st, I think it would be better if
you went alone. She is quite determined that nothing shall interfere with
your coming happiness, so you mustn't let her think you shocked or
grieved. I thought it best to prepare you, that's all."

He led her gravely along the passage, and presently stopped outside a
closed door. He knocked three times as of old, and Dinah stood waiting as
one on the threshold of a holy place.

The door, was opened by Biddy, and he pressed her forward. "Don't stay
long!" he said. "She is very tired to-night, and Eustace will be wanting
you."

She squeezed his hand in answer and passed within.

Biddy's wrinkled brown face smiled a brief welcome under its snowy cap.
She motioned her to approach. "Ye'll not stay long, Miss Dinah dear," she
whispered. "The poor lamb's very tired to-night."

Dinah went forward.

The window was wide open, and the rush of the west wind filled the room.
Isabel was lying in bed with her face to the night, wide-eyed, intent,
still as death.

Noiselessly Dinah drew near. There was something in the atmosphere--a
ghostly, hovering presence--that awed her. In the sound of that racing
wind she seemed to hear the beat of mighty wings.

She uttered no word, she was almost afraid to speak. But when she reached
the bed, when she bent and looked into Isabel's face, she caught her
breath in a gasping cry. For she was shocked--shocked unutterably--by
what she saw. Shrivelled as the face of one who had come through fiery
tortures, ashen-grey, with eyes in which the anguish of the burnt-out
flame still lingered, eyes that were dead to hope, eyes that were open
only to the darkness, such was the face upon which she looked.

Biddy was by her side in a moment, speaking in a rapid whisper. "Arrah
thin, Miss Dinah darlint, don't ye be scared at all! She'll speak to ye
in a minute, sure. It's only that she's tired to-night. She'll be more
herself like in the morning."

Dinah hung over the still figure. Biddy's whispering was as the buzzing
of a fly. She heard it with the outer sense alone.

"Isabel!" she said; and again with a passionate earnestness,
"Isabel--darling--my darling--what has happened to you?"

At the sound of that pleading voice Isabel moved, seeming as it were to
return slowly from afar.

"Why, Dinah dear!" she said.

Her dark eyes smiled up at her in welcome, but it was a smile that cut
her to the heart with its aloofness, its total lack of gladness.

Dinah stooped