His look was wholly kind as he uttered the last words.  He held her hand in the close grip of a friend.

“Don’t let that insane humility of his be his ruin!” he urged.  “He’s a fool.  I’ve always said so.  But his foolishness is the sort that attacks only the great.  Once let him know you care, and he’ll be falling over himself to propose.”

“Oh, don’t!” Dinah begged, and her voice sounded chill and yet somehow piteous.  “I couldn’t—­ever—­marry him.  I told him so—­only the other day.”

“What?  He proposed, did he?” Sheer amazement sounded in Eustace’s voice.

Dinah was not looking at him any longer.  She sat rather huddled in her chair, as if a cold wind had caught her.

“Yes,” she said in the same small, uneven voice.  “He proposed.  He didn’t make love to me.  In fact he—­promised that he never would.  But he thought—­yes, that was it—­he thought that presently I should be lonely, and he wanted me to know that he was willing to protect me.”

“What a fool!” Eustace said.  “And so you refused him!  I don’t wonder.  I should have pitched something at him if I’d been you.”

“Oh no!  That wasn’t why I refused.  I had another reason.”  Dinah’s head was bent low; he saw the hot colour she sought to hide.  “I didn’t know he cared,” she whispered.  “But even if—­if I had known, I couldn’t have said Yes.  I never can say Yes now.”

“Good heavens above!” he said.  “Why not?”

“It’s a reason I can’t tell anyone,” faltered Dinah.

“Nonsense!” he said, with a quick touch of his old imperiousness.  “You can tell me.”

She shook her head.  “No.  Not you.  Not anyone.”

“That is absurd,” he said, with brief decision.  “What is the reason?  Out with it—­quick, like a good child!  If you could marry me, you can marry him.”

“But I couldn’t have married you,” she protested, “if I’d known.”

“It’s something that’s cropped up lately, is it?” He bent towards her, watching her keenly.  “It can’t be so very terrible.”

“It is,” she told him in distress.

He was silent a moment; then very suddenly he moved, put his arm around her, drew her close.  “What is it, my elf?  Tell me!” he whispered.

She hid her face against him with a little sob.  It was odd, but at that moment she felt no fear of the man.  He, whose fiery caresses had once appalled her, had by some means unknown possessed himself of her confidence so that she could not keep him at a distance.  She did not even wish to do so.

After a few seconds, quiveringly she began to speak.  “I don’t know how to tell you.  It’s an awful thing to tell.  You know, I—­I’ve never been happy at home.  My mother never liked me,—­was often cruel to me.”  She shuddered suddenly and violently.  “I never knew why—­till that awful night—­the last time I saw her.  And then—­and then she told me.”  She drew a little closer to him like a frightened child.