to her, some new thing, that might
serve as an anchor in her distress even though it might not bring her
ultimate deliverance.

Or stay! Was it a new thing? Was it not rather the unveiling of something
which had always been? Her heart quickened and became audible in the
stillness. She clasped her hands tightly together. And in that moment
Scott turned his head and looked at her.

No word did he speak; only that straight, calm look--as of a man clean of
soul and fearless of evil. It told her nothing, that look, it opened to
her no secret chamber; neither did it probe her own quivering heart. It
was the kindly, reassuring look of a friend ready to stand by, ready to
lend a sure hand if such were needed.

But by that look Dinah's revelation burst upon her. In that moment she
saw her own soul as never before had she seen it; and all the little
things, the shallow things, the earthly things, faded quite away. With a
deep, deep breath she opened her eyes upon the Vision of Love....

"Shall we go?" murmured Scott.

She looked at him vaguely for a second, feeling stunned and blinded by
the radiance of that revelation. A black veil seemed to be descending
upon her; she put out a groping hand.

He took it, and his hold was sustaining. He led her in silence down the
long, shadowy building to the porch.

He would have led her further, but a sudden, heavy shower was falling,
and he had to pause. She sank down trembling upon the stone seat.

"Scott! Oh, Scott!" she said. "Help me!"

He made a slight, involuntary movement that passed unexplained. "I am
here to help you, my dear," he said, his voice very quiet and even. "You
mustn't be scared, you know. You'll get through it all right."

She wrung her hands together in her extremity. "It isn't that,"
she told him. "I--I suppose I've got to go through it--as you say so.
But--but--you'll think me very wicked, yet I must tell you--I've made--a
dreadful mistake. I'm marrying for money, for position, to get away from
home,--anything but love. I don't love him. I know now that I never
shall--never can! And I'd give anything--anything--anything to escape!"

It was spoken. All the long-pent misgivings that had culminated in awful
certainty the night before had so wrought in her that now--now that the
revelation had come--she could no longer keep silence. But of that
revelation she would sooner have died than speak.

Scott heard that wrung confession, standing before her with a sti