Greatheart, Ethel May Dell [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

you have always lived! I do hate the thought of it! Really it isn't my fault."

She spoke with tears in her eyes; but Scott still smiled. "My dear child," he said, "such an idea never entered my head. Isabel and I have often thought we should like to make this our home. We have always intended to as soon as Eustace married."

"Did you never think of marrying?" Dinah asked him suddenly.

There was an instant's pause, and then, as he was about to speak, she broke in quickly.

"Oh, please don't tell me! I was a pig to ask! I didn't mean to. It just slipped out. Do forgive me!"

"But why shouldn't you ask?" said Scott gently. "We are friends. I don't mind answering you. I've had my dream like the rest of the world. But it was very soon over. I never seriously deluded myself into the belief that anyone could care to marry a shrimp like me."

"Oh, Scott!" Almost fiercely Dinah cut him short. "How can you—you of all people—say a thing like that?"

Scott looked at her quizzically for a moment. "I should have thought I was the one person who could say it," he observed.

Dinah turned from him sharply. Her hands were clenched. "Oh no! Oh no!" she said incoherently. "It's not right! It's not fair! You—you—Mr. Greatheart!" Quite suddenly, as if the utterance of the name were too much for her, she broke down, covered her face, and wept.

"Dinah!" said Scott.

He came to her and took her very gently by the arm. Dinah's shoulders were shaking. She could not lift her face.

"Why—why shouldn't your dream come true too?" she sobbed. "You—who help everybody—to get what they want!"

"My dear," Scott said, "my dream is over. Don't you grieve on my account! God knows I'm not grieving for myself." His voice was low, but very steadfast.

"You wouldn't!" said Dinah.

"No; because it's futile, unnecessary, a waste of time. I've other things to do—plenty of other things." Scott braced himself with the words, as one who manfully lifts a burden. "Cheer up, Dinah! I didn't mean to make you sad."

"But—but—are you sure—quite sure—she didn't care?" faltered Dinah, rubbing her eyes woefully.

"Quite sure," said Scott, with decision.

Dinah threw him a sudden, flashing glance of indignation. "Then she was a donkey, Scott, a fool—an idiot!" she declared, with trembling vehemence. "I'd like—oh, how I'd like—to tell her so."

Scott was smiling, his own, whimsical smile. "Yes, wouldn't you?" he said. "And it's awfully nice of you to say so. But do you know, you're quite wrong. She wasn't any of those things. On the other hand, I was all three. But where's the use of talking? It's over, and a good thing too!"

Dinah slipped a quivering hand over his. "We'll always be friends, won't we, Scott?" she said tremulously.

"Always," said Scott.

She squeezed his hand hard, and in response his fingers pressed her arm.
His steady eyes looked straight into hers.

And in the silence, there came to Dinah a queer stirring of uncertainty,—the uncertainty of one who just begins to suspect that he is on the wrong road.

The moment passed, and they talked again of lighter things, but the mood of irresponsible light-heartedness had gone. When they finally left the Dower House, Dinah felt that she trod the earth once more.

"I shall come and see you very often when we come back," she said rather wistfully. "I hope Eustace won't want to be away a very long time."

"Aren't you looking forward to your honeymoon?" asked Scott.

"I don't know," said Dinah, and paused. "I really don't know. But," brightening, "I'm sure the wedding will be great fun."

"I hope it will," said Scott kindly.

It was not till they were nearing Willowmount that Dinah asked him at length hesitatingly about Isabel.

"Do you mind telling me? Is she worse?"

Scott also hesitated a little before he answered. Then: "In one sense she is much better," he said. "But physically," he paused, "physically she is losing ground."

"Oh, Scott!" Dinah looked at him with swift dismay. "But why—why? Can nothing be done?"

His eyes met hers unwaveringly. "No, nothing," he said, and he spoke with that decision which she had come to know as in some fashion a part of himself. His words carried conviction, and yet by some means they quieted her dismay as well. He went on after a moment with that gentle philosophy of his that seemed to soften all he said. "She is as one nearing the end of a long journey, and she is very tired, poor girl. We can't grudge her her rest—when it comes. Eustace wants to rouse her, but I think the time for that is past. It is kinder—it is wiser—to let her alone."

Dinah drew a little nearer to him. "Do you mean—that you think she won't live very long?" she whispered.

"If you like to put it that way," Scott answered quietly.

"Oh, but what of you?" she said.

She uttered the words almost involuntarily, and the next moment she would have recalled them, for she saw his face change. For a second—only a second—she read suffering in his eyes. But he answered her without hesitation.

"I shall just keep on, Dinah," he said. "It's the only way. But, as I think I've mentioned before, it's no good meeting troubles half-way. The day's work is all that really matters."

They walked on for a space in silence; then as they drew near the house he changed the subject. But that brief shadow of a coming desolation dwelt in Dinah's memory with a persistence that defied all lesser things. He was brave enough, cheery enough, in the shouldering of his burden; but her heart ached when she realized how heavy that burden must be.

A message awaited her at the house that she would go to Isabel in her sitting-room, and she went, half-eager, half-diffident. But as soon as she was with her friend her doubts were all gone. For Isabel looked and spoke so much as usual that it seemed impossible to believe that she was indeed nearing the end of the journey.

She wanted to know all that Dinah had been doing, and they sat and discussed the decorations of the Dower House till the luncheon-hour.

When luncheon was over they repaired to a sheltered corner of the terrace, looking down over the garden to the river, while Scott went away to write letters; and here they talked over the serious matter of the trousseau with regard to which neither Dinah nor her mother had made any very definite arrangements.

Perhaps Mrs. Bathurst had foreseen the possibility of Isabel desiring to undertake this responsibility. Perhaps Isabel had already dropped a hint of her intention. In any case it seemed the most natural thing in the world that Isabel should be the one to assist and advise, and when Dinah demurred a little on the score of cost she found herself gently but quite effectually silenced. Sir Eustace's bride must have a suitable outfit, Isabel told her. The question of ways and means was not one which need trouble her.

So Dinah obediently put the matter from her, and entered into the delightful discussion with keen zest. Isabel's ideas were so entrancing. She knew exactly what she would need. Her taste also was so simple, and so unerring. Dinah had never before pictured herself as possessing such things as Isabel calmly proclaimed that she must have.

"We must go up to town to-morrow," Isabel said, "and get things started.
It will mean the whole day, I am afraid. Can you bear to be parted from
Eustace for so long?"

Dinah laughed merrily at the question. "Of course—of course! What fun it will be! I always knew I should like to be married, but I never dreamt it could be so exciting as this."

Isabel smiled at her with a touch of pity in her eyes. "Marriage isn't only new clothes and wedding presents, Dinah," she said.

"No, no! I know!" Dinah spoke with swift compunction. "It is far more than that. But I've never had such lovely things before. I can't help feeling a little giddy about it. You do understand, don't you? I'm not like that all through—really."

"My darling!" Isabel answered fondly. "Of course I know it. I sometimes think that it would be better for you if you were."

"Isabel, why—why?" Dinah pressed close to her, half-curious, half-frightened.

But Isabel did not answer her. She only kissed the vivid, upturned face with all a mother's tenderness, and turned back in silence, to the fashion-book on her knee.

CHAPTER VII DOUBTING CASTLE

When Sir Eustace returned, he found his bride-elect awaiting him with a radiant face. She sprang to greet him with an eagerness that outwent all shyness.

"Oh, Eustace, I have had such a lovely time!" she told him. "It has been a perfect day."

She offered him her lips with a child's simplicity, but blushed deeply when she felt the hot pressure of his, turning her face aside the moment he released her.

He laughed a little, keeping his arm about her shoulders. "You haven't missed me then?" he said.

"Oh, not a bit," said Dinah truthfully; and then quickly, "but what a horrid thing to say! Why did you put it like that?"

"I wanted to know," said Sir Eustace.

She turned back to him. "I should have missed you if I hadn't been so busy. Isabel is going to help me with my trousseau. And oh, Eustace, I am to have such a crowd of lovely things."

He pinched her cheek. "What should a brown elf need beyond a shift of thistle-down? Where is Isabel?"

"She is resting now. She got so tired. Biddy said she must lie down, and we mustn't disturb her for tea. I do hope it wasn't too much for her, Eustace."

"Too much for her! Nonsense! It does her good to think of someone else besides herself," said Eustace. "If Biddy didn't coddle her so in the day time, she would sleep better at night. Well, where is tea? In the drawing-room? Come along and have it!"

Dinah clung to his arm. "It—it's in a place called my lady's boudoir," she told him shyly.

He looked at her. "Where? Oh, I know. That inner sanctuary with the west window. You've taken a fancy to it, have you? Then we will call it Daphne's Bower."

Dinah's laugh was not without a hint of restraint. "I haven't been in any other room. Scott said you would show me everything. But I just wandered in there, and he found me and showed me the dear little boudoir. He said you were going to have it done up."

"So I am," said Eustace. "Everything that belongs to you must be new.
Have you decided what colour will suit you best?"

They were passing through the long drawing-room towards the curtained doorway that led into the little boudoir. The drawing-room was a palatial apartment with stately French furniture that Dinah surveyed with awe. She could not picture herself as hostess in so magnificent a setting. She could only think of Rose de Vigne. It would have suited her flawless beauty perfectly, and she knew that Rose's self-contained heart would have revelled in such an atmosphere.

But it made her feel a stranger, and she hastened through it to the cosier nest beyond.

This was a far more homely spot. The furniture here was French also, and exquisitely delicate; but it was designed for comfort, and the gilded state of the outer room was wholly absent.

A tea-table stood near a deeply-cushioned settee, and the kettle sang merrily over a spirit-lamp.

Eustace dropped on to the settee and drew her suddenly and wholly unexpectedly down upon his knee.

"Oh, Eustace!" she gasped, turning crimson.

He wound his arms about her, holding her two hands imprisoned. "Oh, Daphne!" he mocked softly. "I've caught you—I've caught you! Here in your own bower with no one to look on! No, you can't even flutter your wings now. You've got to stay still and be worshipped."

He spoke with his face against her neck. She felt the burning of his breath, and something;—an urgent, inner prompting—warned her to submit. She sat there in his grasp in quivering silence.

His arms drew her nearer, nearer. It was as if he were gradually merging her whole being into his. In a moment, with a little gasp, she gave him her trembling lips.

He uttered a low laugh of mastery and gave his passion the rein, overwhelming her