Several moments passed, and then softly he returned. "No change!" he whispered. "Eustace will call us--when it comes."
She slipped her hand back into his, without speaking. He made her sit upon the window-seat, and knelt himself upon it, his arm about her shoulders, his fingers clasping hers.
She could see his face but vaguely in the dimness, but many times during that holy hour before the dawn, though he spoke no word, she felt that he was praying or giving thanks.
Slowly the twilight turned into a velvet dusk. The great Change was drawing near. The silence lay like a thinning veil of mist upon the mountain-top. The clouds were parting in the East, all tinged with gold, like burnished gates flung back for the royal coming of the sun-god. The stillness that lay upon all the waiting earth was sacred as the hush of prayer.
Their faces were turned towards the spreading glow. It shone upon them as it shone upon all beside, widening, intensifying, till the whole earth lay wrapped in solemn splendour--and then at last, through the open gates, red, royal, triumphant, the sun-god came.
There came a moment in which all things were touched with the glory, all things were made new. And in that moment, sudden as a flash of light, a bird of pure white plumage appeared before their eyes, hovered an instant; then flew, mounting on wide, gleaming wings, straight into the dawn....
Even while they watched, it vanished through the gates of gold. And only the gracious sunshine of a new day remained....
A low voice spoke from the chamber of Death. They turned from the vision and saw Eustace standing in the doorway.
He was very white, but absolutely calm. There was a nobility about him at that moment that sent a queer little throb to Dinah's heart. He held out his hand, not to her, but to Scott. "She is gone," he said.
Scott went to him; she saw their hands meet. There was no agitation about either of them.
"In her sleep?" Scott said.
"Yes. We didn't even know--till it was over."
They turned into the room, still hand grasping hand.
And Dinah knelt up and stretched out her arms to the shining morning sky. Something within her was whispering that she and Scott had seen more of the passing of Isabel than any of those who had watched beside her bed. And in the quiet of that wonderful morning, she offered her quivering thanks to God.