_ PART II CHAPTER XIV. THE WRATH OF THE GODS
The paroxysm did not last long, and in that fact most poignantly did Dinah realize the waning strength.
Dumbly she stood and watched Biddy lay the inanimate figure back upon the pillows. Isabel had sunk into a state of exhaustion that was almost torpor.
"She'll sleep now, dear lamb," said Biddy, and tenderly covered her over as though she had been a child.
She turned round to Dinah, looking at her with shrewd darting eyes. "Ye'd better be getting along to your lover, Miss Dinah," she said. "He'll be wanting ye to dance with him."
But Dinah stood her ground with a little shiver. The bare thought of dancing at that moment made her feel physically sick. "Biddy! Biddy!" she whispered, "what has happened to make her--like this?"
"And ye may well ask!" said Biddy darkly. "But it's not for me to tell ye. Ye'd best run along, Miss Dinah dear, and be happy while ye can."
"But I'm not happy!" broke from Dinah. "How can I be? Biddy, what has happened? You must tell me if you can. She wasn't like this a fortnight ago. She has never been--quite like this--before."
Biddy pursed her lips. "Sure, we none of us travel the same road twice, Miss Dinah," she said.
But Dinah would not be satisfied with so vague an axiom.
"Something has happened," she said. "Come into the next room and tell me all about it! Please, Biddy!"
Biddy glanced at the bed. "She'll not hear ye in here, Miss Dinah," she said. "And what for should I be telling ye at all? Ye'll be Sir Eustace's bride in less than forty-eight hours from now, so it's maybe better ye shouldn't know."
"I must know," Dinah said, and with the words a great wave of resolution went through her, uplifting her, inspiring her. "I've got to know," she said. "Whatever happens, I've got to know."
Biddy left the bedside and came close to her. "If ye insist, Miss Dinah--" she said.
"I do--I do insist." Never in her life before had Dinah spoken with such authority, but a force within was urging her--a force irresistible; she spoke as one compelled.
Biddy came closer still. "Ye'll not tell Master Scott--nor any of 'em--if I tell ye?" she whispered.
"No, no; of course--no!" Dinah's voice came breathlessly; she had not the power to draw back.
"Ye promise, Miss Dinah?" Biddy could be insistent too; her eyes burned like live coals.
"I promise, yes." Dinah held out an impulsive hand. "You can trust me," she said.
Biddy's fingers closed claw-like upon it. "Whist now, Miss Dinah!" she said. "If Sir Eustace was to hear me, sure, he'd wring the neck on me like as if I was an old fowl. But ye've asked me what's happened, mavourneen, and sure, I'll tell ye. For it's the pretty young lady that ye are and a cruel shame that ye should ever belong to the likes of him. It's his doing, Miss Dinah, every bit of it, and it's the truth I'm speaking, as the Almighty Himself could tell ye if He'd a mind to. The poor lamb was fading away aisy like, but he came along and broke her heart. It was them letters, Miss Dinah. He took 'em. And he burned 'em, my dear, he burned 'em, and when ye were gone she missed 'em, and then he told her what he'd done, told her brutal-like that it was time she'd done with such litter. He said it was all damn' nonsense that she was wasting her life over 'em and over the dead. Oh, it was wicked, it was cruel. And she--poor innocent--she locked herself up when he'd gone and cried and cried and cried till the poor heart of her was broke entirely. She said she'd lost touch with her darling husband and he'd never come back to her again."
"Biddy!" Horror undisguised sounded in Dinah's low voice. "He never did such a thing as that!"
"He did that!" A queer species of triumph was apparent in Biddy's rejoinder; malice twinkled for a second in her eyes. "I've told ye! I've told ye!" she said. And then, with sharp anxiety. "But ye'll not tell anyone as ye know, Miss Dinah. Ye promised, now didn't ye? Miss Isabel wouldn't that any should know--not even Master Scott. He was away when it happened, dining down at the Vicarage he was. And Miss Isabel she says to me, 'For the life of ye, don't tell Master Scott! He'd be that angry,' she says, 'and Sir Eustace would murder him entirely if it came to a quarrel.' She was that insistent, Miss Dinah, and I knew there was truth in what she said. Master Scott has the heart of a lion. He never knew the meaning of fear from his babyhood. And Sir Eustace is a monster of destruction when once his blood's up. And he minds what Master Scott says more than anyone. So I promised, Miss Dinah dear, the same as you have. And so he doesn't know to this day. Sir Eustace, ye see, has been in a touchy mood all along, ever since ye left. Like gunpowder he's been, and Master Scott has had a difficult enough time with him; and Miss Isabel has kept it from him so that he thinks it was just your going again that made her fret so. There, now ye know all, Miss Dinah dear, and don't ye for the love of heaven tell a soul what I've told ye! Miss Isabel would never forgive me if she came to know. Ah, the saints preserve us, what's that?"
A brisk tap at the door had made her jump with violence. She went to parley with a guilty air.
In a moment or two she shut the door and came back. "It's that flighty young French hussy, Miss Dinah; her they call Yvonne. She says Sir Eustace is waiting for ye downstairs."
A great revulsion of feeling went through Dinah. It shook her like an overwhelming tempest and passed, leaving her deadly cold. She turned white to the lips.
"I can't go to him, Biddy," she said. "I can't dance to-night. Yvonne must tell him."
Biddy gave her a searching look. "Ye won't let him find out, Miss Dinah?" she urged. "Won't he guess now if ye stay up here?"
The earnest entreaty of the old bright eyes moved her. She turned to the door. "Oh, very well. I'll go myself and tell him."
"Ye won't let him suspect, mavourneen--mavourneen?" pleaded Biddy desperately.
"No, Biddy, no! Haven't I sworn it a dozen times already?" Dinah had reached the door; she looked back for a moment and her look was steadfast notwithstanding the deathly pallor of her face. Then she passed slowly forth, and heard old Biddy softly turn the key behind her, making assurance doubly sure.
Slowly she moved along the passage. It was deserted, but the sound of laughing voices and the tuning of violins floated up from below. Again that feeling that was akin to physical sickness assailed Dinah. Down there he was waiting for her, waiting to be intoxicated into headlong, devouring passion by her dancing. She seemed to feel his arms already holding her, straining her to him, so that the warmth of him was as a fiery atmosphere all about her, encompassing her, possessing her. Her whole body burned at the thought, and then again was cold--cold as though she had drunk a draught of poison. She stood still, feeling too sick to go on.
And then, while she waited, she heard a step. Her heart seemed to spring into her throat, throbbing wildly like a caged bird seeking freedom. She drew back against the wall, trembling from head to foot.
He came along the passage, magnificent, princely, confident, swinging his shoulders with that semi-conscious swagger she knew so well. He spied her where she stood, and she heard his brief, half-mocking laugh as he strode to her.
"Ah, Daphne! Hiding as usual!" he said.
He took her between his hands, and she felt the mastery of him in that free hold. She stood as a prisoner in his grasp. Her new-found resolution was gone at the first contact with that overwhelming personality of his. She hung her head in quivering distress.
He bent down, bringing his face close to hers. He tried to look into the eyes that she kept downcast.
And suddenly he spoke again, softly into her ear. "Why so shy, little sweetheart? Are you getting frightened now the time is so near?"
Her breathing quickened at his tone. Possessive though it was, it held that tender note that was harder to bear than all his fiercest passion. She could not speak in answer. No words would come.
He put his arm around her and held her close. "But you mustn't be afraid of me," he said. "Don't you know I love you? Don't you know I am going to make you the happiest little woman in the world?"
Dinah choked down some scalding tears. She longed to escape from the holding of his arm, and yet her torn spirit felt the comfort of it. She stood silent, shaken, unnerved, piteously conscious of her utter weakness--the weakness wrought by that iron discipline that had never suffered her to have any will of her own.
He put up a hand and pressed her drooping head against his shoulder. "There's nothing very dreadful in being married, dear," he told her. "I'm not such a devouring monster as I may seem. Why, I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head. They are all precious to me."
She quivered at his use of the word that Biddy had employed with such venom only a few minutes before; but still she said nothing. What could she say? Against this new weapon of his she was more helpless than ever. She hid her face against him and strove for self-control.
He kissed her temple and the clustering hair above it. "There now! You are not going to be a silly little scared fawn any more. Come along and dance it off!"
His arm encircled her shoulders; he began to lead her to the stairs.
And Dinah went, slave-like in her submission, but hating herself the more for every step she took.
They went to the ballroom, and presently they danced. But the old subtle charm was absent. Her feet moved to the rhythm of the music, her body swayed and pulsed to the behest of his; but her spirit stood apart, bruised and downcast and very much alone. Her gilded palace had fallen all about her in ruins. The deliverance to which she had looked forward so eagerly was but another bondage that would prove more cruel and more enslaving than the first. She longed with all her quivering heart to run away and hide.
He was very kind to her, more considerate than she had ever known him. Perhaps he missed the fairy abandonment which had so delighted him in her dancing of old; but he found no fault; and when the dance was over he did not lead her away to some private corner as she had dreaded, but took her instead to her father and stood with him for some time in talk.
She saw Scott in the distance, but he did not approach her while Eustace was with them, and when her _fiance_ turned away at length he had disappeared.
They were left comparatively alone, and Dinah slipped an urgent hand into her father's. "I want to go home, Daddy. I'm so tired."
He looked at her in surprise, but she managed to muster a smile in reply, and he was not observant enough to note the distress that lay behind it.
"Had enough of it, eh?" he questioned. "Well, I think you're wise. You'll be busy to-morrow. By all means, let's go!"
It was not till the very last moment that she saw Scott again. He came forward just as she was passing through the hall to the front door.
He took the hand she held out to him, looking at her with those straight, steady eyes of his that there was no evading, but he made no comment of any sort.
"Mr. Grey is coming by a morning train to-morrow," he said. "May I bring him to call upon you in the afternoon? I believe he wants to run through the wedding-service with you beforehand."
He smiled as he said it, but Dinah could not smile in answer. There was something ominous to her in that last sentence, something that made her think of the clanking of chains. She was relieved to hear her father answer for her.
"Come by all means! Nothing like a dress rehearsal to make things go smoothly. I'll tell my wife to expect you."
Scott's hand relinquished hers, and she felt suddenly cold. She murmured a barely audible "Good night!" and turned away.
From the portico she glanced back and saw Sir Eustace leading Rose de Vigne to the ballroom. The light shone full upon them. They made a splendid couple. And a sudden bizarre thought smote her. This was what the gods had willed. This had been the weaving of destiny; and she--she--had dared to intervene, frustrating, tearing the gilded, smooth-wrought threads apart.
Ah well! It was done now. It was too late to draw back. But the wrath of the gods remained to be faced. Already it was upon her, and there was no escape.
As one who hears a voice speaking from a far distance, she heard herself telling her father that all was well with her and she had spent an enjoyable evening.
Then she lay back in the car with clenched hands, and listened trembling to the thundering wheels of Destiny. _