"You shall go in a moment, dear; but just tell me one thing—did Mr. Herrick ask you to be his wife?"
"Not exactly—I would not let him go as far as that; but, Die, he loves me so, and he is so unhappy." Then Dinah sighed, and her hand dropped from her sister's arm.
"You had better go," she returned. "I see Mullins crossing the bridge. If David comes I will make an excuse for your absence;" and Elizabeth nodded and turned away. Dinah's heart was very heavy as she stood looking down upon the Pool. It is the looker-on who sees most of the game, and weeks ago she had vainly tried to open Elizabeth's eyes to a sense of her danger.
"He has never said a word to me that the whole world might not hear—I don't believe he ever will," Elizabeth had replied obstinately; but Dinah knew that she was wilfully deceiving herself—that her intuition was truer than her words, and that in Malcolm Herrick's presence she was always on guard, as if she feared an invasion of her woman's kingdom.
Dinah could have wept too in her grievous disappointment and passionate pity, for Elizabeth's choice seemed to her a great mistake. David Carlyon was a dear fellow, and as good as gold, but he was not equal to Malcolm.
"If only they had met a year ago," she thought, "before David's influence grew so strong, she would surely have discovered then that they were made for each other. Mr. Herrick is just the sort of man she would have admired. There is something striking and original about him, and then in spite of his cleverness he is so simple and good. Oh, Betty, my darling," she went on, "why could you not have given me such a brother! I should have been so proud of him!" And then Dinah checked herself in very shame, for she remembered how she had promised Elizabeth the previous evening that she would take David Carlyon to her sisterly heart.
It was not a very cheerful birthday tea, though each one of the trio tried to do his or her best to promote innocent hilarity. Elizabeth talked a great deal, but her face was still flushed, and she rather avoided her lover's eyes, and as for David he talked principally to Dinah. He told funny little parish stories which made her laugh, and to which Elizabeth listened with a manifest effort, and he took no notice when she chimed in with some irrelevant remark. Dinah wondered to herself more than once if he really had not noticed that Elizabeth's eyelids were still reddened, in spite of cold water and eau de Cologne. David was certainly a little dense in his happiness, she thought, and then she sighed involuntarily as she thought of the lonely man who had left them.
"He will take it hardly," she said to herself. "His nature is intense, and he will suffer more than most men;" and as this thought passed through her mind, she looked up and found David's keen, bright eyes fixed on her, and coloured a little as though he had read her thoughts.
When tea was over, Dinah made some transparent little excuse to go back to the house, for in these sweet, early days of their happiness she knew well that the lovers would have much to say to each other. And she was not wrong: before she was out of sight David had flung himself down at Elizabeth's feet, and had taken her hands.
"What is it, dearest?" he said tenderly. "You have been shedding tears—do you think I did not know that?" Then Elizabeth blushed as though she were a child discovered in a fault. "Tell me all about it, darling," he whispered; but she shook her head.