A little, sick feeling of doubt went through Dinah! Had she--by any evil chance--had she made a mistake?
And then the man's overwhelming personality swung suddenly through her consciousness, filling all her being, possessing her, dominating her. She flung the doubt from her, as one flings away a poisonous insect. He was her own--her very own; her lover, the first, the best,--Apollo the Magnificent!
In Isabel's room old Biddy Maloney stood, gazing down at her mistress with eyes of burning devotion.
"And is it yourself that's feeling better now?" she questioned fondly.
Isabel raised herself, smiling her sad smile. "Oh, Biddy," she said, "for myself I feel that all is well--all will be well. The dawn draws nearer--every hour."
Biddy shook her head with pursed lips. "Ye shouldn't talk so, mavourneen. It's the Almighty who has the ruling. Ye wouldn't wish to go before your time?"
"Before my time! Oh, Biddy! When I have lingered in the prison-house so long!" Slowly Isabel rose to her feet. She looked at Biddy almost whimsically. "I think He will take that into the reckoning," she said. "Do you know, Biddy, this is the second summons that has come to me? And I think--I think," her face was glorified again as the face of one who sees a vision--"I think the third will be the last."
Biddy's black eyes screwed up suddenly. She turned her face away.
"Will we be getting ready to go now, Miss Isabel?" she asked after a moment, in a voice that shook.
The glory died out of Isabel's face, though the reflection of it still lingered in her eyes. "I am very selfish, Biddy," she said. "Can you guess what Miss Dinah has just told me?"
"Arrah thin, I can," said Biddy, with a touch of aggressiveness. "I've seen it coming for a long time past. And ye didn't ought to allow it at all, Miss Isabel. It's a mistake, that's what it is. It's just a bad mistake."
"Not if he loves her, Biddy." Isabel spoke gently, but there was a hint of reproof in her voice.
Biddy, however, remained quite unabashed. "He love her!" she snorted. "As if he ever loved anybody besides himself! Talk about the lion and the lamb, Miss Isabel! It's a cruel shame to let her go to such as him. And what'll poor Master Scott do at all? And he worshipping the little fairy feet of her!"