er with a happiness which even sleeping she did not dare
to analyse, scarcely to contemplate.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE CALL OF APOLLO

Dinah's strength came back to her in leaps and bounds, and three weeks
after the de Vignes's departure she was almost herself again. The season
was drawing to a close. The holidays were over, and English people were
turning homeward. Very reluctantly Isabel had to admit that her charge
was well enough for the journey back. Mrs. Bathurst wrote in an insistent
strain, urging that the time had come for her to return, and no further
excuse could be invented for keeping her longer.

They decided to return themselves and take Dinah to her home, Isabel
having determined to make the acquaintance of the redoubtable Mrs.
Bathurst, and persuade her to spare her darling to them again in the
summer. The coming parting was hard to face, so hard that Dinah could not
bear to speak of it. She shed a good many tears in private, as Isabel was
well aware; but she never willingly made any reference to the ordeal she
so dreaded.

The only time she voluntarily broached the subject was when she entreated
to be allowed to go down to the last dance that was to be held in the
hotel. It chanced that this was fixed for the night before their own
departure, and Isabel demurred somewhat; for though Dinah had shaken
off most of her invalid habits, she was still far from robust.

"You will be so tired in the morning, darling," she protested gently,
while Dinah knelt beside her, earnestly pleading. "You will get that
tiresome side-ache, and you won't be fit to travel."

"I shall--I shall," Dinah assured her. "Oh, please, dear, just this
once--just this once--let me have this one more fling! I shall never have
another chance. I'm sure I never shall."

Isabel's hand stroked the soft dark hair caressingly. She saw that Dinah
was very near to tears. "I don't believe I ought to say Yes, dear child,"
she said. "You know I hate to deny you anything. But if it were to do you
harm, I should never forgive myself."

"It couldn't! It shan't!" declared Dinah, almost incoherent in her
vehemence. "It isn't as if I wanted to dance every dance. I'd come and
sit out with you in between. And if I got tired, you could take me away.
I would go directly if you said so. Really I would."

She was hard to resist, kneeling there with her arms about Isabel and her
bright eyes lifted. Isabel took the sweet face between her hands and
k