Greatheart by Ethel May Dell (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

good at sitting out?" asked Dinah unexpectedly.

Rose looked at her enquiringly, but her eyes were fixed upon the distant mist-capped mountains. There was nothing in her aspect to indicate what had prompted the question.

"What a funny thing to ask!" she said, with her soft laugh. "No; we enjoyed dancing much too much to waste any time sitting out. He gave you one dance, I believe?"

"No," Dinah said briefly. "I gave him one."

She turned from her contemplation of the mountains. An odd little smile very different from Rose's smile of complacency hovered at the corners of her mouth. She gave Rose a swift and comprehensive glance, then slipped her pen into her writing-case and closed it.

"I am afraid I have interrupted you," said Rose.

"Oh no, it doesn't matter." Dinah's dimple showed for a second and was gone. "I can't write any more now. There's something about this air that makes me feel now and then that I must get up and jump. Does it affect you that way?"

"You funny little thing!" said Rose. "Why, no!"

Dinah's chin pointed upwards. She looked for the moment almost aggressively happy. But the next her look went beyond Rose, and she started. Her expression altered, became suddenly tender and anxious.

"There is Mrs. Everard!" she said softly.

Rose looked round. "Ah! Captain Brent's Purple Empress!" she said. "How haggard the poor soul looks!"

As if drawn magnetically, Dinah moved along the verandah.

Isabel was dressed in the long purple coat she had worn the previous day. She had a cap of black fur on her head. She stood as if irresolute, glancing up and down as though she searched for someone. There was an odd furtiveness in her bearing that struck Dinah on the instant. It also occurred to her as strange that though the restless eyes must have seen her they did not seem to take her in.

The fact deterred her for a second, but only for a second. Then swiftly she went forward and joined her.

"Are you looking for someone, dear Mrs. Everard?"

Isabel's eyes glanced at her, and instantly looked beyond. "I am looking for my husband," she said, her voice quick and low. "He does not seem to be here. You have not seen him, I suppose? He is tall and fair with a boyish smile, and eyes that look straight at you. He laughs a good deal. He is always laughing. You couldn't fail to notice him. He is one whom the gods love."

Again her eyes roamed over Dinah, and again they passed her to scan the mist-wreathed mountains.

Dinah slipped a loving hand through her arm. "He is not here, dear," she said. "Come and sit down for a little! The sun won't be gone yet. We can watch it go."

She tried to draw her gently along the verandah, but Isabel resisted. "No—no! I am not going that way. I have to go up the mountains to meet him. Don't keep me! Don't keep me!"

Dinah threw an anxious look around. There was no one near them. Rose had moved away to join a group just returned from the rink. The laughter and gay voices rose on the still air in merry chorus. No one knew or cared of the living tragedy so near.

Pleadingly she turned to Isabel. "Darling Mrs. Everard, need you go now?
Wait till the morning! It is so late now. It will soon be dark."

Isabel made a sharp gesture of impatience. "Be quiet, child! You don't understand. Of course I must go now. I have escaped from them, and if I wait I shall be taken again. It would kill me to be kept back now. I must meet him in the dawn on the mountain-top. What was it you called it? The peaks of Paradise! That is where I shall find him. But I must start at once—at once."

She threw another furtive look around, and stepped forth. Dinah's hand closed upon her arm. "If you go, I am coming too," she said, with quick resolution. "But won't you wait a moment—just a moment—while I run and get some gloves?"

Isabel made a swift effort to disengage herself. "No, child, no! I can't wait. If you met Eustace, he would make you tell him where you were going, and then he would follow and bring me back. No, I must go now—at once. Yes, you may come too if you like. But you mustn't keep me back. I must go quickly—quickly—before they find out. Everything depends on that."

There was no delaying her. Dinah cast another look towards the chattering group, and gave up hope. She dared not leave her, for she had no idea of the whereabouts of either of the brothers. And there was no time to make a search. The only course open to her was to accompany her friend whithersoever the fruitless quest should lead. She was convinced that Isabel's physical powers of endurance were slight, and that when they were exhausted she would be able to bring her back unresisting.

Nevertheless, she was conscious of a little tremor at the heart as they set forth. There was an air of desperation about her companion that it was impossible to overlook. Isabel's manner towards her was so wholly devoid of that caressing element that had always marked their intimacy till that moment. Without being actually frightened, she was very uneasy. It was evident that Isabel was beyond all persuasion that day.

The sun was beginning to sink towards the western peaks as they turned up the white track, casting long shadows across the snow. The pine-wood through which the road wound was mysteriously dark. The rush of the stream in the hollow had an eerie sound. It seemed to Dinah that the ground they trod was bewitched. She almost expected to catch sight of goblin-faces peering from behind the dark trunks. Now and then muffled in the snow, she thought she heard the scamper of tiny feet.

Isabel went up the steep track with a wonderful elasticity, looking neither to right nor left. Her eyes were fixed perpetually forwards, with the look in them of one who strains towards a goal. Her lips were parted, and the eagerness of her face went to Dinah's heart.

They came out above the pine-wood. They reached and passed the spot where she and Scott had turned back on their first walk together. The snow crunched crisply underfoot. The ascent was becoming more and more acute.

Dinah was panting. Light as she was, with all the activity of youth in her veins, she found it hard to keep up, for Isabel was pressing, pressing hard. She went as one in whom the fear of pursuit was ever present, paying no heed to her companion, seeming indeed to have almost forgotten her presence.

On and on, up and up, they went on their rapid pilgrimage. The winding of the road had taken them out of sight of the hotel, and the whole world seemed deserted. The sun-rays slanted ever more and more obliquely. The valley behind them had fallen into shadow.

Before them and very far above them towered the great pinnacles, clothed in the everlasting snows, beginning to turn golden above their floating wreaths of mist. Even where they were, trails like the ragged edges of a cloud drifted by them, and the coldness of the air held a clammy quality. The sparkling dryness of the atmosphere seemed to be dissolving into these thin, veil-like vapours. The cold was more penetrating than Dinah had ever before experienced.

Now and then an icy draught came swirling down upon them, making her shiver, though it was evident that Isabel was unaware of it. The harder the way became, the more set upon her purpose did she seem to be. Dinah marvelled at her strength and unvarying determination. There was about it an element of the wild, not far removed from ferocity. Her uneasiness was growing with every step, and something that was akin to fear began to knock at her heart. The higher they mounted, the more those trails of mist increased. Very soon now the sun would be gone. Already it had ceased to warm that world of snow. And what would happen then? What if the dusk came upon them while still they pressed on up that endless, difficult track?

Timidly she clasped Isabel's arm at last. "It will be getting dark soon," she said. "Shouldn't we be going back?"

For a moment Isabel's eyes swept round upon her, and she marvelled at their intense and fiery brilliance. But instantly they sought the mountain-tops again, all rose-lit in the opal glow of sunset.

"You can go back, child," she said. "I must go on."

"But it is getting so late," pleaded Dinah. "And look at the mist! If we keep on much longer, we may be lost."

Isabel quickened her pace. "I am not afraid," she said, and her voice thrilled with a deep rapture. "He is waiting for me, there where the mountains meet the sky. I shall find him in the dawn. I know that I shall find him."

"But, dear Mrs. Everard, we can't go on after dark," urged Dinah. "We should be frozen long before morning. It is terribly cold already. And poor Biddy will be so anxious about you."

"Oh no!" Isabel spoke with supreme confidence. "Biddy will know where I have gone. She was asleep when I left, poor old soul. She had had a bad night." A sudden sharp shudder caught her. "All night I was struggling against the bars of my cage. It was only when Biddy fell asleep that I found the door was open. But you can go back, child," she added. "You had better go back. Eustace won't want to follow me if he has you."

But Dinah's hold instantly grew close and resolute. "I shall not leave you," she said, with decision.

Isabel made no further attempt to persuade her. She seemed to regard it as a matter of trifling importance. Her one aim was to reach those glowing peaks that glittered far above the floating mists like the glories half-revealed of another world.

It was nothing to her that the road by which they had come should be blotted out. She had no thought for that, no desire or intention to return. If an earthquake had rent away the ground behind them, she would not have been dismayed. It was only the forward path, leading ever upwards to the desired country, that held her mind, and the memory of a voice that called far above the mountain height.

The sun sank, the glory faded. The dark and the cold wrapped them round. But still was she undaunted. "When the dawn comes, we shall be there," she said.

And Dinah heard her with a sinking heart. She had no thought of leaving her, but she knew and faced the fact that in going on, she carried her life in her hand. Yet she kept herself from despair. Surely by now the brothers would have found out, and they would follow! Surely they would follow! And Eustace—Eustace would thank her for what she had done.

She strained her ears for their coming; but she heard nothing—nothing but their own muffled footsteps on the snow. And ever the darkness deepened, and the mist crept closer around them.

She gathered all her courage to face the falling night. She was sure she had done right to come and so she hoped God would take care of them.

CHAPTER XIX THE CUP OF BITTERNESS

It was growing late on that same evening that Scott came through the hotel vestibule after a rehearsal of the concert which was to take place that evening and at which he had undertaken to play the accompaniments. He glanced about him as he came as though in search of someone, and finally passed on to the smoking-room. His eye were heavy and his face worn, but there was an air of resolution about him that gave purpose to his movements.

In the smoking-room several men were congregated, and in a corner of it sat Sir Eustace, writing a letter. Scott came straight to him, and bent over him a hand on the back of his chair.

"Can I have a word with you?" he asked in a low voice.

Sir Eustace did not look round or cease to write. "Presently," he said.

Scott drew back and sat down near him. He did not smoke or take up a paper. His attitude was one of quiet vigilance.

Minutes passed. Sir Eustace continued his task exactly as if