hing more than that. What was it?"

She tried not to tell him. She would have given almost all she had to
keep silence on the subject; but somehow she had to speak. Under the
pressure of that kind hand, she could not maintain her silence any
longer.

"I was thinking of--of your brother," she told him with tears. "I was
wondering if--if he were dancing, and--and I not there!"

It was out at last, and she hid her face in overwhelming shame because
she had given him a glimpse of her secret heart which none had ever seen
before. She wondered with anguish what he thought of her, if she had
forfeited his good opinion of her for ever, if indeed he would ever speak
to her with kindness again.

And then very quietly he did speak, and in a moment all her anxiety was
gone. "He may have been dancing," he said. "But I believe he has been
very bored ever since the weather broke. I wonder if he might come and
see you. Would it be too much for you? Should you mind?"

"Mind!" Dinah's tears were gone in a flash. She turned shining eyes upon
him. "But would he come?" she said, with sudden misgiving. "Wouldn't that
bore him too?"

Scott smiled at her in a way that set her mind wholly at rest. "No, I
think not," he said. "When shall he come? This evening?"

Dinah slipped a confiding hand into his. She felt that now Scott knew and
was not scandalized, there was no further need for embarrassment. "Oh,
just any time," she said. "But hadn't I better get up? It would look
better, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know about that," said Scott. "You had better ask the doctor."

Dinah's face flushed red. "Need the doctor know?" she asked him shyly. "I
am--so afraid of his saying I am well enough to go home. And that--that
will end everything."

"He shan't say that," Scott promised, still smiling in the fashion that
so warmed her heart. "I will drop him a hint."

"Oh, you are good!" Dinah said very earnestly. "I think you are the
kindest man I have ever met."

He laughed at that. "My dear, it is easy to be kind to you," he said.

"I'm sure I don't know why," she protested. "I'm getting very spoilt and
selfish."

He patted her hand gently and laid it down. "You are--just you," he said,
and rising with the words rather abruptly he left her.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE LIGHTS OF A CITY

"May I come in?" said Sir Eustace.

He stood in the doorway, a gigantic figure to Dinah's unaccustomed eyes,
and looked in upon her with a careless smile on