Colonel De Vigne once more wore his most magisterial air when after breakfast on the following morning he drew Dinah aside.
She looked at him with swift apprehension, even with a tinge of guilt. His lecture of the previous morning was still fresh in her mind. Could he have seen her on the ice with Sir Eustace on the previous night, she asked herself? Surely, surely not!
Apparently he had, however; for his first words were admonitory.
"Look here, young lady, you're making yourself conspicuous with that three-volume-novel baronet: You don't want to be conspicuous, I suppose?"
Her face burned crimson at the question. Then he had seen, or at least he must know, something! She stood before him, too overwhelmed for speech.
"You don't, eh?" he insisted, surveying her confusion with grim relentlessness.
"Of course not!" she whispered at last.
He put a hand on her shoulder. "Very well then! Don't let there be any more of it! You've been a good girl up till now but the last two days seem to have turned your head. I shan't be able to give a good report to your mother when we get home if this sort of thing goes on."
Dinah's heart sank still lower. The thought of the return home had begun to dog her like an evil dream.
With a great effort she met the Colonel's stern gaze. "I am very sorry," she faltered. "But—but Lady Grace did say I might go and see Mrs. Everard—the invalid sister—yesterday."
"I know she did. She thought you had been flirting with Sir Eustace long enough."
Dinah's sky began to clear a little. "Then you don't mind my going to see her?" she said.
"So long as you are not there too often," conceded the Colonel. "The younger brother is a nice little chap. There is no danger of your getting up to mischief with him."
Dinah's face burned afresh at the suggestion. He evidently did not actually know; but he suspected very strongly. Still it was a great relief to know that all intercourse with these wonderful new friends of hers was not to be barred.
"There was some talk of a sleigh-drive this afternoon," she ventured, after a moment. "Mr. Studley is taking his sister and she asked me to go too. May I?"
"You accepted, I suppose?" demanded the Colonel.
"I said I thought I might," Dinah admitted. And then very suddenly she caught a kindly gleam in his eyes, and summoned courage for entreaty. "Do please—please—let me go!" she begged, clasping his arm. "I shan't ever have any fun again when this is over."
"How do you know that?" said the Colonel gruffly. "Yes, you can go—you can go. But behave yourself soberly, there's a good girl. And remember—no running after the other fellow to-night! I won't have it. Is that understood?"
Dinah, too rejoiced over this concession to trouble about future prohibitions, gave cheerful acquiescence to the fiat. Perhaps she was beginning to realize that she would see quite as much of Sir Eustace as was at all advisable or even to be desired, without running after him. In fact, so shy had the previous night's flight with him made her, that she did not feel the slightest wish to encounter him again at present. To go out sleigh-driving with Scott and his sister was all that she asked of life that day.
It was a glorious morning despite all prophecies of a coming change, and she spent it joyously luging with Billy. Sir Eustace had gone ski-ing with Captain Brent, and the only glimpse she had of him was a very far one, so far that she knew him only by the magnificence of his physique as he descended the mountain-side as one borne upon wings.
She recalled the brief conversation that the brothers had held in her hearing the night before, and marvelled at the memory of Scott's attitude towards him.
"He isn't a bit afraid of him," she reflected. "In fact he behaves exactly as if he were the bigger of the two."
This phenomenon puzzled her very considerably, for Scott was wholly lacking in the pomposity that characterizes many little men. She wondered what had been the subject of their discussion. It had been connected with Isabel, she felt sure. She was glad to think that she had Scott to protect her, for there was something of tyranny about the elder brother from which she shrank instinctively, his magnetism notwithstanding, and the thought of poor, tragic Isabel being coerced by it was intolerable.
The memory of the latter's resolution to make the acquaintance of the de Vignes recurred to her as she and Billy returned for luncheon. Would she carry it out? She wondered. The look that Scott had flung at the old nurse dwelt in her mind. It would evidently be an extraordinary move if she did.
They reached the hotel, Rose and another girl had just come up from the rink together. A little knot of people were gathered on the verandah. Dinah and Billy kept behind Rose and her companion; but in a moment Dinah heard her name.
The group parted, and she saw Isabel Everard, very tall and stately in a deep purple coat, standing with Lady Grace de Vigne.
Billy gave her a push. "Go on! They're calling you."
And Dinah found the strange sad eyes upon her, alight with a smile of welcome. She went forward impetuously, and in a moment Isabel's cold hands were clasped upon her warm ones.
"I have been waiting for you, dear child," the low voice said. "What have you been doing?"
Dinah suddenly felt as if she were standing in the presence of a princess. Isabel in public bore herself with a haughtiness fully equal to that displayed by Sir Eustace, and she knew that Lady Grace was impressed by it.
"I would have come back sooner if I had known," she said, closely holding the long, slender fingers.
"My dear, you are woefully untidy now you have come," murmured LadyGrace.
But Isabel gently freed one hand to put her arm about the girl. "To me she is—just right," she said, and in her voice there sounded the music of a great tenderness. "Youth is never tidy, Lady Grace; but there is nothing in the world like it."
Lady Grace's eyes went to her daughter whose faultless apparel and perfection of line were in vivid contrast to Dinah's harum-scarum appearance.
"I do not altogether agree with you in that respect, Mrs. Everard," she said, with a smile. "I think young girls should always aim at being presentable. But I quite admit that it is more difficult for some than for others. Dinah, my dear, Mrs. Everard has been kind enough to ask you to lunch in her sitting-room with her, and to go for a sleigh-drive afterward; so you had better run and get respectable as quickly as you can."
"Oh, how kind you are!" Dinah said, with earnest eyes uplifted. "You know how I shall love to come, don't you?"
"I thought you might, dear," Isabel said. "Scott is coming to keep us company. He has arranged for a sleigh to be here in an hour. We are going for a twelve-mile round, so we must not be late starting. It gets so cold after sundown."
"I had better go then, hadn't I?" said Dinah.
"I am coming too," Isabel said. Her arm was still about her. It remained so as she turned to go. "Good-bye, Lady Grace! I will take great care of the child. Thank you for allowing her to come."
She bowed with regal graciousness and moved away, taking Dinah with her.
"Exit Purple Empress!" murmured a man in the background close to Rose."Who on earth is she? I haven't seen her anywhere before."
Rose uttered her soft, artificial laugh. "She is Sir Eustace Studley's sister. Rather peculiar, I believe, even eccentric. But I understand they are of very good birth."
"That covers a multitude of sins," he commented. "She's been a mighty handsome woman in her day. She must be many years older than Sir Eustace. She looks more like his mother than his sister."
"I believe she is actually younger," Rose said. "They say she has never recovered from the sudden death of her husband some years ago, but I know nothing of the circumstances."
"A very charming woman," said Lady Grace, joining them. "We have had quite a long chat together. Yes, her manner is a little strange, slightly abstracted, as if she were waiting for something or someone. But a very easy companion on the whole. I think you will like her, Rose dear."
"She's dead nuts on Dinah," observed Billy with a chuckle. "She don't look at anyone else when she's got Dinah."
Lady Grace smiled over his head and took no verbal notice of the remark.
"They are a distinguished-looking family," she said. "Run and wash your hands, Billy. Are you thinking of ski-ing this afternoon, Rose?"
"You bet!" murmured Billy, under his breath. He too had seen the distant figure of Sir Eustace on the mountain-side.
"It depends," said Rose, non-committally.
"Captain Brent and Sir Eustace have been on skis all the morning," said her mother. "We must see what they say about it."
Billy spun a coin into the air behind her back. "Heads Sir Eustace and tails Captain Brent," he muttered to the man who had commented upon Isabel's beauty. "Heads it is!"
Lady Grace turned round with a touch of sharpness at the sound of his companion's laugh. "Billy! Did I not tell you to go and wash your hands?"
Billy's green eyes smiled impudent acknowledgment. "You did, Lady Grace.And I'm going. Good-bye!"
He pocketed the coin, winked at his friend, and departed whistling.
"A very unmannerly little boy!" observed Lady Grace, with severity."Come, my dear Rose! We must go in."
"I don't like either the one or the other," said Rose, with a very unusual touch of petulance. "They are always in the way."
"I fully agree with you," said Lady Grace acidly. "But it is for the first and last time in their lives. I have already told the Colonel so. He will never ask them to accompany us again."
"Thank goodness for that!" said Rose, with restored amiability. "Of course I am sorry for poor little Dinah; but there is a limit."
"Which is very nearly reached," said Lady Grace.
That sleigh-drive was to Dinah the acme of delight, and for ever after the jingle of horse-bells was to recall it to her mind. The sight of the gay red trappings, the trot of the muffled hoofs, the easy motion of the sleigh slipping over the white road, and above all, Isabel, clad in purple and seated beside her, a figure of royal distinction, made a picture in her mind that she was never to forget. She rode in a magic chariot through wonderland.
She longed to delay the precious moments as they flew, like a child chasing butterflies in the sunshine; but they only seemed to fly the faster. She chattered almost incessantly for the first few miles, and occasionally Isabel smiled and answered her; but for the most part it was Scott, seated opposite, who responded to her raptures,—Scott, unfailingly attentive and courteous, but ever watchful of his sister's face.
She gazed straight ahead when she was not looking at anything to which Dinah called her attention. Her eyes had the intense look of one who watches perpetually for something just out of sight.
Quiet but alert, he marked her attitude, marked also the emaciation which was so painfully apparent in the strong sunshine and formed so piteous a contrast to the vivid youth of the girl beside her. Presently Dinah came out of her rhapsodies and observed his vigilance. She watched him covertly for a time while she still chatted on. And she noted that there were very weary lines about his eyes, lines of anxiety, lines of sleeplessness, that filled her warm heart with quick sympathy and a longing to help.
The road was one of wild beauty. It wound up a desolate mountain pass along which great black boulders were scattered haphazard like the mighty toys of a giant. The glittering snow lay all around them, making their nakedness the more apparent. And far, far above, the white crags shone with a dazzling purity in the sunlit air.
Below them the snow lay untrodden, exquisitely pure, piled here in great drifts, falling away there in wonderful curves and hollows, but always showing a surface perfect and undesecrated by any human touch. And ever the sleigh ran smoothly on over the white road till it seemed to Dinah as if they moved in a dream. She fell silent, charmed by the swift motion, and by the splendour around her.
"You are quite warm, I hope?" Scott said, after an interval.
She was wrapped in a fur cloak belonging to Isabel. She smiled an affirmative, but she saw him as through a veil. The mystery and the wonder of creation filled her soul.
"I feel," she said, "I feel as if we were being taken up into heaven."
"Oh, that we were!" said Isabel, speaking suddenly with a force that had in it something terrible. "Do you see those golden peaks, sweetheart? That is where I would be. That is where the gates of Heaven open—where the lost are found."
Dinah's hand was clasped in hers under the fur rug, and she felt the thin fingers close with a convulsive hold.
Scott leaned forward. "Heaven is nearer to us than that, Isabel," he said gently.
She looked at him for a moment, but her eyes at once passed beyond. "No, no, Stumpy! You never understand," she said restlessly. "I must reach the mountain-tops or die. I am tired—I am tired of my prison. And I stifle in the valley—I who have watched the sun rise and set from the very edge of the world. Why did they take me away? If I had only waited a little longer—a little longer—as he told me to wait!" Her voice suddenly vibrated with a craving that was passionate. "He would have come with the next sunrise. I always knew that the dawn would bring him back to me. But"—dull despair took the place of longing—"they took me away, and the sun has never shone since."
"Isabel!" Scott's voice was very grave and quiet. "Miss Bathurst will wonder what you mean. Don't forget her!"
Dinah pressed close to her friend's side. "Oh, but I do understand!" she said softly. "And, dear Mrs. Everard, I wish I could help you. But I think Mr. Studley must be right. It is easier to get to heaven than to climb those mountain-peaks. They are so very steep and far away."
"So is Heaven, child," said Isabel, with a sigh of great weariness.
As it were with reluctance, she again met the steady gaze of Scott's eyes, and gradually her mood seemed to change. Her brief animation dropped away from her; she became again passive, inert, save that she still seemed to be watching.
Scott broke the silence, kindly and practically. "We ought to reach thechâletat the head of the pass soon," he said. "You will be glad of some tea."
"Oh, are we going to stop for tea?" said Dinah.
"That's the idea," said Scott. "And then back by another way. We ought to get a good view of the sunset. I hope it won't be misty, but they say a change is coming."
"I hope it won't come yet," said Dinah fervently. "The last few days have been so perfect. And there is so little time left."
Scott smiled. "That is the worst of perfection," he said. "It never lasts."
Dinah's eyes were wistful. "It will go on being perfect here long after we have left," she said. "Isn't it dreadful to think of all the good things—all the beauty—one misses just because one isn't there?"
"It would be if there were nothing else to think of," said Scott. "But there is beauty everywhere—if we know how to look for it."
She looked at him uncertainly. "I never knew what it meant before I came here," she told him shyly. "There is no time for beautiful things in my life. It's very, very drab and ugly. And I am very discontented. I have never been anything else."
Her voice quivered a little as she made the confession. Scott's eyes were so kind, so full of friendly understanding. Isabel had dropped out of their intercourse as completely as though her presence had been withdrawn. She lay back against her cushions, but her eyes were still watching, watching incessantly.
"I think the very dullest life can be made beautiful," Scott said, after a moment. "Even the desert sand is gold when the sun shines on it. The trouble is,—" he laughed a little—"to get the sun to shine."
Dinah leaned forward eagerly, confidentially. "Yes?" she questioned.
He looked her suddenly straight in the eyes. "There is a great store of sunshine in you," he said. "One can't come near you without feeling it. Isabel will tell you the same. Do you keep it only for the Alps? If so,—" he paused.
Dinah's face flushed suddenly under his look. "If so?" she asked, under her breath.
He smiled. "Well, it seems a pity, that's all," he said. "Rather a waste too when you come to think of it."
Dinah's eyes caught the reflection of his smile. "I shall remember that,Mr. Greatheart," she said.
"Forgive me for preaching!" said Scott.
She put out a hand to him quickly, spontaneously. "You don't preach—and it does me good," she said somewhat incoherently. "Please—always—say what you like to me!"
"At risk of hurting you?" said Scott. He held the small, impulsive hand a moment and let it go.
"You could never hurt me," Dinah answered. "You are far too kind."
"I think the kindness is on your side," he answered gravely. "Most people of my acquaintance would think me a bore—if nothing worse."
"Most people have never really met you, Stumpy," said Isabel unexpectedly. "Dinah is one of the privileged few, and I am glad she appreciates it."
"Good heavens!" said Scott, flushing a deep red. "Spare me, Isabel!"
Dinah broke into her gay, infectious laugh. "Please—please don't be upset about it! I'm glad I'm one of the few. I've felt you were a prince in disguise all along."
"Very much in disguise!" protested Scott. "Remove that, and there would be nothing left."
"Except a man," said Isabel, "You can't get away, Stumpy. You're caught."
A fleeting smile crossed her face like a gleam of light and was gone. She turned her look upon Dinah, and became silent again.
Scott, much disconcerted, hunted in every pocket for his cigarette-case."You don't mind my smoking, I hope?" he murmured.
"I like it," said Dinah. "Let me help you light up!"
She made a screen with her hands, and guarded the flame from the draught.
He thanked her courteously, recovering his composure with a smile that was not without self-ridicule, and in a moment they were talking again upon impersonal matters. But the episode, slight though it was, dwelt in Dinah's mind thereafter with an odd persistence. She felt as if Isabel had given her a flashlight glimpse of something which otherwise she would scarcely have realized. In that single fleeting moment of revelation she had seen that which no vision of knight in shining armour could have surpassed.
They reached thechâletat the top of the pass, and descended for tea. The windows looked right down the snow-clad valley up which they had come. The sun had begun to sink, and the greater part of it lay in shadow.
Far away, rising out of the shadows, all golden amid floating mists, was a mighty mountain crest, higher than all around. The sun-rays lighted up its wondrous peaks. The glory of it was unearthly, almost more than the eye could bear.
Dinah stood on the little wooden verandah of thechâletand gazed and gazed till the splendour nearly blinded her.
"Still watching the Delectable Mountains?" said Scott's voice at her shoulder.
She made a little gesture in response. She could not take her eyes off the wonder.
He came and stood beside her in mute sympathy while he finished his cigarette. There was a certain depression in his attitude of which presently she became aware. She summoned her resolution and turned herself from the great vision that so drew her.
He was leaning against a post of the verandah, and she read again in his attitude the weariness that she had marked earlier in the afternoon.
"Are you—troubled about your sister?" she asked him diffidently.
He threw away the end of his cigarette and straightened himself. "Yes, I am troubled," he said, in a low voice. "I am afraid it was a mistake to bring her here."
"I thought her looking better this morning," Dinah ventured.
His grey eyes met hers. "Did you? I thought it a good sign that she should make the effort to speak to strangers. But I am not certain now that it has done her any good. We brought her here to wake her from her lethargy. Eustace thought the air would work wonders, but—I am not sure. It is certainly waking her up. But—to what?"
His eyelids drooped heavily, and he passed his hand across his forehead with a gesture that went to her heart.
"It's rather soon to judge, isn't it?" she said.
"Yes," he admitted. "But there is a change in her; there is an undoubted change. She gets hardly any rest, and the usual draught at night scarcely takes effect. Of course the place is noisy. That may have something to do with it. My brother is very anxious to put a stop to the sleeping-draught altogether. But I can't agree to that. She has never slept naturally since her loss—never slept and never wept. Biddy—the old nurse—declares if she could only cry, all would come right. But I don't know—I don't know."
He uttered a deep sigh, and leaned once more upon the balustrade.
Dinah came close to him, her sweet face full of concern. "Mr. Studley," she murmured, "you—you don't think I do her any harm, do you?"
"You!" He gave a start and looked at her with that in his eyes that reassured her in a moment. "My dear child, no! You are a perfect godsend to her—and to me also, if you don't mind my saying so. No—no! The mischief that I fear will probably develop after you have gone. As long as you are here, I am not afraid for her. Yours is just the sort of influence that she needs."
"Oh, thank you!" Dinah said gratefully. "I was afraid just for a moment, because I know I have been silly and flighty. I try to be sober when I am with her, but—"
"Don't try to be anything but yourself, Miss Bathurst!" he said. "I have confided in you just because you are yourself; and I wouldn't have you any different for the world. You help her just by being yourself."
Dinah laughed while she shook her head. "I wish I were as nice as you seem to think I am."
He laughed also. "Perhaps you have never realized how nice you really are," he returned with a simplicity equal to her own. "Ah! Here comes Isabel! I expect she is ready. We had better go in."
They met her as they turned inwards. The reflection of the sunset glory was in her face recalling some of its faded beauty. She took Dinah's arm, looking at her with a strangely wistful smile.
"I want you now, sweetheart," she said. "Scott can have his turn—afterwards."
"I want you too," said Dinah instantly, squeezing her hand very closely. "Come and look at the mountains! They are so glorious now that the sun is setting."
They turned back for a few moments and Isabel's eyes went to that far and wonderful mountain crest. The gold was turning to rose. The glory deepened even as they watched.
"The peaks of Paradise," breathed Dinah softly.
Isabel was silent for a space, her eyes fixed and yearning. Then at length in a low voice that thrilled with an emotion beyond words she spoke.
"I know now where to look. That is where he is waiting for me. That is where I shall find him."
And then swiftly she turned, aware of her brother close behind her.
He looked at her with eyes of deep compassion. "Some day, Isabel!" he said gently.
She made a swift gesture as of one who brushes aside every hindrance."Soon!" she said. "Very soon!"
Scott's eyes met Dinah's for a single instant, and she thought they held suffering as well as weariness. But they fell immediately. He stood back in silence for them to pass.
They returned to the hotel by a circuitous route that brought them by a mountain-road into the village just below the hotel. The moon was rising as they ascended the final slope. The chill of mist was in the air.
Sir Eustace was waiting for them in the porch. He helped his sister to alight, but she went by him at once with a rapt look as though she had not seen him. She had sat in almost unbroken silence throughout the homeward drive.
Dinah would have followed her in, but Sir Eustace held her back a moment. "There is to be a dance to-night," he murmured in her ear. "May I count on you?"
She looked at him, the ecstasy of the mountains still shining in her starry eyes. "Yes—yes! If I am allowed!" And then, with a sudden memory of her promise to the Colonel, "But I don't suppose I shall be. And I haven't anything to wear except my fancy dress."
"What of that?" he said lightly. "Call the fairies in to help!"
She laughed, and ran in.
Not for a moment did she suppose that she would be allowed to dance that night; but it seemed that luck was with her, for the first person she met was the Colonel, and he was looking so particularly well pleased with himself and affairs in general that she stopped to tell him of her drive.
"It's been so perfect," she said. "I have enjoyed it! Thank you ever so many times for letting me go!"
Her flushed and happy face was very fair to see, and the Colonel smiled upon her with fatherly kindness. He could not help liking the child. She was such a taking imp!
"Glad you've had a good time," he said. "I hope you thanked your friends for taking you."
"I should think I did!" laughed Dinah; and then seeing that his expression was so benignant she slipped an ingratiating hand through his arm. "Colonel, please—please—may I dance to-night?"
"What?" He looked at her searchingly, with a somewhat laboured attempt to be severe. "Now—now—who do you want to dance with?"
"Anyone or no one," said Dinah boldly. "I feel happy enough to dance by myself."
"That means you're in a mischievous mood," said the Colonel.
"It's only a Cinderella affair," pleaded Dinah. "To-morrow's Sunday, you know. There'll be no dancing to-morrow."
"And a good thing too," he commented. "A pity Sunday doesn't come oftener! What will Lady Grace say I wonder?"
"But Rose is sure to dance," urged Dinah.
"I'm not so sure of that, Sir Eustace Studley has been teaching her to ski all the afternoon, and if she isn't tired, she ought to be."
"Oh, lucky Rose!" Dinah knew an instant's envy. "But I expect she'll dance all the same. And—and—I may dance with him—just once, mayn't I? There couldn't be any harm in just one dance. No one would notice that, would they?"
She pressed close to the Colonel with her petition, and he found it hard to refuse. She made it with so childlike an earnestness, and—all his pomposity notwithstanding—he had a soft heart for children.
"There, be off with you!" he said. "Yes, you may give him one dance if he asks for it. But only one, mind! That's a bargain, is it?"
Dinah beamed radiant acquiescence. "I'll save all the rest for you.You're a dear to let me, and I'll be ever so good. Good-bye!"
She went, flitting like a butterfly up the stairs, and the Colonel smiled in spite of himself as he watched her go. "Little witch!" he muttered. "I wonder what your mother would say to you if she knew."
Dinah raced breathless to her room, and began a fevered toilet. It was true that she possessed nothing suitable for ballroom wear; but then the dance was to be quite informal, and she was too happy to fret herself over that fact. She put on the white muslin frock which she had worn for dinner ever since she had been with the de Vignes. It gave her a fairylike daintiness that had a charm of its own of which she was utterly unconscious. Perhaps fortunately, she had no time to think of her appearance. When she descended again, her eyes were still shining with a happiness so obvious that Billy, meeting her, exclaimed, "What have you got to be so cheerful about?"
She proceeded to tell him of the glorious afternoon she had spent, and was still in the midst of her description when Sir Eustace came up and joined them.
"I thought you would manage it," he said, with smiling assurance. "And now how many may I have? All the waltzes?"
Dinah's laugh rang so gaily that several heads were turned in her direction, and she smothered it in alarm.
"I can only give you one," she said, with a great effort at sobriety.
"What? Oh, nonsense!" he protested, his blue eyes dominating hers. "You couldn't be so shabby as that!"
Dinah's chin pointed merrily upwards. The situation had its humour. It was certainly rather amusing to elude him. She knew he had caught her far too easily the night before.
"It's all I have to offer," she declared.
"Meaning you're not going to dance more than one dance?" he asked.
She opened her laughing eyes wide. "Why should it mean that? You're not the only man in the room, are you?"
Sir Eustace's jaw set itself suddenly after a fashion that made him look formidable, albeit he laughed back at her with his eyes. "All right—Daphne," he murmured. "I'll have the first."
Dinah's heart gave a little throb of apprehension, but she quieted it impatiently. What had she to fear? She nodded and lightly turned away.
All through dinner she alternately dreaded and longed for the moment of his coming to claim that dance from her. That haughty confidence of his had struck a curious chord in her soul, and the suspense was almost unbearable.
She noticed that Rose was very serene and smiling, and she regarded her complacency with growing resentment. Rose could dance as often as she liked with him, and no one would find fault. Rose had had him all to herself throughout the afternoon moreover. She knew very well that had the ski-ing lesson been offered to her, she would not have been allowed to avail herself of it.
A wicked little spirit awoke within her. Why should she always be kept thus in the background? Surely her right to the joys of life was as great as—if not greater than—Rose's! With her it would all end so soon, while Rose had the whole of her youth before her like a pleasant garden in which she might wander or rest at will.
Dinah began to feel feverish. It seemed so imperative that she should miss nothing good during this brief, brief time of happiness vouchsafed her by the gods.
Her frame of mind when she entered the ballroom was curious. Mutiny and doubt, longing and dread, warred strangely together. But the moment he came to her, the moment she felt his arm about her, rapture came and drove out all beside. She drank again of the wine of the gods, drank deeply, giving herself up to it without reservation, too eager to catch every drop thereof to trouble as to what might follow.
He caught her mood. Possibly it was but the complement of his own. Freely he interpreted it, feeling her body throb in swift accord to every motion, aware of the almost passionate surrender of her whole being to the delight of that one magic dance. She was reckless, and he was determined. If this were to be all, he would take his fill at once, and she should have hers. Before the dance was more than half through, he guided her out of the labyrinth into the darkly curtained recess that led out to the verandah, and there holding her, before she so much as realized that they had ceased to dance, he gathered her suddenly and fiercely to him and covered her startled, quivering face with kisses.
She made no outcry, attempted no resistance. He had been too sudden for that. His mastery was too absolute. Holding her fast in the gloom, he took what he would, till with a little sob her arms clasped his neck and she clung to him, giving herself wholly up to him.
But when his hold relaxed at last, she hid her face panting against his breast. He smoothed the dark hair with a possessive touch, laughing softly at her agitation.
"Did you think you could get away from me, you brown elf?" he whispered.
"I—I could if I tried," she whispered back.
His hold tightened again. "Try!" he said.
She shook her head without lifting it. "No," she murmured, with a shy laugh. "I don't want to. Shan't we go back—and dance—before—before—" She broke off in confusion.
"Before what?" he said.
She made a motion to turn her face upwards, but, finding his still close, buried it a little deeper. "I—promised the Colonel—I'd be good," she faltered into his shoulder. "I think I ought to begin—soon; don't you?"
"Is that why I am to have only this one dance?" he asked.
"Yes," she admitted.
His caressing hand found and lightly pressed her cheek. "What are you going to do when it's over?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said. "There's Billy. I may dance with him."
He laughed. "That's an exciting programme. Shall I tell you what I should do—if I were in your place?"
"What?" said Dinah.
Again she raised her face a few inches and again, catching a glimpse of the compelling blue eyes, plunged it deeply into his coat.
He laughed again softly, with a hint of mockery. "I should have one dance with Billy, and one with the omnipotent Colonel. And then I should be tired and say good night."
"But I shan't be a bit tired," protested Dinah, faintly indignant.
"Of course not," laughed Sir Eustace. "You will be just ripe for a little fun. There's quite a cosy sitting-out place at the end of our corridor. I should go to bedviâthat route."
"Oh!" said Dinah, with a gasp.
She lifted her head in astonishment, and met the eyes that so thrilled her. "But—but that would be wrong!" she said.
"I've done naughtier things than that, my virtuous sprite," he said.
But Dinah did not laugh. Very suddenly quite unbidden there flashed across her the memory of Scott's look the night before and her own overwhelming confusion beneath it. What would her friend Mr. Greatheart say to such a proposal? What would he say could he see her now? The hot blood rushed to her face at the bare thought. She drew herself away from him. Her rapture was gone; she was burningly ashamed. The Colonel's majestic displeasure was as nothing in comparison with Scott's wordless disapproval.
"Oh, I couldn't do that," she said. "I—couldn't. I ought not to be here with you now."
"My fault," he said easily. "I brought you here before you knew where you were. If you go to confession, you can mention that as an extenuating circumstance."
"Oh, don't!" said Dinah, inexplicably stung by his manner. "It—it isn't nice of you to talk like that."
He put out his hand and touched her arm lightly, persuasively. "Then you are angry with me?" he said.
Her resentment melted. She threw him a fleeting smile. "No—no! But how could you imagine I could tell anyone? You didn't seriously—you couldn't!"
"There isn't much to tell, is there?" he said, his fingers closing gently over the soft roundness of her arm. "And you don't like that plan of mine?"
"I didn't say I didn't like it," said Dinah, her eyes lowered."But—but—I can't do it, that's all. I'm going now. Good-bye!"
She turned to go, but his fingers still held. He drew a step nearer.
"Daphne, remember—you are not to run away!"
A transient dimple showed at the corner of Dinah's mouth. "You must let me go then," she said.
"And if I do—how will you reward me?" His voice was very deep; the tones of it sent a sharp quiver through her. She felt unspeakably small and helpless.
She made a little gesture of appeal. "Please—please let me go! You know you are much stronger than I am."
He drew nearer, his face bent so low that his lips touched her shoulder as she stood turned from him. "You don't know your strength yet," he said. "But you soon will. Are you going away from me like this? Don't you think you're rather hard on me?"
It was a point of view that had not occurred to Dinah. Her warm heart had a sudden twinge of self-reproach. She turned swiftly to him.
"I didn't mean to be horrid. Please don't think that of me! I know I often am. But not to you—never to you!"
"Never?" he said.
His face was close to her, and it wore a faint smile in which she detected none of the arrogance of the conqueror. She put up a shy, impulsive hand and touched his cheek.
"Of course not—Apollo!" she whispered.
He caught the hand and kissed it. She trembled as she felt the drawing of his lips.
"I—I must really go now," she told him hastily.
He stood up to his full height, and again she quivered as she realized how magnificent a man he was.
"A bientôt, Daphne!" he said, and let her go.
She slipped away from his presence with the feeling of being caught in the meshes of a great net from which she could never hope to escape. She had drunk to-night yet deeper of the wine of the gods, and she knew beyond all doubting that she would return for more.
The memory of his kisses thrilled her all through the night. When she dreamed she was back again in his arms.
"Arrah thin, Miss Isabel darlint, and can't ye rest at all?"
Old Biddy stooped over her charge, her parchment face a mass of wrinkles. Isabel was lying in bed, but raised upon one elbow in the attitude of one about to rise. She looked at the old woman with a queer, ironical smile in her tragic eyes.
"I am going up the mountain," she said. "It is moonlight, and I know the way. I can rest when I get to the top."
"Ah, be aisy, darlint!" urged the old woman. "It's much more likely he'll come to ye if ye lie quiet."
"No, he will not come to me." There was unalterable conviction in Isabel's voice. "It is I who must go to him. If I had waited on the mountain I should never have missed him. He is waiting for me there now."
She flung off the bedclothes and rose, a gaunt, white figure from which all the gracious lines of womanhood had long since departed. Her silvery hair hung in two great plaits from her shoulders, wonderful hair that shone in the shaded lamplight with a lustre that seemed luminous.
"Will I have to fetch Master Scott to ye?" said Biddy, eyeing her wistfully. "He's very tired, poor young man. There's two nights he's had no sleep at all. Won't ye try and rest aisy for his sake, Miss Isabel darlint? Ye can go up the mountain in the morning, and maybe that little Miss Bathurst will like to go with ye. Do wait till the morning now!" she wheedled, laying a wiry old hand upon her. "It's no Christian hour at all for going about now."
"Let me go!" said Isabel.
Biddy's black eyes pleaded with a desperate earnestness. "If ye'd only listen to reason, Miss Isabel!" she said.
"How can I listen," Isabel answered, "when I can hear his voice in my heart calling, calling, calling! Oh, let me go, Biddy! You don't understand, or you couldn't seek to hold me back from him."
"Mavourneen!" Biddy's eyes were full of tears; the hand she had laid uponIsabel's arm trembled. "It isn't meself that's holding ye back. It's God.He'll join the two of ye together in His own good time, but ye can'thurry Him. Ye've got to bide His time."
"I can't!" Isabel said. "I can't! You're all conspiring against me. I know—I know! Give me my cloak, and I will go."
Biddy heaved a great sigh, the tears were running down her cheeks, but her face was quite resolute. "I'll have to call Master Scott after all," she said.
"No! No! I don't want Scott. I don't want anyone. I only want to be up the mountain in time for the dawn. Oh, why are you all such fools? Why can't you understand?" There was growing exasperation in Isabel's voice.
Biddy's hand fell from her, and she turned to cross the room.
Scott slept in the next room to them, and a portable electric bell which they adjusted every night communicated therewith. Biddy moved slowly to press the switch, but ere she reached it Isabel's voice stayed her.
"Biddy, don't call Master Scott!"
Biddy paused, looking back with eyes of faithful devotion.
"Ah, Miss Isabel darlint, will ye rest aisy then? I dursn't give ye the quieting stuff without Master Scott says so."
"I don't want anything," Isabel said. "I only want my liberty. Why are you all in league against me to keep me in just one place? Ah, listen to that noise! How wild those people are! It is the same every night—every night. Can they really be as happy as they sound?"
A distant hubbub had arisen in the main corridor, the banging of doors and laughter of careless voices. It was some time after one o'clock, and the merry-markers were on their way to bed.
"Never mind them!" said Biddy. "They're just a set of noisy children. Lie down again, Miss Isabel! They'll soon settle, and then p'raps ye'll get to sleep. It's not this way they'll be coming anyway."
"Someone is coming this way," said Isabel, listening with sudden close attention.
She was right. The quiet tread of a man's feet came down the corridor that led to their private suite. A man's hand knocked with imperious insistence upon the door.
"Sir Eustace!" said Biddy, in a dramatic whisper. "Will I tell him ye're asleep, Miss Isabel? Quick now! Get back to bed!"
But Isabel made no movement to comply. She only drew herself together with the nervous contraction of one about to face a dreaded ordeal.
Quietly the door opened. Biddy moved forward, her face puckered with anxiety. She met Sir Eustace on the threshold.
"Miss Isabel hasn't settled yet, Sir Eustace," she told him, her voice cracked and tremulous. "But she'll not be wanting anybody to disturb her. Will your honour say good night and go?"
There was entreaty in the words. Her eyes besought him. Her old gnarled hands gripped each other, trembling.
But Sir Eustace looked over her head as though she were not there. His gaze sought and found his sister; and a frown gathered on his clear-cut, handsome face.
"Not in bed yet?" he said, and closing the door moved forward, passingBiddy by.
Isabel stood and faced him, but she drew back a step as he reached her, and a hunted look crept into her wide eyes.
"You are late," she said. "I thought you had forgotten to say good night."
He was still in evening dress. It was evident that he had only just come upstairs. "No, I didn't forget," he said. "And it seems I am not too late for you. I shouldn't have disturbed you if you had been asleep."
She smiled a quivering, piteous smile. "You knew I should not be asleep," she said.
He glanced towards the bed which Biddy was setting in order with tender solicitude. "I expected to find you in bed nevertheless," he said. "What made you get up again?"
She shook her head in silence, standing before him like a child that expects a merited rebuke.
He put a hand on her shoulder that was authoritative rather than kind."Lie down again!" he said. "It is time you settled for the night."
She threw him a quick, half-furtive look. "No—no!" she said hurriedly. "I can't sleep. I don't want to sleep. I think I will get a book and read."
His hand pressed upon her. "Isabel!" he said quietly. "When I say a thingI mean it."
She made a quivering gesture of appeal. "I can't go to bed, Eustace. It is like lying on thorns. Somehow I can't close my eyes to-night. They feel red-hot."
His hold did not relax. "My dear," he said, "you talk like a hysterical child! Lie down at once, and don't be ridiculous!"
She wavered perceptibly before his insistence. "If I do, Scott must give me a draught. I can't do without it—indeed—indeed!"
"You are going to do without it to-night," Eustace said, with cool decision. "Scott is worn out and has gone to bed. I made him promise to stay there unless he was rung for. And he will not be rung for to-night."
Isabel made a sharp movement of dismay. "But—but—I always have the draught sooner or later. I must have it. Eustace, I must! I can't do without it! I never have done without it!"
Eustace's face did not alter. It looked as if it were hewn in granite. "You are going to make a beginning to-night," he said. "You have been poisoned by that stuff long enough, and I am going to put a stop to it. Now get into bed, and be reasonable! Biddy, you clear out and do the same! You can leave the door ajar if you like. I'll call you if you are wanted."
He pointed to the half-open door that led into the small adjoining room in which Biddy slept. The old woman stood and stared at him with consternation in her beady eyes.
"Is it meself that could do such a thing?" she protested. "I never leave my young lady till she's asleep, Sir Eustace. I'd sooner come under the curse of the Almighty."
He raised his brows momentarily, but he kept his hand upon his sister. He was steadily pressing her towards the bed. "If you don't do as you are told, Biddy, you will be made," he observed. "I am here to-night for a definite purpose, and I am not going to be thwarted by you. So you had better take yourself out of my way. Now, Isabel, you know me, don't you? You know it is useless to fight against me when my mind is made up. Be sensible for once! It's for your own good. You can't have that draught. You have got to manage without it."
"Oh, I can't! I can't!" moaned Isabel. She was striving to resist his hold, but her efforts were piteously weak. The force of his personality plainly dominated her. "I shall lie awake all night—all night."
"Very well," he said inexorably. "You must. Sleep will come sooner or later, and then you can make up for it."
"Oh, but you don't understand." Piteously she turned and clasped his arm in desperate entreaty. "I shall lie awake in torture. I shall hear him calling all night long. He is there beyond the mountains, wanting me. And I can't get to him. It is agony—oh, it is agony—to lie and listen!"
He took her between his hands, very firmly, very quietly. "Isabel, you are talking nonsense—utter nonsense! And I refuse to listen to it. Get into bed! Do you hear? Yes, I insist. I am capable of putting you there. If you mean to behave like a child, I shall treat you as one. Now for the last time, get into bed."
"Sir Eustace!" pleaded Biddy in a hoarse whisper. "Don't force her, SirEustace! Don't now! Don't!"
He paid no attention to her. His eyes were fixed upon his sister's death-white face, and her eyes, strained and glassy were upturned to his.
He said no more. Isabel's breath came in short sobbing gasps. She resisted him no longer. Under the steady pressure of his hands, her body yielded. She seemed to wilt under the compulsion of his look. Slowly, tremblingly, she crumpled in his hold, sinking downwards upon the bed.
He bent over her, laying her back, taking the bedclothes from Biddy's shaking hands and drawing them over her.
Then over his shoulder briefly he addressed the old woman. "Turn out the light, and go!"
Biddy stood and gibbered. There was that in her mistress's numb acquiescence that terrified her. "Sure, you'll kill her, Sir Eustace!" she gasped.
He made a compelling gesture. "You had better do as I say. If I want your help—or advice—I'll let you know. Do as I say! Do you hear me, Biddy?"
His voice fell suddenly and ominously to a note so deep that Biddy drew back still further affrighted and began to whimper.
Sir Eustace turned back to his sister, lying motionless on the pillow. "Tell her to go, Isabel! I am going to stay with you myself. You don't want her, do you?"
"No," said Isabel. "I want Scott."
"You can't have Scott to-night." There was absolute decision in his voice. "It is essential that he should get a rest. He looked ready to drop to-night."
"Ah! You think me selfish!" she said, catching her breath.
He sat down by her side. "No," he answered quietly. "But I think you have not the least idea how much he spends himself upon you. If you had, you would be shocked."
She moved restlessly. "You don't understand," she said. "You never understand. Eustace, I wish you would go away."
"I will go in half an hour," he made calm rejoinder, "if you have not moved during that time."
"You know that is impossible;" she said.
"Very well then. I shall remain." His jaw set itself in a fashion that brought it into heavy prominence.
"You will stay all night?" she questioned quickly.
"If necessary," he answered.
Biddy had turned the lamp very low. The faint radiance shone upon him as he sat imparting a certain mysterious force to his dominant outline. He looked as immovable as an image carved in stone.
A great shiver went through Isabel. "You want to see me suffer," she said.
"You are wrong," he returned inflexibly. "But I would sooner see you suffer than give yourself up to a habit which is destroying you by inches. It is no kindness on Scott's part to let you do it."
"Don't talk of Scott!" she said quickly. "No one—no one—will ever know what he is to me—how he has helped me—while you—you have only looked on!"
Her voice quivered. She flung out a restless arm. Instantly, yet without haste, he took and held her hand. His fingers pressed the fevered wrist. He spoke after a moment while he quelled her instinctive effort to free herself. "I am not merely looking on to-night. I am here to help you—if you will accept my help."
"You are here to torture me!" she flung back fiercely. "You are here to force me down into hell, and lock the gates upon me!"
His hold tightened upon her. He leaned slightly towards her. "I am here to conquer you," he said, "if you will not conquer yourself."
The sudden sternness of his speech, the compulsion of his look, took swift effect upon her. She cowered away from him.
"You are cruel!" she whispered. "You always were cruel at heart—even in the days when you loved me."
Sir Eustace's lips became a single, hard line. His whole strength was bent to the task of subduing her, and he meant it to be as brief a struggle as possible.
He said nothing whatever therefore, and so passed his only opportunity of winning the conflict by any means save naked force.
To Isabel in her torment that night was the culmination of sorrows. For years this brother who had once been all the world to her had held aloof, never seeking to pass the barrier which her widowed love had raised between them. He had threatened many times to take the step which now at last he had taken; but always Scott had intervened, shielding her from the harshness which such a step inevitably involved. And by love he had never sought to prevail. Her mental weakness seemed to have made tenderness from him an impossibility. He could not bear with her. It was as though he resented in her the likeness to one beloved whom he mourned as dead.
Possibly he had never wholly forgiven her marriage—that disastrous marriage that had broken her life. Possibly her clouded brain was to him a source of suffering which drove him to hardness. He had ever been impatient of weakness, and what he deemed hysteria was wholly beyond his endurance; and the spectacle of the one being who had been so much to him crushed beneath a sorrow the very existence of which he resented was one which he had never been able to contemplate with either pity or tolerance. As he had said, he would rather see her suffering than a passive slave to that sorrow and all that it entailed.
So during the dreadful hours that followed he held her to her inferno, convinced beyond all persuasion—-with the stubborn conviction of an iron will—that by so doing he was acting for her welfare, even in a sense working out her salvation.
He relied upon the force of his personality to accomplish the end he had in view. If he could break the fatal rule of things for one night only, he believed that he would have achieved the hardest part. But the process was long and agonizing. Only by the sternest effort of will could he keep up the pressure which he knew he must not relax for a single moment if he meant to attain the victory he desired.
There came a time when Isabel's powers of endurance were lost in the abyss of mental suffering into which she was flung, and she struggled like a mad creature for freedom. He held her in his arms, feeling her strength wane with every paroxysm, till at last she lay exhausted, only feebly entreating him for the respite he would not grant.
But even when the bitter conflict was over, when she was utterly conquered at last, and he laid her down, too weak for further effort, he did not gather the fruits of victory. For her eyes remained wide and glassy, dry and sleepless with the fever that throbbed ceaselessly in the poor tortured brain behind.
She was passive from exhaustion only, and though he closed the staring eyes, yet they opened again with tense wakefulness the moment he took his hand from the burning brow.
The night was far advanced when Biddy, creeping softly came to her mistress's side in the belief that she slept at last. She had not dared to come before, had not dared to interfere though she had listened with a wrung heart to the long and futile battle; for Sir Eustace's wrath was very terrible, too terrible a thing to incur with impunity.
But the moment she looked upon Isabel's face, her courage came upon a flood of indignation that carried all before it.
"Faith, I believe you've killed her!" she uttered in a sibilant whisper across the bed. "Is it yourself that has no heart at all?"
He looked back to her, dominant still, though the prolonged struggle had left its mark upon him also. His face was pale and set.
"This is only a phase," he said quietly. "She will fall asleep presently.You can get her a cup of tea if you can do it without making a fuss."
Biddy turned from the bed. That glimpse of Isabel's face had been enough. She had no further thought of consequences. She moved across the room to set about her task, and in doing so she paused momentarily and pressed the bell that communicated with Scott's room.
Sir Eustace did not note the action. Perhaps the long strain had weakened his vigilance somewhat. He sat in massive obduracy, relentlessly watching his sister's worn white face.
Two minutes later the door opened, and a shadowy figure slipped into the room.
He looked up then, looked up sharply. "You!" he said, with curt displeasure.
Scott came straight to him, and leaned over his sister for a moment with a hand on his shoulder. She did not stir, or seem aware of his presence. Her eyes gazed straight upwards with a painful, immovable stare.
Scott stood up again. His hand was still upon Eustace. He looked him in the eyes. "You go to bed, my dear chap!" he said. "I've had my rest."
Eustace jerked back his head with a movement of exasperation. "You promised to stay in your room unless you were rung for," he said.
Scott's brows went up for a second; then, "For the night, yes!" he said. "But the night is over. It is nearly six. I shan't sleep again. You go and get what sleep you can."
Eustace's jaw looked stubborn. "If you will give me your word of honour not to drug her, I'll go," he said. "Not otherwise."
Scott's hand pressed his shoulder. "You must leave her in my care now," he said. "I am not going to promise anything more."
"Then I remain," said Eustace grimly.
A muffled sob came from Biddy. She was weeping over her tea-kettle.
Scott took his brother by the shoulders as he sat. "Go like a good fellow," he urged. "You will do harm if you stay."
But Eustace resisted him. "I am here for a definite purpose," he said, "and I have no intention of relinquishing it. She has come through so far without it, I am not going to give in at this stage."
"And you think your treatment has done her good?" said Scott, with a glance at the drawn, motionless face on the pillow.
"Ultimate good is what I am aiming at," his brother returned stubbornly.
Scott's hold became a grip. He leaned suddenly down and spoke in a whisper. "If I had known you were up to this, I'm damned if I'd have stayed away!" he said tensely.
"Stumpy!" Eustace opened his eyes in amazement. Strong language fromScott was so unusual as to be almost outside his experience.
"I mean it!" Scott's words vibrated. "You've done a hellish thing! Clear out now, and leave me to help her in my own way! Before God, I believe she'll die if you don't! Do you want her to die?"
The question fell with a force that was passionate. There was violence in the grip of his hands. His light eyes were ablaze. His whole meagre body quivered as though galvanized by some vital, electric current more potent than it could bear.
And very curiously Sir Eustace was moved by the unknown force. It struck him unawares. Stumpy in this mood was a complete stranger to him, a being possessed by gods or devils, he knew not which; but in any case a being that compelled respect.
He got up and stood looking down at him speculatively, too astonished to be angry.
Scott faced him with clenched hands. He was white as death. "Go!" he reiterated. "Go! There's no room for you in here. Get out!"
His lips twisted over the words, and for an instant his teeth showed with a savage gleam. He was trembling from head to foot.
It was no moment for controversy. Sir Eustace recognized the fact just as surely as he realized that his brother had completely parted with his self-control. He had the look of a furious animal prepared to spring at his throat.
Greek had met Greek indeed, but upon ground that was wholly unsuitable for a tug of war. With a shrug he yielded.
"I don't know you, Stumpy," he said briefly. "You've got beyond yourself. I advise you to pull up before we meet again. I also advise you to bear in mind that to administer that draught is to undo all that I have spent the whole night to accomplish."
Scott stood back for him to pass, but the quivering fury of the man seemed to emanate from him like the scorching draught from a blast furnace. As Eustace said, he had got beyond himself,—so far beyond that he was scarcely recognizable.
"Your advice be damned!" he flung back under his breath with a concentrated bitterness that was terrible. "I shall follow my own judgment."
Sir Eustace's mouth curled superciliously. He was angry too, though by no means so angry as Scott. "Better look where you go all the same," he observed, and passed him by, not without dignity and a secret sense of relief.
The long and fruitless vigil of the night had taught him one thing at least. Rome was not built in a day. He would not attempt the feat a second time, though neither would he rest till he had gained his end.
As for Scott, he would have a reckoning with him presently—a strictly private reckoning which should demonstrate once and for all who was master.