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.
She had been true to the greatest impulse that had ever stirred
her soul. It had been at a frightful cost. She had sacrificed
everything--everything--to a vision that she might never realize. She
had cast away all the glitter and the wealth for this far greater thing
which yet could never be more to her than a golden dream. She had even
cast away love, and her heart still bled at the memory. But she had been
true--she had been true.
Not yet was the sacrifice ended. She knew that a cruel ordeal yet awaited
her. There was the morrow to be faced, the morrow with its renewal of
disgrace and punishment. Her mother was furious with her, so furious that
for the first time in her life her father had intervened on her behalf
and temporarily restrained the flow of wrath. Perhaps he had seen her
utter weariness, for he had advised her, not unkindly, to go to bed. She
had gone to her room, thankful to escape, but neither tea nor supper had
followed her thither. Billy had come to bid her good night long ago, but,
though he had not said so, he also, it seemed, was secretly disgusted
with her, and he had not lingered. It would be the same with everyone,
she thought to herself wearily. No one would ever realize how terribly
hard it had all been. No one would dream of extending any pity to her.
And of course she had done wrong. She knew it, was quite ready to admit
it. But the wrong had lain in accepting that overweaning lover of hers,
not in giving him up. Also, she ought to have found out long ago. She
wondered how it was she hadn't. It had never been a happy engagement.
Again her eyes wandered to the exquisite folds of that dress which she
was never to wear. How she had loved the thought of it and all the lovely
things that Isabel had procured for her! What would become of them all,
she wondered? All the presents downstairs would have to go back. Yes, and
Eustace's ring! She had forgotten that. She slipped it off her finger
with a little dry sob, and put it aside. And the necklace of pearls that
she had always thought so much too good for her, but which would have
looked so beautiful on the wedding-dress; that must be returned. Very
strangely that thought pierced the dull ache of her heart with a mere
poignant pain. And following it came another, stabbing her like a knife.
The sapphire for friendship--his sapphire--that would have to go too.
There would be nothing left when it was all over.
And she would never see any of them any more. She would drop out of their
lives and be forgotten. Even Isabel would not want her now that she had
behaved so badly. She had made Sir Eustace the talk of the County. So
long as they remembered her they would never forgive her for that.
Sir Eustace might forgive. He had been extraordinarily generous. A lump
rose in her throat as she thought of him. But the de Vignes, all those
wedding guests who were to have honoured the occasion, they would all
look upon her with contumely for evermore. No wonder her mother was
enraged against her! No wonder! No wonder! She would never have another
chance of holding up her head in such society again.
A great sigh escaped her. What was the good of sitting there thinking?
She had undressed long ago, and she was cold from head to foot. Yet
somehow she had forgotten or been too miserable to go to bed. She
supposed she had been waiting for the soothing tears that did not come.
Or had she meant to pray? She could not remember, and in any case prayer
seemed out of the question. Her life had been filled with delight for a
few delirious weeks, but it had all drained away. She did not want it
back again. She scarcely knew what she wanted, save the great Impossible
for which she lacked the heart to pray. And no doubt God was angry with
her too, or she could not feel like this! So what was the good of
attempting it?
Wearily she turned to put out her candle. But ere her hand reached it,
she paused in swift apprehension.
The next instant sharply she started round to see the door open, and her
mother entered the room.
Gaunt, forbidding, full of purpose, she walked in, and set her candle
down beside the one that Dinah had been about to extinguish.
"Get up!" she said to the startled girl. "Don't sit there gaping at me!
I've come here to give you a lesson, and it will be a pretty severe one I
can tell you if you attempt to disobey me."
"What do you want me to do?" breathed Dinah.
She stood up at the harsh behest, but she was trembling so much that her
knees would scarcely support her. Her heart was throbbing violently, and
each throb seemed as if it would choke her. She had seen that inflexibly
grim look often before upon her mother's face, and she knew from bitter
experience that it portended merciless treatment.
Mrs. Bathurst did not reply immediately. She went to a little table in a
corner which Dinah used for writing purposes, and opened a blotter that
lay upon it. From this she took a sheet of note-paper and laid it in
readiness, found Dinah's pen, opened the ink-pot. Then, over her
shoulder, she flung a curt command: "Come here!"
Dinah went, every nerve in her body tingling, her face and hands cold as
ice.
Mrs. Bathurst glanced at her with a contemptuous smile. "Sit down, you
little fool!" she said. "Now, you take that pen and write at my
dictation!"
Dinah shrank at the rough words. She felt like a child about to receive
corporal punishment. The vindictive force of the woman seemed to beat her
down. Writhe and strain as she might, she was bound to suffer both the
pain and the indignity to the uttermost limit; for she lacked the
strength to break free.
She did not sit down however. She remained standing by the little table.
"Mother," she said through her white lips, "what do you want me to do?"
She could scarcely keep her teeth from chattering, and Mrs. Bathurst
noted the fact with another grim smile.
"What am I going to make you do would be more to the purpose, my girl,
wouldn't it?" she said. "Sit down there, and you'll find out!"
Dinah leaned upon the little table to steady herself. "Tell me what it is
I am to do!" she said.
"Ah! That's better." A note of bitter humour sounded in Mrs. Bathurst's
voice. "Sit down!"
She thrust out a bony hand, and gripped her by the shoulder, forcing her
downwards.
Dinah dropped into the chair, and sat motionless.
"Take your pen!" Mrs. Bathurst commanded.
She hesitated; and instantly, with a violent movement, her mother
snatched it up and held it in front of her.
"Take it!"
Dinah took it with fingers so numb that they were almost powerless.
"Now," said Mrs. Bathurst, "I will tell you what you are going to do. You
are going to write to Sir Eustace at my dictation, and tell him that you
are very sorry, you have made a mistake, and beg him to forget it and
marry you to-morrow as arranged."
"Mother! No!" Dinah started as if at a blow; the pen dropped from her
fingers. "Oh no! I can't indeed--indeed!"
"You will!" said Mrs. Bathurst.
Her hand gripped the slender shoulder with cruel force. She bent,
bringing her harsh features close to her daughter's blanched face.
"Just you remember one thing!" she said, her voice low and menacing.
"You've never succeeded in defying me yet, and you won't do it now. I'll
conquer you--I'll break you--if it takes me all night to do it!"
Dinah recoiled before the unshackled fury that suddenly blazed in the
gipsy eyes that looked into hers. Sheer horror sprang into her own.
"Oh, but I can't--I can't!" she reiterated in an agony. "I don't love
him. He knows it. I ought to have found out before, but I didn't.
Mother--Mother--" piteously she began to plead--"you--you can't want to
make me marry a man I don't love? You--you would never--surely--have done
such a thing yourself!"
Mrs. Bathurst made a sharp gesture as if something had pierced her. She
shook the shoulder she grasped. "Love!" she said. "Oh, don't talk to me
of love! Do you imagine--have you ever imagined--that I married that
fox-hunting booby--for love?"
A great and terrible bitterness that was like the hunger of a famished
animal looked out of her eyes. Dinah gazed at her aghast. What new and
horrible revelation was this? She felt suddenly sick and giddy.
Her mother shook her again roughly, savagely. "None of that!" she said.
"Don't think I'll put up with it, my fine lady, for I won't! What has
love to do with such a chance as this? Tell me that, you little fool! Do
you suppose that either you or I have ever been in a position to
marry--for love?"
Her face was darkly passionate. Dinah felt as if she were in the clutches
of a tigress. "What--what do you mean?" she faltered through her
quivering lips.
"What do I mean?" Mrs. Bathurst broke into a sudden brutal laugh. "Ha!
What do I mean?" she said. "I'll tell you, shall I? Yes, I'll tell you!
I'll show you the shame that I've covered all these years. I mean that I
married because of you--for no other reason. I married because I'd been
betrayed--and left. Now do you understand why it isn't for you to pick
and choose--you who have been the plague-spot of my life, the thorn in my
side ever since you first stirred there--a perpetual reminder of what I
would have given my very soul to forget? Do you understand, I say? Do you
understand? Or must I put it plainer still? You--the child of my
shame--to dare to set yourself up against me!"
She ended upon what was almost a note of loathing, and Dinah shuddered
from head to foot. It was to her as if she had been rolled in pitch. She
felt overwhelmed with the cruel degradation of it, the unspeakable shame.
Mrs. Bathurst watched her anguished distress with a species of bitter
satisfaction. "That'll take the fight out of you, my girl," she said. "Or
if it doesn't, I've another sort of remedy yet to try. Now, you start on
that letter, do you hear? It'll be a bit shaky, but none the worse for
that. Write and tell him you've changed your mind! Beg him humble-like to
take you back!"
But Dinah only bowed her head upon her hands and sat crushed.
Mrs. Bathurst gave her a few seconds to recover her balance. Then again
mercilessly she shook her by the shoulder.
"Come, Dinah! I'm not going to be defied. Are you going to write that
letter at once? Or must I take stronger measures?"
And then a species of wild courage entered into Dinah. She turned at last
at bay. "I will not write it! I would sooner die! If--if this thing is
true, it would be far easier to die! I couldn't marry any man now who had
any pride of birth."
She was terribly white, but she faced her tormentor unflinching, her eyes
like stars. And it came to Mrs. Bathurst with unpleasant force that she
had taken a false step which it was impossible to retrace. It was then
that the evil spirit that had been goading her entered in and took full
possession.
She gripped Dinah's shoulder till she winced with pain. "Mother, you--you
are hurting me!"
"Yes, and I will hurt you," she made answer. "I'll hurt you as I've never
hurt you yet if you dare to disobey me! I'll crush you to the earth
before I will endure that from you. Now! For the last time! Will you
write that letter? Think well before you refuse again!"
She towered over Dinah with awful determination, wrought up to a pitch of
fury by her resistance that almost bordered upon insanity.
Dinah's boldness waned swiftly before the iron force that countered it.
But her resolution remained unshaken, a resolution from which no power on
earth could move her.
"I can't do it--possibly," she said.
"You mean you won't?" said Mrs. Bathurst.
Dinah nodded, and gripped the table hard to endure what should follow.
"You--mean--you won't?" Mrs. Bathurst said again very slowly.
"I will not." The white lips spoke the words, and closed upon them. Dinah
sat rigid with apprehension.
Mrs. Bathurst took her hand from her shoulder and turned from her. The
candle that had been burning all the evening was low in its socket. She
lifted it out and went to the fireplace. There were some shavings in the
grate. She pushed the lighted candle end in among them; then, as the fire
roared up the chimney, she turned.
An open trunk was close to her with the dainty pale green dress that
Dinah had worn the previous evening lying on the top. She took it up, and
bundled the soft folds together. Then violently she flung it on to the
flames.
Dinah gave a cry of dismay, and started to her feet. "Mother! What are
you doing? Mother! Are you mad?"
Mrs. Bathurst looked at her with eyes of blazing vindictiveness. "If you
are not going to be married, you won't need a trousseau," she said
grimly. "These things are quite unfit for a girl in your station. For
Lady Studley they would of course have been suitable, but not for such as
you."
She turned back to the open trunk with the words, and began to sweep
together every article of clothing it contained. Dinah watched her in
horror-stricken silence. She remembered with odd irrelevance how once in
her childhood for some petty offence her mother had burnt a favourite
doll, and then had whipped her soundly for crying over her loss.
She did not cry now. Her tears seemed frozen. She did not feel as if she
could ever cry again. The cold that enwrapped her was beginning to reach
her heart. She thought she was getting past all feeling.
So in mute despair she watched the sacrifice of all that Isabel's loving
care had provided. So much thought had been spent upon the delicate
finery. They had discussed and settled each dainty garment together. She
had revelled in the thought of all the good things which she was to
wear--she who had never worn anything that was beautiful before. And
now--and now--they shrivelled in the roaring flame and dropped into grey
ash in the fender.
It was over at last. Only the wedding-dress remained. But as Mrs.
Bathurst laid merciless hands upon this also, Dinah uttered a bitter cry.
"Oh, not that! Not that!"
Her mother paused. "Will you wear it to-morrow if Sir Eustace will have
you?" she demanded.
"No! Oh no!" Dinah tottered back against her bed and covered her eyes.
She could not watch the destruction of that fairy thing. But it went so
quickly, so quickly. When she looked up again, it had crumbled away like
the rest, and the shimmering veil with it. Nothing, nothing was left of
all the splendour that had been hers.
She sank down on the foot of the bed. Surely her mother would be
satisfied now! Surely her lust for vengeance could devise no further
punishment!
She was nearing the end of her strength, and she was beginning to know
it. The room swam before her dizzy sight. Her mother's figure loomed
gigantic, scarcely human.
She saw her poke down the last of the cinders and turn to the door. There
was a pungent smell of smoke in the room. She wondered if she would ever
be able to cross that swaying, seething floor to open the window. She
closed her eyes and listened with straining ears for the closing of the
door.
It came, and following it, a sharp click as of the turning of a key. She
looked up at the sound, and saw her mother come back to her. She was
carrying something in one hand, something that dangled and east a
snake-like shadow.
She came to the cowering girl and caught her by the arm. "Now get up!"
she ordered brutally. "And take the rest of your punishment!"
Truly Dinah drank the cup of bitterness to the dregs that night. Mentally
she had suffered till she had almost ceased to feel. But physically her
powers of endurance had not been so sorely tried. But her nerves were
strung to a pitch when even a sudden movement made her tingle, and upon
this highly-tempered sensitiveness the punishment now inflicted upon her
was acute agony. It broke her even more completely than it had broken her
in childhood. Before many seconds had passed the last shred of her
self-control was gone.
Guy Bathurst, lying comfortably in bed, was aroused from his first
slumber by a succession of sharp sounds like the lashing of a loosened
creeper against the window, but each sound was followed by an anguished
cry that sank and rose again like the wailing of a hurt child.
He turned his head and listened. "By Jove! That's too bad of Lydia," he
said. "I suppose she won't be satisfied till she's had her turn, but I
shall have to interfere if it goes on."
It did not go on for long; quite suddenly the cries ceased. The other
sounds continued for a few seconds more, then ceased also, and he turned
upon his pillow with a sigh of relief.
A minute later he was roused again by the somewhat abrupt entrance of his
wife. She did not speak to him, but stood by the door and rummaged in the
pockets of his shooting-coat that hung there.
Bathurst endured in silence for a few moments; then, "Oh, what on earth
are you looking for?" he said with sleepy irritation. "I wish you'd go."
"I want your brandy flask," she said, and her words came clipped and
sharp. "Where is it?"
"On the dressing-table," he said. "What have you been doing to the
child?"
"I've given her as much as she can stand," his wife retorted grimly. "But
you leave her to me! I'll manage her."
She departed with a haste that seemed to denote a certain anxiety
notwithstanding her words.
She left the door ajar, and the man turned again on his pillow and
listened uneasily. He was afraid Lydia had gone too far.
For a space he heard nothing. Then came the splashing of water, and again
that piteous, gasping cry. He caught the sound of his wife's voice, but
what she said he could not hear. Then there were movements, and Dinah
spoke in broken supplication that went into hysterical sobbing. Finally
he heard his wife come out of the room and close the door behind her.
She came back again with the brandy flask. "She's had a lesson," she
observed, "that I rather fancy she'll never forget as long as she lives."
"Then I hope you're satisfied," said Bathurst, and turned upon his side.
Yes, Dinah had had a lesson. She had passed through a sevenfold furnace
that had melted the frozen fountain of her tears till it seemed that
their flow would never be stayed again. She wept for hours, wept till she
was sick and blind with weeping, and still she wept on. And bitter shame
and humiliation watched beside her all through that dreadful night,
giving her no rest.
For she had gone through this fiery torture, this cruel chastisement of
mind and body, all for what? For love of a man who felt nought but
kindness for her,--for the dear memory of a golden vision that would
never be hers again.
CHAPTER XX
THE COMING OF GREATHEART
It was soon after nine on the following morning that Scott presented
himself on horseback at the gate of Dinah's home. It had been his
intention to tie up his animal and enter, but he was met in the entrance
by Billy coming out on a bicycle, and the boy at once frustrated his
intention.
"Good morning, sir! Pleased to see you, but it's no good your coming in.
The pater's still in bed, and the mater's doing the house-work."
"And Dinah?" said Scott. The question leapt from him almost
involuntarily. He had not meant to display any eagerness, and he sought
to cover it by his next words which were uttered with his usual careful
deliberation. "It's Dinah I have come to see. I have a message for her
from my sister."
Billy's freckled face crumpled into troubled lines. "Dinah has cleared
out," he said briefly. "I'm just off to the station to try and get news
of her."
"What?" Scott said, startled.
The boy looked at him, his green eyes shrewdly confiding. "There's been
the devil of a row," he said. "The mater is furious with her. She gave
her a fearful licking last night to judge by the sounds. Dinah was
squealing like a rat. Of course girls always do squeal when they're hurt,
but I fancy the mater must have hit a bit harder than usual. And she's
burnt the whole of the trousseau too. Dinah was so mighty proud of all
her fine things. She'd feel that, you know, pretty badly."
"Damnation!" Scott said, and for the second time he spoke without his own
volition. He looked at Billy with that intense hot light in his eyes that
had in it the whiteness of molten metal. "Do you mean that?" he said.
"Do you actually mean that your mother flogged her--flogged Dinah?"
Billy nodded. "It's just her way," he explained half-apologetically.
"The mater is like that. She's rough and ready. She's always done it to
Dinah, had a sort of down on her for some reason. I guessed she meant
business last night when I saw the dog-whip had gone out of the hall. I
wished afterwards I'd thought to hide it, for it's rather a beastly
implement. But the mater's a difficult woman to baulk. And when she's in
that mood, it's almost better to let her have her own way. She's sure to
get it sooner or later, and a thing of that sort doesn't improve with
keeping."
So spoke Billy with the philosophy of middle-aged youth, while the man
beside him sat with clenched hands and faced the hateful vision of Dinah,
the fairy-footed and gay of heart, writhing under that horrible and
humiliating punishment.
He spoke at length, and some electricity within him made the animal under
him fidget and prance, for he stirred neither hand nor foot. "And you
tell me Dinah has run away?"
"Yes, cleared out," said Billy tersely. "It was an idiotic thing to do,
for the mater is downright savage this morning, and she'll only give her
another hiding for her pains. She stayed away all day once before, years
ago when she was a little kid, and, my eye, didn't she catch it when she
came back! She never did it again--till now."
"And you are going to the station to look for her?" Scott's voice was
dead level. He calmed the restive horse with a firm hand.
"Yes; just to find out if she's gone by train. I don't believe she has,
you know. She's nowhere to go to. I expect she's hiding up in the woods
somewhere. I shall scour the country afterwards; for the longer she stays
away the worse it'll be for her. I'm sure of that," said Billy uneasily.
"When the mater lays hands on her again, she'll simply flay her."
"She will not do anything of the sort," said Scott, and turned his
horse's head with resolution. "Come along and find her first! I will deal
with your mother afterwards."
Billy mounted his bicycle and accompanied him. Though he did not see how
Scott was to prevent any further vengeance on his mother's part, it was a
considerable relief to feel that he had enlisted a champion on his
sister's behalf. For he was genuinely troubled about her, although the
cruel discipline to which she had been subjected all her life had so
accustomed him to seeing her in trouble that it affected him less than if
it had been a matter of less frequent occurrence.
Scott's reception of his information had somewhat awed him. Like Dinah,
he had long ceased to look upon this man as insignificant. He rode beside
him in respectful silence.
The country lane they followed crossed the railway by a bridge ere it ran
into the station road. There was a steep embankment on each side of the
line surmounted by woods, and as they reached the bridge Billy dismounted
to gaze searchingly into the trees.
"She might be anywhere" he said. "This is a favourite place of hers
because the wind-flowers grow here. Somehow I've got a sort of
feeling--" He stopped short. "Why, there she is!" he exclaimed.
Scott looked sharply in the same direction. Had he been alone, he would
not have perceived her, for she was crouched low against a thicket of
brambles and stunted trees midway down the embankment. She was clad in an
old brown mackintosh that so toned with her surroundings as to render her
almost invisible. Her chin was resting on her knees, and her face was
turned from them. She seemed to be gazing up the line.
As they watched her, a signal near the bridge went down with a thud, and
it seemed to Scott that the little huddled figure started and stiffened
like a frightened doe. But she did not change her position, and she
continued to gaze up the long stretch of line as though waiting for
something.
"What on earth is she doing?" whispered Billy. "There are no wind-flowers
there."
Scott slipped quietly to the ground. "You wait here!" he said. "Hold my
animal, will you?"
He left the bridge, retracing his steps, and climbed a railing that
fenced the wood. In a moment he disappeared among the trees, and Billy
was left to watch and listen in unaccountable suspense.
The morning was dull, and a desolate wind moaned among the bare
tree-tops. He shivered a little. There was something uncanny in the
atmosphere, something that was evil. He kept his eyes upon Dinah, but she
was a considerable distance away, and he could not see that she stirred
so much as a finger. He wondered how long it would take Scott to reach
her, and began to wish ardently that he had been allowed to go instead.
The man was lame and he was sure that he could have covered the distance
in half the time.
And then while he waited and watched, suddenly there came a distant
drumming that told of an approaching train.
"The Northern express!" he said aloud.
Many a time had he stood on the bridge to see it flash and thunder below
him. The sound of its approach had always filled him with a kind of
ecstasy before, but now--to-day--it sent another feeling through him,--a
sudden, wild dart of unutterable dread.
"What rot!" he told himself, with an angry shake. "Oh, what rot!"
But the dread remained coiled like a snake about his heart.
The animal he held became restless, and he backed it off the bridge, but
he could not bring himself to go out of sight of that small, tragic
figure in the old mackintosh that sat so still, so still, there upon the
grassy slope. He watched it with a terrible fascination. Would Scott
never make his appearance?
A white tuft of smoke showed against the grey of the sky. The throbbing
of the engine grew louder, grew insistent. A couple of seconds more and
it was within sight, still far away but rapidly drawing near. Where on
earth was Scott? Did he realize the danger? Ought he to shout? But
something seemed to grip his throat, holding him silent. He was powerless
to do anything but watch.
Nearer came the train and nearer. Billy's eyes were starting out of his
head. He had never been so scared in all his life before. There was
something fateful in the pose of that waiting figure.
The rush of the oncoming express dinned in his ears. It was close now,
and suddenly--suddenly as a darting bird--Dinah was on her feet. Billy
found his voice in a hoarse, croaking cry, but almost ere it left his
lips he saw Scott leap into view and run down the bank.
By what force of will he made his presence known Billy never afterwards
could conjecture. No sound could have been audible above the clamour of
the train. Yet by some means--some electric battery of the mind--he made
the girl below aware of him. On the very verge of the precipice she
stopped, stood poised for a moment, then turned herself back and saw
him....
The train thundered by, shaking the ground beneath their feet, and rushed
under the bridge. The whole embankment was blotted out in white smoke,
and Billy reeled back against the horse he held.
"By Jove!" he whispered shakily. "By--Jove! What a ghastly fright!"
He wiped his forehead with a trembling hand, and led the animal away from
the bridge. Somehow he was feeling very sick--too sick to look any
longer, albeit the danger was past.
The smoke cleared from the embankment, and two figures were left facing
one another on the grassy slope. Neither of them spoke a word. It was as
if they were waiting for some sign. Scott was panting, but Dinah did not
seem to be breathing at all. She stood there tense and silent, terribly
white, her eyes burning like stars.
The last sound of the train died away in the distance, and then, such was
their utter stillness, from the thorn-bush close to them a thrush
suddenly thrilled into song. The soft notes fell balmlike into that awful
silence and turned it into sweetest music.
Scott moved at last, and at once the bird ceased. It was as if an angel
had flown across the heaven with a silver flute of purest melody and
passed again into the unknown.
He came to Dinah. "My dear," he said, and his voice was slightly shaky,
"you shouldn't be here."
She stood before him, pillar-like, her two hands clenched against her
sides. Her lips were quite livid. They moved soundlessly for several
seconds before she spoke. "I--was waiting--for the express."
Her voice was flat and emotionless. It sounded almost as if she were
talking in her sleep. And strangely it was that that shocked Scott even
more than her appearance. Dinah's voice had always held countless
inflections, little notes gay or sad like the trill of a robin. This was
the voice of a woman in whom the very last spark of hope was quenched.
It pierced him with an intolerable pain. "Dinah--Dinah!" he said. "For
God's sake, child, you don't mean--that!"
Her white, pinched face twisted in a dreadful smile. "Why not?" she said.
"There was no other way." And then a sudden quiver as of returning life
went through her. "Why did you stop me?" she said. "If you hadn't, it
would have been--all over by now."
He put out a quick hand. "Don't say it,--in heaven's name! You are not
yourself. Come--come into the wood, and we will talk!"
She did not take his hand. "Can't we talk here?" she said.
He composed himself with an effort. "No, certainly not. Come into the
wood!"
He spoke with quiet insistence. She gave him an inscrutable look.
"You think you are going to help me,--Mr. Greatheart," she said, "but I
am past help. Nothing you can do will make any difference to me now."
"Come with me nevertheless!" he said.
He laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder, and she winced with a sharpness
that tore his heart. But in a moment she turned beside him and began the
ascent, slowly, labouringly, as if every step gave her pain. He moved
beside her, supporting her elbow when she faltered, steadily helping her
on.
They entered the wood, and the desolate sighing of the wind encompassed
them. Dinah looked at her companion with the first sign of feeling she
had shown.
"I must sit down," she said.
"There is a fallen tree over there," he said, and guided her towards it.
She leaned upon him, very near to collapse. He spread his coat upon the
tree and helped her down.
"Now how long is it since you had anything to eat?" he said.
She shook her head slightly. "I don't remember. But it doesn't matter.
I'm not hungry."
He took one of her icy hands and began to rub it. "Poor child!" he said.
"You ought to be given some hot bread and milk and tucked up in bed with
hot bottles."
Her face began to work. "That," she said, "is the last thing that will
happen to me."
"Haven't you been to bed at all?" he questioned.
Her throat was moving spasmodically; she bowed her head to hide her face
from him. "Yes," she said in a whisper. "My mother--my mother put me
there." And then as if the words burst from her against her will, "She
thrashed me first with a dog-whip; but dogs have got hair to protect
them, and I--had nothing. She only stopped because--I fainted. She hasn't
finished with me now. When I go back--when I go back--" She broke off.
"But I'm not going," she said, and her voice was flat and hard again.
"Even you can't make me do that. There'll be another express this
afternoon."
Scott knelt down beside her, and took her bowed head on to his shoulder.
"Listen to me, Dinah!" he said. "I am going to help you, and you mustn't
try to prevent me. If you had only allowed me, I would have gone home
again with you yesterday, and this might have been avoided. My dear,
don't draw yourself away from me! Don't you know I am a friend you can
trust?"
The pitiful tenderness of his voice reached her, overwhelming her first
instinctive effort to draw back. She leaned against him with painful,
long-drawn sobs.
He held her closely to him with all a woman's understanding. "Oh, don't
cry any more, child!" he said. "You're worn out with crying."
"I feel--so bad--so bad!" sobbed Dinah.
"Yes, yes. I know. Of course you do. But it's over, it's over. No one
shall hurt you any more."
"You don't--understand," breathed Dinah. "It never will be over--while I
live. I'm hurt inside--inside."
"I know," he said again. "But it will get better presently. Isabel and I
are going to take you away from it all."
"Oh no!" she said quickly. "No--no--no!" She lifted her head from his
shoulder and turned her poor, stained face upwards. "I couldn't do that!"
she said. "I couldn't! I couldn't!"
"Wait!" he said gently. "Let me do what I can to help you now--before we
talk of that! Will you sit here quietly for a little, while I go and get
you some milk from that farm down the road?"
"I don't want it," she said.
"But I want you to have it," he made grave reply. "You will stay here?
Promise me!"
"Very well," she assented miserably.
He got up. "I shan't be gone long. Sit quite still till I come back!"
He touched her dark head comfortingly and turned away.
When he had gone a little distance he looked back, and saw that she was
crouched upon the ground again and crying with bitter, straining sobs
that convulsed her as though they would rend her from head to foot. With
tightened lips he hastened on his way.
She had suffered a cruel punishment it was evident, and she was utterly
worn out in body and spirit. But was it only the ordeal of yesterday and
the physical penalty that she had been made to pay that had broken her
thus?
He could not tell, but his heart bled for her misery and desolation.
"Who is the other fellow?" he asked himself. "I wonder if Billy knows."
He found Billy awaiting him in the road, anxious and somewhat
reproachful. "You've been such a deuce of a time," he said. "Is she all
right?"
"She is very upset," he made answer. "And she is faint too for want of
food."
"That's not surprising," commented Billy. "She can't have had anything
since lunch yesterday. What shall I do? Run home and get something? The
mater can't want her to starve."
"No." Scott's voice rang on a hard note. "She probably doesn't. But you
needn't go home for it. Run back to that farm we passed just now, and see
if you can get some hot milk! Be quick like a good chap! Here's the
money! I'll wait here."
Billy seized his bicycle and departed on his errand.
Scott began to walk his horse up and down, for inactivity was unbearable.
Every moment he spent away from poor, broken Dinah was torturing. Those
dreadful, hopeless tears of hers filled him with foreboding. He yearned
to return.
Billy's absence lasted for nearly a quarter of an hour, and he was
beginning to get desperate over the delay when at last the boy returned
carrying a can of milk and a mug.
"I had rather a bother to get it," he explained. "People are so mighty
difficult to stir, and I didn't want to tell 'em too much. I've promised
to take these things back again. I say, can't I come along with you now?"
"I'd rather you didn't," Scott said. "I can manage best alone. Besides,
I'm going to ask you to do something more."
"Anything!" said Billy readily.
"Thanks. Well, will you ride this animal into Great Mallowes, hire a
closed car, and send it to the bridge here to pick me up? Then take him
back to the Court, and if anyone asks any questions, say I've met a
friend and I'm coming back on foot, but I may not be in to luncheon. Yes,
that'll do, I think. I'll see about returning these things. Much obliged,
Billy. Good-bye!"
Billy looked somewhat disappointed at this dismissal, but the prospect of
a ride was dear to his boyish heart, and in a moment he nodded cheerily.
"All right, I'll do that. I'll hide my bicycle in the wood and fetch it
afterwards. But where are you going to take her to?"
Scott smiled also faintly and enigmatically. "Leave that to me, my good
fellow! I shan't run away with her."
"But I shall see her again some time?" urged Billy, as he dumped his
long-suffering machine over the railing and propped it out of sight
behind the hedge.
"No doubt you will." Scott's tone was kindly and reassuring. "But I think
I can help her better just now than you can, so I'll be getting back to
her. Good-bye, boy! And thanks again!"
"So long!" said Billy, vaulting back and thrusting his foot into the
stirrup. "You might let me hear how you get on."
"I will," promised Scott.
CHAPTER XXI
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION
When Scott reached the fallen tree again, Dinah's fit of weeping was
over. She was lying exhausted and barely conscious against his coat.
She opened her eyes as he knelt down beside her. "You are--good," she
whispered faintly.
He poured out some milk and held it to her. "Try to drink some!" he said
gently.
She put out a trembling hand.
"No; let me!" he said.
She submitted in silence, and he lifted the glass to her lips and held it
very steadily while slowly she drank.
Her eyes were swollen and burning with the shedding of many scalding
tears. Now and then a sharp sob rose in her throat so that she could not
swallow.
"Take your time!" he said. "Don't hurry it!"
But ere she finished, the tears were running down her face again. He set
down the glass, and with his own handkerchief he wiped them away. Then he
sat upon the low tree-trunk, and drew her to lean against him.
"When you're feeling better, we'll have a talk," he said.
She hid her face with a piteous gesture against his knee. "I don't
see--the good of talking," she said, in muffled accents. "It can't make
things--any better."
"I'm not so sure of that," he said. "Anyhow we can't leave things as they
are. You will admit that."
Dinah was silent.
He went on with the utmost gentleness. "I want to get you away from here.
Isabel is going down to Heath-on-Sea and she wants you to come too. It's
a tiny place. We have a cottage there with the most wonderful garden for
flowers you ever saw. It isn't more than thirty yards square, and there
is a cliff path down to the beach. Isabel loves the place. The yacht is
there too, and we go for cruises on calm days. I am hoping Isabel may
pick up a little there, and she is always more herself when you are with
her. You won't disappoint her, will you?"
A great-shiver went through Dinah. "I can't come," she said, almost under
her breath. "It just--isn't possible."
"What is there to prevent?" he asked.
She moved a little, and lifted her head from its resting-place. "Ever so
many things," she said.
"You are thinking of Eustace?" he questioned. "He has gone already--gone
to town. He will probably go abroad; but in any case he will not get in
your way."
"I wasn't thinking of him," Dinah said.
"Then of what?" he questioned. "Your mother? I will see her, and make
that all right."
She started and lifted her face. "Oh no! Oh no! You must never dream of
doing that!" she declared, with sudden fevered urgency. "I couldn't bear
you to see her. You mustn't think of it, indeed--indeed! Why I would
even--even sooner go back myself."
"Then I must write to her," he said, gently ceding the point. "It is not
essential that I should see her. Possibly even, a letter would be
preferable."
Dinah's face had flushed fiery red. She did not meet his eyes. "I don't
see why you should have anything to do with her," she said. "You would
never get her to consent."
"Then I propose that we act first," said Scott. "Isabel is leaving
to-day. You can join her at Great Mallowes and go on together. I shall
follow in a couple of days. There are several matters to be attended to
first. But Isabel and Biddy will take care of you. Come, my dear, you
won't dislike that so very badly!"
"Dislike it!" Dinah caught back another sob. "I should love it above all
things if it were possible. But it isn't--it isn't."
"Why not?" he questioned. "Surely your father would not raise any
objection?"
She shook her head. "No--no! He doesn't care what happens to me. I used
to think he did; but he doesn't--he doesn't."
"Then what is the difficulty?" asked Scott.
She was silent, and he saw the hot colour spreading over her neck as she
turned her face away.
"Won't you tell me?" he urged gently. "Is there some particular reason
why you want to stay?"
"Oh no! I'm not going to stay." Quickly she made answer. "I am never
going back. I couldn't after--after--" She broke off in quivering
distress.
"I think your mother will be sorry presently," he said. "People with
violent tempers generally repent very deeply afterwards."
Dinah turned upon him suddenly and hotly. "She will never repent!" she
declared. "She hates me. She has always hated me. And I hate her--hate
her--hate her!"
The concentrated passion of her made her vibrate from head to foot. Her
eyes glittered like emeralds. She was possessed by such a fury of hatred
as made her scarcely recognizable.
Scott looked at her steadily for a moment or two. Then: "But it does you
more harm than good to say so," he said. "And it doesn't answer my
question, does it? Dinah, if you don't feel that you can do this thing
for your own sake, won't you do it for Isabel's? She is needing you badly
just now."
The vindictive look went out of Dinah's face. Her eyes softened, and he
saw the hopeless tears well up again. "But I couldn't help her any more,"
she said.
"The very fact of having you to care for would help her," Scott said.
Dinah shook her head. She was sitting on the ground with her hands
clasped round her knees. As the tears splashed down again, she turned her
face away.
"It wouldn't help her, it wouldn't help anybody, to have me as I am now,"
she said. "I can't tell you--I can't explain. But--I am not fit to
associate with anyone good."
Scott leaned towards her. "Dinah, my dear, you are torturing yourself,"
he said. "It's natural, I know. You have had no sleep, and you have cried
yourself ill. But I am not going to give in to you. I am not going to
take No for an answer. You have no plans for yourself, and I doubt if in
your present state you are capable of forming any. Isabel wants you, and
it would be cruel to disappoint her. So you and I will join her at Great
Mallowes this afternoon. I will deal with your people in the matter, but
I do not anticipate any great difficulty in that direction. Now that is
settled, and you need not weary yourself with any further discussion. I
am responsible, and I will bear my responsibility."
His tone was kind but it held unmistakable finality.
Dinah uttered a heavy sigh, and said no more. She lacked the strength for
prolonged opposition.
He persuaded her to drink some more of the milk, and made a cushion of
his coat for her against the tree.
"Perhaps you will get a little sleep," he said, as she suffered herself
to relax somewhat. "Will it disturb you if I smoke?"
"No," she said.
He took out his case. "Shut your eyes!" he said practically.
But Dinah's eyes remained open, watching him. He began to smoke as if
unaware of her scrutiny.
After several moments she spoke. "Scott!"
He turned to her. "Yes? What is it?"
The piteous, shamed colour rose up under his eyes. Again she turned her
face away. "That--that sapphire pendant!" she murmured. "I brought it
with me. Of course--I know--the presents will have to be returned. I
didn't mean to--to run away with it. But--but--I loved it so. I couldn't
have borne my mother to touch it. Shall I--shall I give it you now?"
"No, dear," he answered firmly. "Neither now nor at any time. I gave it
to you as a token of friendship, and I would like you to keep it always
for that reason."
"Always?" questioned Dinah. "Even if--if I never marry at all?"
"Certainly," he said.
"Because I never shall marry now," she said, speaking with difficulty.
"I--have quite given up that idea."
"I should like you to keep it in any case," Scott said.
"You are very good," she said earnestly. "I--I wonder you will have
anything to do with me now that you know how--how wicked I am."
"I don't think you wicked," he said.
"Don't you?" She opened her heavy eyes a little. "You don't blame me
for--for--" She broke off shuddering, and as she did so, there came again
the rumble and roar of a distant train. "Then why did you stop me?" she
whispered tensely.
Scott was silent for a moment or two. He was gazing straight before him.
At length, "I stopped you," he said, "because I had to. It doesn't matter
why. You would have done the same in my place. But I don't blame you,
partly because it is not my business, and partly because I know quite
well that you didn't realize what you were doing."
"I did realize," Dinah said. "If it weren't for you--because you are so
good--nothing would have stopped me. Even now--even now--" again the hot
tears came--"I've nothing to live for, and--and--God--doesn't--care."
She turned her face into her arm and wept silently.
Scott made a sudden movement, and threw his cigarette away. Then swiftly
he bent over her.
"Dinah," he said, "stop crying! You're making a big mistake."
His tone was arresting, imperative. She looked up at him almost in spite
of herself. His eyes gazed straight into hers, and it seemed to her that
there was something magnetic, something that was even unearthly, in their
close regard.
"You are making a mistake," he repeated. "God always cares. He cared
enough to send a friend to look after you. Do you want any stronger proof
than that?"
"I--don't--know," Dinah said, awe-struck.
"Think about it!" Scott insisted. "Do you seriously imagine that it was
just chance that brought me along at that particular moment? Do you think
it was chance that made you draw back yesterday from giving yourself to a
man you don't love? Was it chance that sent you to Switzerland in the
first place? Don't you know in your heart that God has been guiding you
all through?"
"I don't know," Dinah said again, but there was less of hopelessness in
her voice. The shining certainty in Scott's eyes was warring with her
doubt. "But then, why has He let me suffer so?"
"Why did He suffer so Himself?" Scott said. "Except that He might learn
obedience? It's a bitter lesson to all of us, Dinah; but it's got to be
learnt."
"You have learnt it!" she said, with a touch of her own impulsiveness.
He smiled a little--smiled and sighed. "I wonder. I've learnt anyhow to
believe in the goodness of God, and to know that though we can't see Him
in all things, it's not because He isn't there. Even those who know Him
best can't realize Him always."
"But still you are sure He is there?" Dinah questioned.
"I am quite sure," he said, with a conviction so absolute that it placed
further questioning beyond the bounds of possibility. "Life is full of
problems which it is out of any man's power to solve. But to anyone who
will take the trouble to see them the signs are unmistakable. There is
not a single soul that is left unaccounted for in the reckoning of God.
He cares for all."
There was no contradicting him; Dinah was too weary for discussion in any
case. But he had successfully checked her tears at last; he had even in a
measure managed to comfort her torn soul. She lay for a space pondering
the matter.
"I am afraid I am one of those who don't take the trouble," she said at
length. "But I shall try to now. Thank you for all your goodness to me,
Mr. Greatheart." She smiled at him wanly. "I don't deserve it--not a
quarter of it. But I'm grateful all the same. Please won't you have your
smoke now, and forget me and my troubles?"
That smile cheered Scott more than any words. He recognized moreover that
the delicate touch of reserve that characterized her speech was the first
evidence of returning self-control that she had manifested.
He took out his cigarette-case again. "I hope you haven't found me
over-presumptuous," he said.
Dinah reached up a trembling hand. "Presumptuous for helping me in the
Valley of Humiliation?" she said.
He took the hand and held it firmly. "I am so used to it myself," he
said, in a low voice. "I ought to know a little about it."
"Perhaps," said Dinah thoughtfully, "that is what makes you great."
He raised his shoulders slightly. "You have always seen me through a
magnifying-glass," he said whimsically. "Some day the fates will reverse
that glass and then you will be unutterably shocked."
Dinah smiled again and shook her head. "I know you," she said.
He lighted his cigarette, and then brought out a pocket-book. "I want to
write a note to Isabel," he said. "You don't mind?"
"About me?" questioned Dinah.
"About the arrangements I am making. She is motoring to Great Mallowes in
any case to catch the afternoon express."
"Oh!" said Dinah, and coloured vividly, painfully.
Scott did not see. "I can get someone at the farm to take the message,"
he said. "And when once you are with Isabel I shall feel easy about you."
"And--and--my--mother?" faltered Dinah.
"I shall write to her this afternoon while we are waiting for Isabel,"
said Scott quietly.
"What--shall you say?" whispered Dinah.
"Do you mind leaving that entirely to me?" he said.
"She will be--furious," she murmured. "She might--out of revenge come
after us. What then?"
"She will certainly not do that," said Scott, "as she will not know your
address. Besides, people do not remain furious, you know. They cool down,
and then they are generally ashamed of themselves. Don't let us talk
about your mother!"
"The de Vignes then," said Dinah, turning from the subject with relief.
"Tell me what happened! Was the Colonel very angry?"
Scott's mouth twitched slightly. "Not in the least," he said.
"Not really!" Dinah looked incredulous for a moment; then: "Perhaps he
thinks there is a fresh chance for Rose," she said.
"Perhaps he does," agreed Scott dryly. "In any case, he is more disposed
to smile than frown, and as Eustace wasn't there to see it, it didn't
greatly matter."
"Oh, poor Eustace!" she whispered. "It--was dreadful to hurt him so."
"I think he will get over it," Scott said.
"He was much--kinder--than--than I deserved," she murmured.
Scott's faint smile reappeared. "Perhaps he found it difficult to be
anything else," he said.
She shook her head. "I wonder--how I came to make--such a dreadful
mistake."
"It wasn't your fault," said Scott.
She looked at him quickly. "What makes you say that?"
He met her look gravely. "Because I know just how it happened," he said.
"You were neither of you in earnest in the first place. I am afraid I had
a hand in making Eustace propose to you. I was afraid--and so was
Isabel--you would be hurt by his trifling."
"And you interfered?" breathed Dinah.
He nodded. "Yes, I told him it must be one thing or the other. I wanted
you to be happy. But instead of helping you, I landed you in this mess."
Something in his tone touched her. She laid a small shy hand upon his
knee. "It was--dear of you, Scott," she said very earnestly. "Thank
you--ever so much--for what you did."
He put his hand on hers. "My dear, I would have given all I had to have
undone it afterwards. It is very generous of you to take it like that. I
have often wanted to kick myself since."
"Then you must never want to again," she said. "Do you know I'm so glad
you've told me? It was so--fine of you--to do that for me. I'm sure you
couldn't have wanted me for a sister-in-law even then."
"I wanted you to be happy," Scott reiterated.
She uttered a quick sigh. "Happiness isn't everything, is it?"
"Not everything, no," he said.
She grasped his hand hard. "I'm going to try to be good instead," she
said. "Will you help me?"
He smiled at her somewhat sadly. "If you think my help worth having," he
said.
"But of course it is," she made warm answer. "You are the strong man who
helps everyone. You are--Greatheart."
He looked at her still smiling and slowly shook his head. "Now, if you
don't mind," he said, "I will write my note to Isabel."
CHAPTER XXII
SPOKEN IN JEST
The afternoon was well advanced when Scott returned to Perrythorpe Court.
No sounds of revelry greeted him as he entered. A blazing fire was
burning in the hall, but no one was there to enjoy the warmth. The gay
crowd that had clustered before the great hearth only yesterday had all
dispersed. The place was empty.
"Can I get you anything, sir?" enquired the man who admitted him.
His voice was sepulchral. Scott smiled a little. "Yes, please. A whisky
and soda. Where is everybody?"
"The Colonel and Miss Rose went out riding, sir, after the guests had all
gone, and they have not yet returned. Her ladyship is resting in her
room."
"Everyone gone but me?" questioned Scott, with a whimsical lift of the
eyebrows.
The man bent his head decorously. "I believe so, sir. There was a general
feeling that it would be more fitting as the marriage was not to take
place as arranged. I understand, sir, that the family will shortly
migrate to town."
"Really?" said Scott.
He bent over the fire, for the evening was chilly, and he was tired to
the soul. The man coughed and withdrew. Again the silence fell.
A face he knew began to look up at Scott out of the leaping
flames--a face that was laughing and provocative one moment, wistful
and tear-stained the next.
He heaved a sigh as he followed the fleeting vision. "Will she ever be
happy again?" he asked himself.
The last sight he had had of her had cut him to the heart. She had
conquered her tears at last, but her smile was the saddest thing he had
ever seen. It was as though her vanished childhood had suddenly looked
forth at him and bidden him farewell. He felt that he would never see
the child Dinah again.
The return of the servant with his drink brought him back to his
immediate surroundings. He sat down in an easy-chair before the fire to
mix it.
The man turned to go, but he had not reached the end of the hall when the
front-door bell rang again. He went soft-footed to answer it.
Scott glanced over his shoulder as the door opened, and heard his own
name.
"Is Mr. Studley here?" a man's voice asked.
"Yes, sir. Just here, sir," came the answer, and Scott rose with a weary
gesture.