Part 50 (1/2)

Yet Dinah was puzzled, not wholly satisfied. She received Isabel's kiss with a certain wistfulness. ”I feel--somehow--as if I've done wrong,” she said. ”Yet--yet--Scott--” she halted over the name, uttering it shyly--”said he was--awfully pleased.”

”Ah! You have told Scott!” There was a sharp, almost a wrung, sound in Isabel's voice; but the next moment she controlled it, and spoke with steady resolution. ”Then, my dear, you needn't have any misgivings. If you love Eustace and he loves you, it is the best thing possible for you both.” She held Dinah to her again and kissed her; then very tenderly released her. ”You must run and get ready, dear child. It is getting late.”

Dinah went obediently, still with that bewildered feeling of having somehow taken a wrong turning. She was convinced in her own mind that the news had not been welcome to Isabel, disguise it how she would. And suddenly through her mind there ran the memory of those words she had uttered a few weeks before. ”Never prefer the tinsel to the true gold!”

She had not fully understood their meaning then. Now very vividly it flashed upon her. Isabel had compared her two brothers in that brief sentence. Isabel's estimate of the one was as low as that of the other was high. Isabel did not love Eustace--the handsome, debonair brother who had once been all the world to her.

A little, sick feeling of doubt went through Dinah! Had she--by any evil chance--had she made a mistake?

And then the man's overwhelming personality swung suddenly through her consciousness, filling all her being, possessing her, dominating her. She flung the doubt from her, as one flings away a poisonous insect. He was her own--her very own; her lover, the first, the best,--Apollo the Magnificent!

In Isabel's room old Biddy Maloney stood, gazing down at her mistress with eyes of burning devotion.

”And is it yourself that's feeling better now?” she questioned fondly.

Isabel raised herself, smiling her sad smile. ”Oh, Biddy,” she said, ”for myself I feel that all is well--all will be well. The dawn draws nearer--every hour.”

Biddy shook her head with pursed lips. ”Ye shouldn't talk so, mavourneen.

It's the Almighty who has the ruling. Ye wouldn't wish to go before your time?”

”Before my time! Oh, Biddy! When I have lingered in the prison-house so long!” Slowly Isabel rose to her feet. She looked at Biddy almost whimsically. ”I think He will take that into the reckoning,” she said.

”Do you know, Biddy, this is the second summons that has come to me? And I think--I think,” her face was glorified again as the face of one who sees a vision--”I think the third will be the last.”

Biddy's black eyes screwed up suddenly. She turned her face away.

”Will we be getting ready to go now, Miss Isabel?” she asked after a moment, in a voice that shook.

The glory died out of Isabel's face, though the reflection of it still lingered in her eyes. ”I am very selfish, Biddy,” she said. ”Can you guess what Miss Dinah has just told me?”

”Arrah thin, I can,” said Biddy, with a touch of aggressiveness. ”I've seen it coming for a long time past. And ye didn't ought to allow it at all, Miss Isabel. It's a mistake, that's what it is. It's just a bad mistake.”

”Not if he loves her, Biddy.” Isabel spoke gently, but there was a hint of reproof in her voice.

Biddy, however, remained quite unabashed. ”He love her!” she snorted. ”As if he ever loved anybody besides himself! Talk about the lion and the lamb, Miss Isabel! It's a cruel shame to let her go to such as him. And what'll poor Master Scott do at all? And he wors.h.i.+pping the little fairy feet of her!”

”Hush, Biddy, hus.h.!.+” Isabel spoke with decision. ”I hope--I trust--that he isn't very grievously disappointed. But if he is, it is the one thing that neither you nor I must ever seem to suspect.”

”Ah!” grumbled Biddy mutinously. ”And isn't that just like Sir Eustace, with all the world to pick from, to choose the one thing--the one little wild rose--as Master Scott had set his heart on? He's done it from his cradle. Always the one thing someone else wanted he must grab for himself. But is it too late, Miss Isabel darlint?” Sudden hope shone in the old woman's eyes. ”Is it really too late? Couldn't ye drop a hint to the dear lamb? Sure and she's fond of Master Scott! Maybe she'd turn to him after all if she knew.”

Isabel shook her head almost sternly. ”Biddy, no! This is no affair of ours. If Master Scott suspected for a moment what you have just said to me, he would never forgive you.”

”May I come in?” said Scott's voice at the door. ”My dear, you are looking better. Are you well enough to start?”

”Yes, of course.” Isabel moved towards him, her hands extended in mute affection.

He took and held them. ”Dinah has told you? I am sure you are glad.