e her. This was
how she would look on her wedding-day. There would be a wreath of
orange-blossoms of course; Isabel would see to that. And--yes, Isabel had
said that her bouquet should be composed of lilies-of-the-valley. She
even began to wish it were her wedding morning.

The glamour spread like a rosy dawning; she forgot the clouds that loomed
immediately ahead. Standing there in her night attire, poised like a
brown wood-nymph on the edge of a pool, she asked herself for the first
time if it were possible that she could have any pretensions to beauty.
It was not in the least likely, of course. Her mother had always railed
at her for the plainness of her looks. Did Eustace--did Scott--think her
plain? She wondered. She wondered.

A slight sound, the opening of a window, in the room next to hers, made
her start. That was Isabel's room. What was happening? It was three
o'clock in the morning. Could Isabel be ill?

Very softly she opened her own window and leaned forth. It was one of
those warm spring nights that come in the midst of March gales. There was
a scent of violets on the air. She thought again for a fleeting second of
Scott and their walk through fairyland that morning. And then she heard a
voice, pitched very low but throbbing with an eagerness unutterable, and
at once her thoughts were centred upon Isabel.

"Did you call me, my beloved? I am waiting! I am waiting!" said the
voice.

It went forth into the sighing darkness of the night, and Dinah held her
breath to listen, almost as if she expected to hear an answer.

There fell a long, long silence, and then there came a sound that struck
straight to her warm heart. It seemed to her that Isabel was weeping.

She left her window with the impetuosity of one actuated by an impulse
irresistible; she crossed her own room, and slipped out into the dark
passage just as she was. A moment or two she fumbled feeling her way; and
then her hand found Isabel's door. Softly she turned the handle, opened,
and peeped in.

Isabel was on her knees by the low window-sill. Her head with its crown
of silver hair was bowed upon her arm and they rested upon the bundle of
letters which Dinah had seen on the very first night that she had seen
Isabel. Old Biddy hovered shadow-like in the background. She made a sign
to Dinah as she entered, but Dinah was too intent upon her friend to
notice.

Fleet-footed she drew near, and as she approached a long bitter sigh
broke from Is