"Ah!" It was not so much a word as the sharp intake of breath that follows the last and keenest thrust of the probe that has reached the object of its search. Dinah suddenly became rigid and yet vibrant as stretched wire. Her silence was the silence of the victim who dreads so unspeakably the suffering to come as to be scarcely aware of present anguish.
But Scott was merciful. He withdrew the probe and very pitifully he closed the wound that he had opened. "No, no!" he said. "That has nothing to do with me—or with Eustace either. But it makes your case absolutely plain. Come with me now—before you feel any worse about it—and ask him to give you your release!"
"Oh, Scott!" She looked up at him at last, and though there was a measure of relief in her eyes, her face was deathly. "Oh, Scott,—dare I do that?"
"I shall be there," he said.
"Yes,—yes, you will be there! You won't leave me? Promise!" She clasped his arm in entreaty.
He looked into her eyes, and there was a great kindness in his own—-the kindness of Greatheart arming himself to defend his pilgrims. "Yes, I promise that," he said, adding, "unless I leave you at your own desire."
"You will never do that," Dinah said and smiled with quivering lips. "You are good to me. Oh, you are good! But—but—"
"But what?" he questioned gently.
"He may refuse to set me free," she said desperately. "What then?"
"My dear, no one is married by force now-a-days," he said.