ht of
waiting.

He paused a moment, touched her shoulder. "Go and rest, child!" he
muttered. "I will call you if she wakes."

She sent him a faint smile and flitted by him into the passage. How
could she rest on a night like this, with the vague whisperings of the
spirit-world all about her? Besides, in another hour the darkness would
be over--the Dawn would come! Not for all the world would she miss that
wonderful coming of a new day--the day which Isabel was awaiting in that
dumb passivity of unquestioning patience. They had come so far up the
mountain-track together; she must be with her when the morning found
them on the summit.

But it was Eustace's turn to watch, and she moved towards her
own room, through the open windows of which the vague murmur and
splash of the sleeping sea drifted like the accompaniment of far-off
music--undreamed-of Alleluias.

The dim glow of a lamp lay across her path, like a barrier staying her
feet. Almost involuntarily she paused before a half-open door. It was as
though some unseen force compelled her. And, so pausing, there came to
her a sound that gripped her like a hand upon her heart--it was the
broken whispering of a man in an agony of prayer.

It was not by her own desire that she stood to listen. The anguish of
that voice held her, so that she was powerless to move.

"O God! O God!" The words pierced her with their entreaty; it was a cry
from the very depths. "The mistake was mine. Let me bear the
consequences! But save her--O save her--from further suffering!" A
momentary silence, and then, more desperately still: "O God--if Thou art
anywhere--hear--and help! Let me bear whatever Thou wilt! But spare
her--spare her! She has borne so much!"

A terrible sob choked the gasping utterance. There fell a silence so
tense, so poignant with pain, that the girl upon the threshold trembled
as one physically afraid. Yet she could not turn and flee. She felt as if
it were laid upon her to stand and witness this awful struggle of a soul
in torment. But that it should be Scott--the wise, the confident, the
unafraid--passing alone through this place of desolation, sent the blood
to her heart in a great wave of consternation. If Scott failed--if the
sword of Greatheart were broken--it seemed to her that nothing could be
left in all the world, as if even the coming Dawn must be buried in
darkness.

Was it for Isabel he was praying thus? She supposed it must be, though
she had felt al