call Death. And it is to
the watchers rather than to the passing soul itself that the wonder seems
to draw most close. To stand before the veil, to know that very soon it
must be lifted for the loved one to pass beyond, to wait for the glimpse
of that spirit-world from which only the frail wall of mortality divides
even the least spiritual, to watch as it were for the Gate of Death to
open and the great Revelation to flash for one blinding moment upon the
dazzled eyes that may not grasp the meaning of what they see; this is to
stand for a space within the very Sanctuary of God.

The awe of it and the wonder hung night and day over the little
rose-covered house on the heath above the sea where Isabel was breathing
forth the last of her broken earthly life. Dinah moved in that strange
atmosphere as one in a dream. She spent most of her time with Scott in a
silent companionship in which no worldly thoughts seemed to have any
part. The things of earth, all worry, all distress, were in abeyance, had
sunk to such infinitesimal proportions that she was scarcely aware of
them at all. It was as though they had climbed the steep mountain with
Isabel, and not till they turned again to descend could they be aware of
those things which lay so far below.

Without Scott, both doubts and fears would have been her portion, but
with him all terrors fell shadow-like away before her. She hardly
realized all that his presence meant to her during those days of waiting,
but she leaned upon him instinctively as upon a sure support. He never
failed her.

Of Eustace she saw but little. From the very first it was evident that
his place was nearer to Isabel than Scott's had ever been. He did not
shoulder Scott aside, but somehow as a matter of course he occupied the
position that the younger brother had sought to fill for the past seven
years. It was natural, it was inevitable. Dinah could have resented this
superseding at the outset had she not seen how gladly Scott gave place.
Later she realized that the ground on which they stood was too holy for
such considerations to have any weight with either brother. They were
united in the one supreme effort to make the way smooth for the sister
who meant so much to them both; and during all those days of waiting
Dinah never heard a harsh or impatient word upon the elder's lips. All
arrogance, all hardness, seemed to have fallen away from him as he trod
with them that mountain-path. Even old Biddy real