ntervened between him and his desire.

The madness of his passion was yet beating in his veins, but this--this
was another and a stronger element before which all else became
contemptible. The soul of the man had sprung from sleep like an awaking
giant. Half in wonder and half in awe, he watched the kindling of the
Divine Spark that outshineth every earthly fire.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BROKEN HEART

The return home was to Dinah like a sudden plunge into icy depths after a
brief sojourn in the tropics. The change of atmosphere was such that she
seemed actually to feel it in her bones, and her whole being, physical
and mental contracted in consequence. Her mother treated her with all her
customary harshness, and Dinah, grown sensitive by reason of much
petting, shrank almost with horror whenever she came in contact with the
iron will that had subjugated her from babyhood.

Before the first week was over, she was counting the days to her
deliverance; but of this fact she hinted nothing in her letters to her
lover. These were carefully worded, demure little epistles that gave him
not the smallest inkling of her state of mind. She was far too much
afraid of him to betray that.

Had she been writing to Scott she could scarcely have repressed it. In
one letter to Isabel indeed something of her yearning for the vanished
sunshine leaked out; but very strangely Isabel did not respond to the
pathetic little confidence, and Dinah did not venture to repeat it.
Perhaps Isabel was shocked.

The last week came, and with it the arrival of wedding-presents from her
father and friends that lifted Dinah out of her depression and even
softened her mother into occasional good-humour. Preparations for the
wedding began in earnest. Billy, released somewhat before the holidays
for the occasion, returned home, and everything took a more cheerful
aspect.

Dinah could not feel that her mother's attitude towards herself had
materially altered. It was sullen and threatening at times, almost as if
she resented her daughter's good fortune, and she lived in continual
dread of an outbreak of the cruel temper that had so embittered her home
life. But Billy's presence made a difference even to that. His influence
was entirely wholesome, and he feared no one.

"Why don't you stand up to her?" he said to his sister on one occasion
when he found her weeping after an overwhelming brow-beating over some
failure in the kitchen. "She'd think somet