there was no tension to denote its presence.

He spoke at length, almost whispering. "Dinah, who is the lucky fellow? Tell me!"

She started away from him. She almost cried out in her dismay. But he stopped her. He took her face between his hands with an insistence that would not be denied. He looked closely, searchingly, into her eyes.

"Is it Scott?" he said.

She did not answer him. She stood as one paralysed, and up over face and neck and all her trembling body, enwrapping her like a flame, there rose a scorching, agonizing blush.

He held her there before him and watched it, and she saw that his eyes were piercingly bright, with the brightness of burnished steel. She could not turn her own away from them, though her whole soul shrank from that stark scrutiny. In anguish of mind she faced him, helpless, unutterably ashamed, while that burning blush throbbed fiercely through every vein and gradually died away.

He let her go at last very slowly. "I—see," he said.

She put her hands up over her face with a childish, piteous gesture. She felt as if he had ruthlessly torn from her the one secret treasure that she cherished. She was free—she knew she was free. But at what a cost!

"So," Eustace said, "that's it, is it? We've got at the truth at last!"

She quivered at the words. Her whole being seemed to be shrivelled as though it had passed through the fire. He had wrenched her secret from her, and she had nothing more to hide.

Sir Eustace walked to the end of the room and back. He halted close to her, but he did not touch her. He spoke, briefly and sternly.

"How long has this been going on?"

She looked up at him, her face pathetically pinched and small. "It hasn't been going on. I—only realized it to-day. He doesn't know. He never must know!" A sudden sharp note of anxiety sounded in her voice. "He never must know!" she reiterated with emphasis.

"He hasn't made love to you then?" Sir Eustace spoke in the same curt tone; his mouth was merciless.

She started as if stung. "Oh no! Oh no! Of course he hasn't! He—he doesn't care for me—like that. Why should he?"

Eustace's grim lips twitched a little. "Why indeed? Well, it's lucky for him he hasn't. If he had, I'd have half killed him for it!"

There was concentrated savagery in his tone. His eyes shone with a fire that made her shrink. And then very suddenly he put his hand upon her shoulder.

"Do you mean to tell me that you want to throw me over solely because you imagine you care for a man who doesn't care for you?" he asked.

She looked up at him piteously, "Oh, please don't ask me any more!" she said.

"But I want to know," he said stubbornly. "Is that your only reason?"

With difficulty she answered him. "No."

"Then what more?" he demanded.

It was inevitable. She made a desperate effort to be brave. "I couldn't be happy with you. I am afraid of you. And—and—you are not kind to—to Isabel."

"Who says I am not kind to Isabel?" His hand pressed upon her ominously; his look was implacably stern.

But the effort to be brave had given her strength. She stiffened in his hold. "I know it," she said. "I have seen it. She is always miserable when you are there."

He frowned upon her heavily. "You don't understand. Isabel is very hysterical. She needs a firm hand."

"You are more than firm," Dinah said. "You are—cruel."

Never in her wildest moments had she imagined herself making such an indictment. She marvelled at herself even as it left her lips. But something seemed to have entered into her, taking away her fear. Not till long afterwards did she realize that it was her new-found womanhood that had come upon her all unawares during that poignant interview.

She faced him without a tremor as she uttered the words, and he received them in a silence so absolute that she went on with scarcely a pause. "Not only to Isabel, but to everyone; to Scott, to that poor poacher, to me. You don't believe it, because it is your nature. But it is true all the same. And I think cruelty is a most dreadful thing. It's a vice that not all the virtues put together could counter-balance."

"When have I been cruel to you?" he said.

His tone was quiet, his face mask-like; but she thought that fury raged behind his calm. And still she knew no fear, felt no faintest dread of consequence.

"All your love-making has been cruel," she said. "Only once—no, twice now—have you been the least bit kind to me. It's no good talking. You'd never understand. I've lain awake often in the night with the dread of you. But"—her voice shook slightly—"I didn't know what I wanted, so I kept on. Now that I do know—though I shall never have it—it's made a difference, and I can't go on. You don't want me any more now I've told you, so it won't hurt you so very badly to let me go."

"You are wrong," he said, and suddenly she knew that out of his silence or her speech had developed something that was strange and new. His voice was quick and low, utterly devoid of its customary arrogance. "I want you more than ever! Dinah—Dinah, I may have been a brute to you. You're right. I often am a brute. But marry me—only marry me—and I swear to you that I will be kind!"

His calm was gone. He leaned towards her urgently, his dark face aglow with a light that was not passion. She had deemed him furious, and behold, she had him at her feet! Her ogre was gone for ever. He had crumbled at a touch. She saw before her a man, a man who loved her, a man whom she might eventually have come to love but for—

She caught her breath in a sharp sob, and put forth a hand in pleading. "Eustace, don't! Please don't! I can't bear it. You—you must set me free!"

"You are free as air," he said.

"Am I? Then don't—don't ask me to bind myself again! For I can't—I can't. I want to go away. I want to be quiet." She broke down suddenly. The strain was past, the battle over. She had vanquished him, how she scarcely knew; but her own brief strength was tottering now. "Let me go home!" she begged. "Tell Scott I've gone! Tell everyone there won't be a wedding after all! Say I'm dreadfully sorry! It's my fault—all my fault! I ought to have known!" Her tears blinded her, silenced her. She turned towards the door.

"Won't you say good-bye to me?" Eustace said.

Her voice was low and very steady. The glow was gone. He was calm again, absolutely calm. With the failure of that one urgent appeal, he seemed to have withdrawn his forces, accepting defeat.

She turned back gropingly. "Good-bye—good-bye—" she whispered, "and—thank you!"

He put his arm around her, and bending kissed her forehead. "Don't cry, dear!" he said.

His manner was perfectly kind, supremely gentle. She hardly knew him thus. Again her heart smote her in overwhelming self-reproach. "Oh, Eustace, forgive me for hurting you so—forgive me—for all I've said!"

"For telling me the truth?" he said. "No, I don't forgive you for that."

She broke down utterly and sobbed aloud. "I wish—I wish I hadn't! How could I do it? I hate myself!"

"No—no," he said. "It's all right. You've done nothing wrong. Run home, child! Don't cry! Don't cry!"

His hand touched her hair under the soft cap, touched and lingered. But he did not hold her to him.

"Run home!" he said again.

"And—and—you won't—won't—tell—Scott?" she whispered through her tears.

"But I don't think even I am such a bounder as that!" he said gently. "Do you?"

She lifted her face impulsively. She kissed him with quivering lips. "No—no. I didn't mean it. Good-bye Oh, good-bye!"

He kissed her in return. "Good-bye!" he said.

And so they parted.



CHAPTER XIX

THE FURNACE

The bridal dress with its filmy veil still lay in its white box—a fairy garment that had survived the catastrophe. Dinah sat and looked at it dully. The light of her single candle shimmered upon the soft folds. How beautiful it was!

She had been sitting there for hours, after a terrible scene with her mother downstairs, and from acute distress she had passed into a state of torpid misery that enveloped her like a black cloud. She felt almost too exhausted, too numbed, to think. Her thoughts wandered drearily back and forth. She was sure she had been very greatly to blame, yet she could not fix upon any definite juncture at which she had begun to go wrong. Her engagement had been such a whirlwind of Fate. She had been carried off her feet from the very beginning. And the deliverance from the home bondage had seemed so fair a prospect. Now she was plunged, back again into that bondage, and she was firmly convinced that no chance of freedom would ever be offered to her again. Yet she knew that she had done right to draw back. Regret it though she might again and again in the bitter days to come, she knew—and she would always know—that at the eleventh hour she had done right.