e never dreamed again that golden dream of Greatheart in his
shining armour with the light of a great worship in his eyes. That had
been a wild flight of presumptuous fancy that never could come true.

His was not the only hand to which she clung during those terrible days
of fear and suffering. Another presence was almost constantly beside her
night and day,--a tender, motherly presence that watched over and
ministered to her with a devotion that never slackened. For some time
Dinah could not find a name for this gracious and comforting presence,
but one day when a figure clothed in a violet dressing-gown stooped over
her to give her nourishment an illuminating memory came to her, and from
that moment this loving nurse of hers filled a particular niche in her
heart which was dedicated to the Purple Empress. She could think of no
other name for her. That quiet and stately presence seemed to demand a
royal appellation. In her calmer moments Dinah liked to lie and watch the
still face with its crown of silvery hair. She loved the touch of the
white hands that always knew with unerring intuition exactly what needed
to be done. There seemed to be healing in their touch.

Very strangely the thought of Eustace never came to her, or coming, but
flitted unrecorded and undetained across the surface of her mind. He had
receded with all the rest of the world into the far, far distance that
lay behind her. He had no place in this region of many shadows where
these others so tenderly guided her wandering feet. No one else had any
place there save old Biddy who, being never absent, seemed a part of the
atmosphere, and the doctor who came and went like a presiding genie in
that waste of desolation.

She did not welcome his visits, although he was invariably kind, for on
one occasion she caught a low murmur from him to the effect that her
mother had better come to her, and this suggestion had thrown her into a
most painful state of apprehension. She had implored them weeping to let
her mother stay away, and they had hushed her with soothing promises; but
she never saw the doctor thereafter without a nervous dread that she
might also see her mother's gaunt figure accompanying him. And she was
sure--quite sure--that her mother would be very angry with her when she
saw her helplessness.

Nightmares of her mother's advent began to trouble her. She would start
up in anguish of soul, scarcely believing in the soothing arms that held
her t