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

But still he did not speak, and the painful colour flooded her face under his mute scrutiny till in sheer distress she found herself forced to take the initiative.

"Is—Isabel expecting me?" she faltered. "Ought I to go?"

"No," he said quietly. "She is dozing. Old Biddy is with her."

It seemed as if the intolerable silence were about to fall again. She cast about desperately for a means of escape. "Biddy was up and down during the night. I think I will relieve her for a little while and let her rest."

She would have risen with the words, but unexpectedly he reached forth a detaining hand. "Do you mind waiting a minute?" he said. "I will not say—or do—anything to frighten you."

He spoke with a faint smile that somehow hurt her almost unbearably. She remained as she was, leaning forward in her chair. "I—am not afraid," she murmured almost inaudibly.

His hand seemed to plead for hers, and in a moment she laid her own within it. "That's right," he said. "Dinah, will you try and treat me as if I were a friend—just for a few minutes?"

The tone of his voice—like his smile—pierced her with a poignancy that sent the quick tears to her eyes. She forced them back with all her strength.

"I would like to—always," she whispered.

"Thank you," he said. "You are kinder than I deserve. I have done nothing to win your confidence, so it is all the more generous of you to bestow it. On the strength of your generosity I am going to ask you a question which only a friend could ask. Dinah, is there any understanding of any sort—apart from friendship—between you and Scott?"

She started slightly at the question, and in a moment firmly, with a certain authority, his hand closed upon hers.

"You needn't be afraid to speak on Scott's account," he said, with that rather grim humility that seemed so foreign to his proud nature that every sign of it stabbed her afresh. "I am not such a dog in the manger as that and he knows it."

"Oh no!" Dinah said, and her words came with a rush. "But—I told you before, didn't I?—he doesn't care for me like that. He never has—never will."

"I wonder why you say that," Eustace said.

"Because it's true!" With a species of feverish insistence she answered him. "How could I help knowing? Of course I know! Oh, please don't let us talk about it! It—it hurts me."

"I want you to bear with me," he said gently, "just for a few minutes. Dinah, what if you are making a mistake? Mistakes happen, you know. Scott is a shy sort of chap, and immensely reserved. Doesn't it occur to you that he may care for you and yet be afraid—just as you are afraid—to let you know?"

"No," Dinah said. "He doesn't. I know he doesn't!"

She spoke with her eyes upon the ground, her voice sunk very low. She felt as if she were being drawn down from the heights she desired to tread. She did not want to contemplate the problems that she knew very surely awaited her upon the lower level. She did not want to quit her sanctuary before the time.

Sir Eustace received her assurance in silence, but he kept her hand in his, and the power of his personality seemed to penetrate to the very centre of her being.

He spoke at last almost under his breath, still closely watching her downcast face. "Are you quite sure you still care for him—in that way?"

She made a quick, appealing gesture. "Oh, need I answer that? I feel so—ashamed."

"No, you needn't answer," he made steady reply. "But you've nothing to be ashamed about. Stumpy's an awful ass, you know,—always has been. He's been head over heels in love with you ever since he met you. No, you needn't let that shock you. He's such a bashful knight he'll never tell you so. You'll have to do that part of it." He smiled with faint irony. "But you may take my word for it, it is so. He has thought of nothing but you and your happiness from the very beginning of things. And—unlike someone else we know—he has had the decency always to put your happiness first."

He paused. Dinah's eyes had flashed up to his, green, eager, intensely alive, and behind those eyes her soul seemed to be straining like a thing in leash. "Oh, I knew he had cared for someone," she breathed, "But it couldn't—it couldn't have been me!"

"Yes," Sir Eustace said slowly. "You and none other. You wonder if it's true—how I know. He's an awful ass, as I said before, one of the few supreme fools who never think of themselves. I knew that he was caught all right ages back in Switzerland, and—being a low hound of mean instincts—I set to work to cut him out."

"Oh!" murmured Dinah. "That was just what I did with Rose de Vigne."

His mouth twisted a little. "It's a funny world, Dinah," he said. "Our little game has cost us both something. I got too near the candle myself, and the scorch was pretty sharp while it lasted. Well, to get back to my story. Scott saw that I was beginning to give you indigestion, and—being as I mentioned before several sorts of a fool—he tackled me upon the subject and swore that if I didn't put an end to the game, he would put you on your guard against me, tell you in fact the precise species of rotter that I chanced to be. I was naturally annoyed by his interference. Anyone would have been. I gave him the kicking he deserved. That was low of me, wasn't it?" as she made a quick movement of shrinking. "You won't forgive me for that, or for what came after. The very next day—to spite the little beast—I proposed to you."

Dinah's eyes were fiercely bright. "I wish I'd known!" she said.

"I wish to heaven you had, my dear," Eustace spoke with a grim hint of humour. "It would have saved us both a good deal of unnecessary trouble and humiliation. However, Scott was too big a fool to tell you. There is a martyrlike sort of cussedness about him that is several degrees worse than any pride. So he let things be, still cheating himself into the belief that the arrangement was for your happiness, till, as you are aware, it turned out so manifestly otherwise that he found himself obliged once more to come to the rescue of his lady love. But his exasperating humility was such that he never suspected the real reason for your change of mind, and when I accused him of cutting me out, he was as scandalized as only a righteous man knows how to be. You can't do much with a fellow like that, you know,—a fool who won't believe the evidence of his own senses. Besides, it was not for me to enlighten him, particularly as you didn't want him to know the real state of things just then. So I left him alone. The next day—only the next day, mind you—the silent knight opened his heart; to whom, do you think? You'll be horribly furious when I tell you."

He looked into the hot eyes with an expression half-tender in his own.

"Tell me!" breathed Dinah.

"Really? Well, prepare for a nasty shock! To Rose de Vigne!"

"To Rose!" Indignation gave place to bewilderment in Dinah's eyes.

"Even so; to Rose. She guessed the truth, and he frankly admitted she was right, but gave her to understand that as he hadn't a chance in the world, you were never to know. I am telling you the truth, Dinah. You needn't look so incredulous. She naturally considered that he was not treating you very fairly and said so. But—" he raised his shoulders slightly—"you know Scott. Mules can't compete with him when he has made up his mind to a thing. He gracefully put an end to the discussion and doubtless he has buried the whole subject in a neat little corner of his heart where no one can ever tumble over it, and resigned himself to a lonely old age. Now, Dinah, I am going to give you the soundest piece of advice I have ever given anyone. If you are wise, you will dig it up before the moss grows, bring it into the air and call it back to life. It is the greatest desire of Isabel's heart to see you two happy together. She told me so only to-day. And I am beginning to think that I wish it too."

His look was wholly kind as he uttered the last words. He held her hand in the close grip of a friend.

"Don't let that insane humility of his be his ruin!" he urged. "He's a fool. I've always said so. But his foolishness is the sort that attacks only the great. Once let him know you care, and he'll be falling over himself to propose."

"Oh, don't!" Dinah begged, and her voice sounded chill and yet somehow piteous. "I couldn't—ever—marry him. I told him so—only the other day."

"What? He proposed, did he?" Sheer amazement sounded in Eustace's voice.

Dinah was not looking at him any longer. She sat rather huddled in her chair, as if a cold wind had caught her.

"Yes," she said in the same small, uneven voice. "He proposed. He didn't make love to me. In fact he—promised that he never would. But he thought—yes, that was it—he thought that presently I should be lonely, and he wanted me to know that he was willing to protect me."

"What a fool!" Eustace said. "And so you refused him! I don't wonder. I should have pitched something at him if I'd been you."

"Oh no! That wasn't why I refused. I had another reason." Dinah's head was bent low; he saw the hot colour she sought to hide. "I didn't know he cared," she whispered. "But even if—if I had known, I couldn't have said Yes. I never can say Yes now."

"Good heavens above!" he said. "Why not?"

"It's a reason I can't tell anyone," faltered Dinah.

"Nonsense!" he said, with a quick touch of his old imperiousness. "You can tell me."

She shook her head. "No. Not you. Not anyone."

"That is absurd," he said, with brief decision. "What is the reason? Out with it—quick, like a good child! If you could marry me, you can marry him."

"But I couldn't have married you," she protested, "if I'd known."

"It's something that's cropped up lately, is it?" He bent towards her, watching her keenly. "It can't be so very terrible."

"It is," she told him in distress.

He was silent a moment; then very suddenly he moved, put his arm around her, drew her close. "What is it, my elf? Tell me!" he whispered.

She hid her face against him with a little sob. It was odd, but at that moment she felt no fear of the man. He, whose fiery caresses had once appalled her, had by some means unknown possessed himself of her confidence so that she could not keep him at a distance. She did not even wish to do so.

After a few seconds, quiveringly she began to speak. "I don't know how to tell you. It's an awful thing to tell. You know, I—I've never been happy at home. My mother never liked me,—was often cruel to me." She shuddered suddenly and violently. "I never knew why—till that awful night—the last time I saw her. And then—and then she told me." She drew a little closer to him like a frightened child.

He held her against his breast. She was trembling all over. "Well?" he said gently.

Desperately she forced herself to continue. "I don't belong to—to my father—at all; only—only—to her."

"What?" he said.

She buried her shamed face a little deeper. "That was why—she married," she whispered.

"Your mother herself told you that?" Sir Eustace's voice was very low, but there was in it a danger-note that made her quail.

Someone was coming along the garden-path, but neither of them heard. Dinah was crying with piteous, long-drawn sobs. The telling of that tragic secret had wrung her very soul.

"Oh, don't be angry! You won't be angry?" she pleaded brokenly.

His hand was on her head. "My child, I am not angry with you," he said. "You were not to blame. There, dear! There! Don't cry! Isabel will be distressed if she finds out. We mustn't let her