rness that was piteous.
"You won't leave me? You won't let me be alone with him? He can make
me do anything--anything--when I am alone with him. Oh, he is terrible
enough--even when he is not angry. He told me once that--that--if I were
to slip out of his reach, he would follow--and kill me!"

The brightness returned to Scott's eyes; they shone with an almost steely
gleam. "You needn't be afraid of that," he said quietly. "Now tell me,
Dinah, for I want to know; how long have you known that you didn't want
to marry him?"

But Dinah shrank at the question, as though he had probed a wound.
"Oh, I can't tell you that! As long as I have realized that I was bound
to him--I have been afraid! And now--now that it has come so close--" She
broke off. "Oh, but I can't draw back now," she said hopelessly.
"Think--only think--what it will mean!"

Scott was silent for a few seconds, then: "If it would be easier for you
to go on," he said slowly, "perhaps--in the end--it may be better for
you; because he honestly loves you, and I think his love may make a
difference--in the end. Possibly you are nearer to loving him even now
than you imagine. If it is the dread of hurting him--not angering
him--that holds you back, then I do not think you would be doing wrong to
marry him. If you are just scared by the thought of to-morrow and
possibly the day after--"

"Oh, but it isn't that! It isn't that!" Dinah cried the words out
passionately like a prisoner who sees the door of his cell closing
finally upon him. "It's because I'm not his! I don't belong to
him! I don't want to belong to him! The very thought makes me
feel--almost--sick!"

"Then there is someone else," Scott said, with grave conviction.

"Ah!" It was not so much a word as the sharp intake of breath that
follows the last and keenest thrust of the probe that has reached the
object of its search. Dinah suddenly became rigid and yet vibrant as
stretched wire. Her silence was the silence of the victim who dreads so
unspeakably the suffering to come as to be scarcely aware of present
anguish.

But Scott was merciful. He withdrew the probe and very pitifully he
closed the wound that he had opened. "No, no!" he said. "That has nothing
to do with me--or with Eustace either. But it makes your case absolutely
plain. Come with me now--before you feel any worse about it--and ask him
to give you your release!"

"Oh, Scott!" She looked up at him at last, and though there was a measur