Dinah was crying softly. She could find no words to utter.
So for awhile they clung together, the woman who had suffered and come at last through bitter tribulation into peace, and the child whose feet yet halted on the threshold of the enchanted country that the other had long since traversed and left behind.
Nothing further passed between them. Isabel had said her say, and for some reason Dinah was powerless to speak. She could think of no words to utter, and deep in her heart she was half afraid to break the silence. That sudden agitation of hers had left her oddly confused and embarrassed. She shrank from pursuing the matter further.
Yet for a long time that night she lay awake pondering, wondering. Certainly Scott was different from all other men, totally, undeniably different. He seemed to dwell on a different plane. She could not grasp what it was about him that set him thus apart. But what Isabel had said showed her very clearly that the spirit that dwelt behind that unimposing exterior was a force that counted, and could hold its own against odds.
She slept at last with the thought of him still present in her mind. And in her dreams the vision of Greatheart in his shining armour came to her again, filling her with a happiness which even sleeping she did not dare to analyse, scarcely to contemplate.