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

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.