“She is waiting?” Eustace wheeled swiftly.

Scott was already half-way across the room.  He strode forward, and intercepted him.

“You can go,” he said curtly.  “You have done your part.  This business is mine, not yours.”

Scott stood still.  “I have promised to see her through,” he said.  “I must keep my promise.”

Sir Eustace looked for a single instant as if he would strike him down; and then abruptly, inexplicably he gave way.

“Very well,” he said.  “Fetch her in!”

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TRUTH

At Scott’s quiet summons Dinah entered.  What she had passed through during those minutes of waiting was written in her face.  She looked deathly.

Sir Eustace did not move to meet her.  He stood by the table, very upright, very stern, uncompromisingly silent.

Dinah gave him one quivering glance, and turned appealingly to Scott.

“Don’t be nervous!” he said gently.  “There is no need.  I have told him your wish.”

She was terrified, but the ordeal had to be faced.  She summoned all her strength, and went forward.

“Oh, Eustace,” she said piteously, “I am so dreadfully sorry.”

He looked down at her, his face like a marble mask.  “So,” he said, “you want to throw me over!”

She clasped her hands very tightly before her.  “Oh, I know it’s hateful of me,” she said.

He made a slight, disdainful gesture.  “Did you make up your mind or did Scott make it up for you?”

“No, no!” she cried in distress.  “It was not his doing.  I—­I just told him, that was all.”

“And you now desire him for a witness,” suggested Sir Eustace cynically.

Dinah looked again towards Scott.  He stood against the mantelpiece, as grimly upright as his brother and again oddly she was struck by the similarity between them.  She could not have said wherein it lay, but she had never seen it more marked.

He spoke very quietly in answer to her look.  “I have promised to stay for as long as you want me, but if you wish to be alone with Eustace for a few minutes, I will wait in the conservatory.”

“Yes, let him do that!” Imperiously Eustace accepted the suggestion.  “We shall not keep him long.”

Dinah stood hesitating.  Scott was looking at her very steadily and reassuringly.  His eyes seemed to be telling her that she had nothing to fear.  But he would not move without her word, and in the end reluctantly she gave in.

“Very well,” she said, in a low voice.  “If—­if you will wait!”

“I will,” Scott said.

He limped across the room to the open door, passed through, closed it softly behind him.  And Dinah was left to face her monster alone.

She did not look at Sir Eustace in the first dreadful moments that followed Scott’s exit.  She was horribly afraid.  There was to her something inexpressibly ruthless in his very silence.  She longed yet dreaded to hear him speak.