! For I can't--I
can't. I want to go away. I want to be quiet." She broke down suddenly.
The strain was past, the battle over. She had vanquished him, how she
scarcely knew; but her own brief strength was tottering now. "Let me go
home!" she begged. "Tell Scott I've gone! Tell everyone there won't be a
wedding after all! Say I'm dreadfully sorry! It's my fault--all my fault!
I ought to have known!" Her tears blinded her, silenced her. She turned
towards the door.

"Won't you say good-bye to me?" Eustace said.

Her voice was low and very steady. The glow was gone. He was calm again,
absolutely calm. With the failure of that one urgent appeal, he seemed to
have withdrawn his forces, accepting defeat.

She turned back gropingly. "Good-bye--good-bye--" she
whispered, "and--thank you!"

He put his arm around her, and bending kissed her forehead. "Don't cry,
dear!" he said.

His manner was perfectly kind, supremely gentle. She hardly knew him
thus. Again her heart smote her in overwhelming self-reproach. "Oh,
Eustace, forgive me for hurting you so--forgive me--for all I've said!"

"For telling me the truth?" he said. "No, I don't forgive you for that."

She broke down utterly and sobbed aloud. "I wish--I wish I hadn't! How
could I do it? I hate myself!"

"No--no," he said. "It's all right. You've done nothing wrong. Run home,
child! Don't cry! Don't cry!"

His hand touched her hair under the soft cap, touched and lingered. But
he did not hold her to him.

"Run home!" he said again.

"And--and--you won't--won't--tell--Scott?" she whispered through her
tears.

"But I don't think even I am such a bounder as that!" he said gently. "Do
you?"

She lifted her face impulsively. She kissed him with quivering lips.
"No--no. I didn't mean it. Good-bye Oh, good-bye!"

He kissed her in return. "Good-bye!" he said.

And so they parted.

CHAPTER XIX

THE FURNACE

The bridal dress with its filmy veil still lay in its white box--a fairy
garment that had survived the catastrophe. Dinah sat and looked at it
dully. The light of her single candle shimmered upon the soft folds. How
beautiful it was!

She had been sitting there for hours, after a terrible scene with her
mother downstairs, and from acute distress she had passed into a state of
torpid misery that enveloped her like a black cloud. She felt almost too
exhausted, too numbed, to think. Her thoughts wandered drearily back and
forth. She was sure she had