_ PART II CHAPTER XVI. THE OPEN DOOR
Billy had already departed upon Scott's mount era he and Dinah set forth to walk to the Court. It was threatening to rain, and the ground beneath their feet was sodden and heavy.
"It is rather a shame to ask you to walk," said Scott, as they turned up the muddy road. "They would have sent a car for you if I had thought."
"I would much rather walk," said Dinah. Her face was very pale. She looked years older than she had looked at Willowmount. After a moment she added, "We shall pass the church. Perhaps you would like to see it. They were going to decorate it this morning."
"I should," said Scott.
He limped beside her, and she curbed her pace to his though the fever of unrest that surged within her urged her forward. They went up the lane that led to the church in almost unbroken silence.
At the churchyard gate she paused. "I hope there is no one here," she said uneasily.
"We need not go in unless you wish," he answered.
But when they reached the porch, they found that the church was empty, and so they entered.
A heavy scent of lilies pervaded the place. There was a wonderful white arch of flowers at the top of the aisle, and the chancel was decked with them. The space above the altar was a mass of white, perfumed splendour. They had been sent down from the Court that morning.
Slowly Scott passed up the nave with the bride-elect by his side, straight to the chancel-steps, and there he paused. His pale face with its light eyes was absolutely composed and calm. He looked straight up to the dim richness of the stained-glass window above him as though he saw beyond the flowers.
For many seconds Dinah stood beside him, awed, waiting as it were for the coming of a revelation. Whatever it might be she knew already that she would not leave that holy place in the state of hopeless turmoil in which she had entered. Something was coming to her, some new thing, that might serve as an anchor in her distress even though it might not bring her ultimate deliverance.
Or stay! Was it a new thing? Was it not rather the unveiling of something which had always been? Her heart quickened and became audible in the stillness. She clasped her hands tightly together. And in that moment Scott turned his head and looked at her.
No word did he speak; only that straight, calm look--as of a man clean of soul and fearless of evil. It told her nothing, that look, it opened to her no secret chamber; neither did it probe her own quivering heart. It was the kindly, reassuring look of a friend ready to stand by, ready to lend a sure hand if such were needed.
But by that look Dinah's revelation burst upon her. In that moment she saw her own soul as never before had she seen it; and all the little things, the shallow things, the earthly things, faded quite away. With a deep, deep breath she opened her eyes upon the Vision of Love....
"Shall we go?" murmured Scott.
She looked at him vaguely for a second, feeling stunned and blinded by the radiance of that revelation. A black veil seemed to be descending upon her; she put out a groping hand.
He took it, and his hold was sustaining. He led her in silence down the long, shadowy building to the porch.
He would have led her further, but a sudden, heavy shower was falling, and he had to pause. She sank down trembling upon the stone seat.
"Scott! Oh, Scott!" she said. "Help me!"
He made a slight, involuntary movement that passed 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 circumstance 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 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. _