“Mr. Grey is coming by a morning train to-morrow,” he said.  “May I bring him to call upon you in the afternoon?  I believe he wants to run through the wedding-service with you beforehand.”

He smiled as he said it, but Dinah could not smile in answer.  There was something ominous to her in that last sentence, something that made her think of the clanking of chains.  She was relieved to hear her father answer for her.

“Come by all means!  Nothing like a dress rehearsal to make things go smoothly.  I’ll tell my wife to expect you.”

Scott’s hand relinquished hers, and she felt suddenly cold.  She murmured a barely audible “Good night!” and turned away.

From the portico she glanced back and saw Sir Eustace leading Rose de Vigne to the ballroom.  The light shone full upon them.  They made a splendid couple.  And a sudden bizarre thought smote her.  This was what the gods had willed.  This had been the weaving of destiny; and she—­she—­had dared to intervene, frustrating, tearing the gilded, smooth-wrought threads apart.

Ah well!  It was done now.  It was too late to draw back.  But the wrath of the gods remained to be faced.  Already it was upon her, and there was no escape.

As one who hears a voice speaking from a far distance, she heard herself telling her father that all was well with her and she had spent an enjoyable evening.

Then she lay back in the car with clenched hands, and listened trembling to the thundering wheels of Destiny.

CHAPTER XV

THE SAPPHIRE FOR FRIENDSHIP

No girl ever worked harder in preparation for her own wedding than did Dinah on the following day.

That she had scarcely slept all night was a fact that no one suspected.  Work-a-day Dinah, as her father was wont to call her, was not an object of great solicitude to any in her home-circle, and for the first time in her life she was thankful that such was the case.

Her mother’s hard gipsy eyes watched only for delinquencies, and her rating tongue was actually a relief to Dinah after the dread solitude of those long hours.  She was like a prisoner awaiting execution, and even that harsh companionship was in a measure helpful to her.

The time passed with appalling swiftness.  When the luncheon hour arrived she was horrified to find that the morning had gone.  She could eat nothing, a fact which raised a jeering laugh from her mother and a chaffing remonstrance from her father.  Billy had gone riding on Rupert and had not returned.  Billy always came and went exactly as he pleased.

One or two more presents from friends of her father’s had arrived by the midday post.  Mrs. Bathurst unpacked them, admiring them with more than a touch of envy, assuring Dinah that she was a very lucky girl, luckier than she deserved to be; but Dinah, though she acquiesced, had no heart for presents.  She could only see—­as she had seen all through the night—­the piteous, marred face of a woman who had passed through such an intensity of suffering as she could only dimly guess at into the dark of utter despair.  She could only hear, whichever way she turned, the clanking of the chains that in so brief a time were to be welded irrevocably about herself.