_ PART II CHAPTER XXVII. THE MOUNTAIN-TOP
The night fell like a black veil, starless and still. Up in Isabel's room the watchers came and went, dividing the hours. Only the nurse and old Biddy remained always at their posts, the one seated near one of the wide-flung windows, the other crouched on an ottoman at the foot of the bed, her beady eyes perpetually fixed upon the white, motionless face upon the pillow.
Only by the irregular and sometimes difficult breathing did they know that Isabel still lived, for she gave no sign of consciousness, uttered no word, made no voluntary movement of any sort. Like those who watched about her, she seemed to be waiting, waiting for the amazing revelation of the Dawn.
They had propped her high with pillows; her pale hands lay outside the coverlet. Her eyes were closed. She did not seem to notice who came or went.
"She may slip away without waking," the nurse whispered once to Dinah who had crept to her side. "Or she may be conscious just at the last. There is no telling."
Dinah did not think that she was asleep, but yet during all her vigil the white lids had not stirred, no spark of vitality had touched the marble face. She was possessed by a great longing to speak to her, to call her out of that trance-like silence; but she did not dare. She was as one bound by a spell. The great stillness was too holy to break. All her own troubles were sunk in oblivion. She felt as if she moved in a shadow-world where no troubles could penetrate, where no voice was ever lifted above a whisper.
As she crept from the room, she met Eustace entering. He looked gaunt and haggard in the dim light. Nothing seemed natural on that night of waiting.
He paused a moment, touched her shoulder. "Go and rest, child!" he muttered. "I will call you if she wakes."
She sent him a faint smile and flitted by him into the passage. How could she rest on a night like this, with the vague whisperings of the spirit-world all about her? Besides, in another hour the darkness would be over--the Dawn would come! Not for all the world would she miss that wonderful coming of a new day--the day which Isabel was awaiting in that dumb passivity of unquestioning patience. They had come so far up the mountain-track together; she must be with her when the morning found them on the summit.
But it was Eustace's turn to watch, and she moved towards her own room, through the open windows of which the vague murmur and splash of the sleeping sea drifted like the accompaniment of far-off music--undreamed-of Alleluias.
The dim glow of a lamp lay across her path, like a barrier staying her feet. Almost involuntarily she paused before a half-open door. It was as though some unseen force compelled her. And, so pausing, there came to her a sound that gripped her like a hand upon her heart--it was the broken whispering of a man in an agony of prayer.
It was not by her own desire that she stood to listen. The anguish of that voice held her, so that she was powerless to move.
"O God! O God!" The words pierced her with their entreaty; it was a cry from the very depths. "The mistake was mine. Let me bear the consequences! But save her--O save her--from further suffering!" A momentary silence, and then, more desperately still: "O God--if Thou art anywhere--hear--and help! Let me bear whatever Thou wilt! But spare her--spare her! She has borne so much!"
A terrible sob choked the gasping utterance. There fell a silence so tense, so poignant with pain, that the girl upon the threshold trembled as one physically afraid. Yet she could not turn and flee. She felt as if it were laid upon her to stand and witness this awful struggle of a soul in torment. But that it should be Scott--the wise, the confident, the unafraid--passing alone through this place of desolation, sent the blood to her heart in a great wave of consternation. If Scott failed--if the sword of Greatheart were broken--it seemed to her that nothing could be left in all the world, as if even the coming Dawn must be buried in darkness.
Was it for Isabel he was praying thus? She supposed it must be, though she had felt all through this night of waiting that no prayer was needed. Isabel was so near the mountain-top that surely she was safe--nearer already to God than any of their prayers could bring her.
And yet Scott was wrestling here as one overwhelmed with evil. Wherefore? Wherefore? The steady faith of this good friend of hers had never to her knowledge flickered before. What had happened to shake him thus?
He was praying again, more coherently but in words so low that they were scarcely audible. She crept a little nearer, and now she could see him, kneeling at the table, his head sunk upon it, his arms flung wide with clenched fists that seemed impotently to beat the air.
"I'm praying all wrong," he whispered. "Forgive me, but I'm all in the dark to-night. Thou knowest, Lord, how awful the dark can be. I'm not asking for an answer. Only guide our feet! Deliver us from evil--deliver her--O God--deliver my Dinah--by that love which is of Thee and which nothing will ever alter! If I may not help her, give me strength--to stand aside!"
A great shiver went through him; he gripped his hands together suddenly and passionately.
"O my God," he groaned, "it's the hardest thing on earth--to stand and do nothing--when I love her so."
Something seemed to give way within him with the words. His shoulders shook convulsively. He buried his face in his arms.
And in that moment the power that had stayed Dinah upon the threshold suddenly urged her forward.
Almost before she realized it, she was there at his side, stooping over him, holding him--holding him fast in a clasp that was free from any hesitation or fear, a clasp in which all her pulsing womanhood rushed forth to him, exulting, glorying in its self-betrayal.
"My dear! Oh, my dear!" she said. "Are you praying for me?"
"Dinah!" he said.
Just her name, no more; but spoken in a tone that thrilled her through and through! He leaned against her for a few moments, almost as if he feared to move. Then, as one gathering strength, he uttered a great sigh and slowly got to his feet.
"You mustn't bother about me," he said, and the sudden rapture had all gone out of his voice; it had the flatness of utter weariness. "I shall be all right."
But Dinah's hands yet clung to his shoulders. Those moments of yielding had revealed to her more than any subsequent word or action could belie. Her eyes, shining with a great light, looked straight into his.
"Dear Scott! Dear Greatheart!" she said, and her voice trembled over the tender utterance of the name. "Are you in trouble? Can't I help?"
He took her face between his hands, looking straight back into the shining eyes. "You are the trouble, Dinah," he told her simply. "And I'd give all I have--I'd give my soul--to make life easier for you."
She leaned towards him, and suddenly those shining eyes were blurred with a glimmer of tears. "Life is dreadfully difficult," she said. "But you have never done anything but help me. And, oh, Scott, I--don't know if I ought to tell you--forgive me if it's wrong--but--but I feel I must--" her breath came so quickly that she could hardly utter the words--"I love you--I love you--better than anyone else in the world!"
"Dinah!" he said, as one incredulous.
"It's true!" she panted. "It's true! Eustace knows it--has known it almost as long as I have. It isn't the only thing I have to tell you, but it's the first--and biggest. And even though--even though--I shall never be anything more to you than I am now--I'm glad--I'm proud--for you to know. There's nothing else that counts in the same way. And though--though I refused you the other day--I wanted you--dreadfully, dreadfully. If--if I had only been good enough for you--But--but--I'm not!" She broke off, battling with herself.
He was still holding her face between his hands, and there was something of insistence, something that even bordered upon ruthlessness, in his hold. Though the tears were running down her face, he would not let her go.
"Will you tell me what you mean by that?" he said, his voice very low. "Or--must I ask Eustace?"
She started. There was that in his tone that made her wince inexplicably. "Oh no," she said, "no! I'll tell you myself--if--if you must know."
"I am afraid I must," he said, and for all their resolution, the words had a sound of deadly weariness. He let her go slowly as he uttered them. "Sit down!" he said gently. "And please don't tremble! There is nothing to make you afraid."
She dropped into the chair he indicated, and made a desperate effort to calm herself. He stood beside her with the absolute patience of one accustomed to long waiting.
After a few moments, she put up a quivering hand, seeking his. He took it instantly, and as his fingers closed firmly upon her own, she found courage.
"I didn't want you to know," she whispered. "But I--I see now--it's better that you should. There's no other way--of making you understand. It's just this--just this!" She swallowed hard, striving to control the piteous trembling of her voice. "I am--one of those people--that--that never ought to have been born. I don't belong--anywhere--except to--my mother who--who--who has no use for me,--hated me before ever I came into the world. You see, she--married because--because--another man--my real father--had played her false. Oh, do you wonder--do you wonder--" she bowed her forehead upon his hand with a rush of tears--"that--that when I knew--I--I felt as if--I couldn't--go on with life?"
Her weeping was piteous; it shook her from head to foot.
But--in the very midst of her distress--there came to her a wonder so great that it checked her tears at the height of their flow. For very suddenly it dawned upon her that Scott--Scott, her knight of the golden armour--was kneeling at her feet.
Half in wonder and half in awe, she lifted her head and looked at him. And in that moment he took her two hands and kissed them, tenderly, reverently, lingeringly.
"Was this what you and Eustace were talking about this afternoon?" he said.
She nodded. "I had to tell him--why--I couldn't marry you. He--he had been--so kind."
"But, my own Dinah," he said, and in his voice was a quiver half-quizzical yet strangely charged with emotion, "did you ever seriously imagine that I should allow a sordid little detail like that to come between us? Surely Eustace knew better than that!"
She heard him in amazement, scarcely believing that she heard. "Do you--can you mean--" she faltered, "that--it really--doesn't count?"
"I mean that it is less than nothing to me," he made answer, and in his eyes as they looked into hers was that glory of worship that she had once seen in a dream. "I mean, my darling, that since you want me as I want you, nothing--nothing in the world--can ever come between us any more. Oh, my dear, my dear, I wish you'd told me sooner."
"I knew I ought to," she murmured, still hardly believing. "And yet--somehow--I couldn't bear the thought of your knowing,--particularly as--as--till Eustace told me--I never dreamed you--cared. You are so--great. You ought to have someone so much--better than I. I'm not nearly good enough--not nearly."
He was drawing her to him, and she went with a little sob into his arms; but she turned her face away over his shoulder, avoiding his.
"I ought not--to have told you--I loved you," she said brokenly. "It wasn't right of me. Only--when I saw you so unhappy--I couldn't--somehow--keep it in any longer. Dear Scott, don't you think--before--before we go any further--you had better--forget it and--give me up?"
"No, I don't think so." Scott spoke very softly, with the utmost tenderness, into her ear. "Don't you realize," he said, "that we belong to each other? Could there possibly be anyone else for either you or me?"
She did not answer him; only she clung a little closer. And, after a moment, as she felt the drawing of his hold, "Don't kiss me---yet!" she begged him tremulously. "Let us wait till--the morning!"
His arms relaxed, "It is very near the morning now," he said. "Shall we go and watch for it?"
They rose together. Dinah's eyes sought his for one shy, fleeting second, falling instantly as if half-dazzled, half-afraid. He took her hand and led her quietly from the room.
It was no longer dark in the passage outside. A pearly light was growing. The splash of the sea sounded very far below them, as the dim surging of a world unseen might rise to the watchers on the mountain-top.
They moved to an open window at the end of the passage. No sound came from Isabel's room close by, and after a few seconds Scott turned noiselessly aside and entered.
Dinah remained at the open window waiting with a throbbing heart in the great silence that wrapped the world. She was not afraid, but she longed for Scott to come back; she was conscious of an urgent need of him.
Several moments passed, and then softly he returned. "No change!" he whispered. "Eustace will call us--when it comes."
She slipped her hand back into his, without speaking. He made her sit upon the window-seat, and knelt himself upon it, his arm about her shoulders, his fingers clasping hers.
She could see his face but vaguely in the dimness, but many times during that holy hour before the dawn, though he spoke no word, she felt that he was praying or giving thanks.
Slowly the twilight turned into a velvet dusk. The great Change was drawing near. The silence lay like a thinning veil of mist upon the mountain-top. The clouds were parting in the East, all tinged with gold, like burnished gates flung back for the royal coming of the sun-god. The stillness that lay upon all the waiting earth was sacred as the hush of prayer.
Their faces were turned towards the spreading glow. It shone upon them as it shone upon all beside, widening, intensifying, till the whole earth lay wrapped in solemn splendour--and then at last, through the open gates, red, royal, triumphant, the sun-god came.
There came a moment in which all things were touched with the glory, all things were made new. And in that moment, sudden as a flash of light, a bird of pure white plumage appeared before their eyes, hovered an instant; then flew, mounting on wide, gleaming wings, straight into the dawn....
Even while they watched, it vanished through the gates of gold. And only the gracious sunshine of a new day remained....
A low voice spoke from the chamber of Death. They turned from the vision and saw Eustace standing in the doorway.
He was very white, but absolutely calm. There was a nobility about him at that moment that sent a queer little throb to Dinah's heart. He held out his hand, not to her, but to Scott. "She is gone," he said.
Scott went to him; she saw their hands meet. There was no agitation about either of them.
"In her sleep?" Scott said.
"Yes. We didn't even know--till it was over."
They turned into the room, still hand grasping hand.
And Dinah knelt up and stretched out her arms to the shining morning sky. Something within her was whispering that she and Scott had seen more of the passing of Isabel than any of those who had watched beside her bed. And in the quiet of that wonderful morning, she offered her quivering thanks to God. _