that imperious frown on his
face holding out Isabel's treasure with a curt, "Take this thing away!"
She saw herself leap up and seize it from his intolerant grasp. She saw
Isabel's outstretched, pleading hands, and the piteous hunger in her
eyes....

When Isabel came to her that night, her face was all softened with
mother-love. She drew Dinah to her breast, kissing her very tenderly.

"Did you want me to come and take care of you, my darling?"

Dinah's heart smote her for the deception, but she answered bravely
enough, "Oh, Isabel, yes, yes! You are so good to me, I want you always."

"Dear heart!" Isabel said, with a sigh, and folded her closer as though
she would guard her against all the world.

She was the first to fall asleep notwithstanding, while Dinah lay
motionless and troubled far into the night. She wished that Biddy would
give her permission to tell Scott, for without that permission such a
step seemed like a betrayal of confidence. But for some reason Biddy
evidently thought that Scott had enough on his shoulders just then. And
so it seemed, she could only wait--only wait.

She did not want to burden Scott unduly either, and there was something
about him just now, something of a repressing nature, that held her back
from confiding in him too freely. He seemed to have raised a barrier
between them since their return to England which no intimacy ever quite
succeeded in scaling. Full of brotherly kindness though he was, the old
frank fellowship was gone. It was as though he had realized her
dependence upon him, and were trying with the utmost gentleness to make
her stand alone.

Dinah slept at last from sheer weariness, and forgot her troubles. She
must not tell Scott, she could not tell Eustace, and so there was no
other course but silence. But the anxiety of it weighed upon her even
through her slumber. Life was far more interesting than of yore. But
never, never before had it been so full of doubts and fears. The
complexity of it all was like an endless net, enmeshing her however
warily she stepped.

And always, and always, at the back of her mind there lurked the dread
conviction that one day the net would be drawn close, and she would find
herself a helpless prisoner in the grip of a giant.

CHAPTER XII

THE DIVINE SPARK

With the morning Dinah found her anxieties less oppressive. Isabel was
becoming so much more like herself that she was able to put the matter
from her and in a mea