Greatheart Part 74

"Scott! Oh, Scott!" she said. "Help me!"

He made a slight, involuntary movement that pa.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstance 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 pa.s.sionately 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 pa.s.s 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.