He took the hand and held it. "My dear, don't cry!" he urged gently. "I knew you wouldn't have me really. I only thought I would just place myself completely at your disposal in case--some day--you might be willing to give me the chance to serve you in any capacity whatever. There! It is over. We are as we were--friends." He smiled at her with the words, and after a moment stooped and lightly touched her fingers with his lips. "Come!" he said gently. "I haven't frightened you anyway. Have I?" "No," she whispered. His hand clasped hers for a second or two longer, then quietly let it go. "Don't be distressed!" he said, "I will never do it again. I am now--and always--your trusty friend." And with that he rose in his slow way, paused to light another cigarette, smiled again upon her, and softly went indoors. CHAPTER XXVI THE LAST SUMMONS There is nought in life more solemn than the waiting hush that falls before the coming of that great Change which men call Death. And it is to the watchers rather than to the passing soul itself that the wonder seems to draw most close. To stand before the veil, to know that very soon it must be lifted for the loved one to pass beyond, to wait for the glimpse of that spirit-world from which only the frail wall of mortality divides even the least spiritual, to watch as it were for the Gate of Death to open and the great Revelation to flash for one blinding moment upon the dazzled eyes that may not grasp the meaning of what they see; this is to stand for a space within the very Sanctuary of God. The awe of it and the wonder hung night and day over the little rose-covered house on the heath above the sea where Isabel was breathing forth the last of her broken earthly life. Dinah moved in that strange atmosphere as one in a dream. She spent most of her time with Scott in a silent companionship in which no worldly thoughts seemed to have any part. The things of earth, all worry, all distress, were in abeyance, had sunk to such infinitesimal proportions that she was scarcely aware of them at all. It was as though they had climbed the steep mountain with Isabel, and not till they turned again to descend could they be aware of those things which lay so far below. Without Scott, both doubts and fears would have been her portion, but with him all terrors fell shadow-like away before her. She hardly realized all that his presence meant to her during those days of waiting, but she leaned upon him instinctively as upon a sure support. He never failed her.