"Yes, I am right," he said with conviction. "But Isabel, you will remember—it was spoken in confidence."
She gave a sharp sigh. "I shall remember dear," she said.
Again a brief silence fell between them; but Scott's eye no longer sought the sparkling water. They dwelt upon his sister's face. Pale as alabaster, clear-cut as though carven with a chisel, it rested upon the white pillow, and the stamp of a great peace lay upon the calm forehead and in the quiet of the deeply-sunken eyes. There were lines of suffering that yet lingered about the mouth, lines of weariness and of sorrow, but the old piteous look of craving had faded quite away. The bitter despair that had so haunted Dinah had passed into the stillness of a great patience. There was about her at that time the sacred hush that falls before the dawn.
After a little she became aware of his quiet regard, and turned her head with a smile. "Well, Stumpy? What is it?"
"I was just wondering what had happened to you," he made answer.
Her smile deepened. "I will tell you, dear," she said. "I have come within sight of the mountain-top at last."
"And you are satisfied?" he said, in a low voice.
Her eyes shone with a soft brightness that seemed to illumine her whole face. "Satisfied that my beloved is waiting for me and that I shall meet him in the dawning?" she said. "Oh yes, I have known that in my heart for a long time. It troubled me terribly when I lost his letters. They had been such a link, and for a while I was in outer darkness. And then—by degrees, after little Dinah came back to me—I began to find that after all there were other links. Helping her in her trouble helped me to bear my own. And I came to see that ministering to a need outside one's own is the surest means of finding comfort in sorrow for oneself. I have been very selfish Stumpy. I have been gradually waking to that fact for a long while. I used to immerse myself in those letters to try and get the feeling of his dear presence. Very, very often I didn't succeed. And I know now that it was because I was forcing myself to look back and not forward. I think material things are apt to make one do that. But when material things are taken quite away, then one is forced upon the spiritual. And that is what has happened to me. No one can take anything from me now because what I possess is laid up in store for me. I am moving forward towards it every day."
She ceased to speak, and again for the space of seconds the silence fell.
Scott broke it, speaking slowly, as if not wholly certain of the wisdom of speech. "I did not know," he said, "that you had lost those letters."