At his desire she had refrained from entering Isabel’s death-chamber.  At his desire she was to leave that day for the Dower House that was to be their home.  Biddy would accompany her thither.  The place was ready for occupation, for by Isabel’s wish the work had gone on, though both she and Scott had known that they would never share a home there.  It almost seemed as if she had foreseen the fulfilment of her earnest wish.  And here Dinah was to await her husband.

“I won’t come to you till the funeral is over,” he said to her.  “I must be with Eustace.  You won’t be unhappy?”

No, she would not be unhappy.  She had never been so near to Death before, but she was neither frightened nor dismayed.  She stood in the shadow indeed, but she looked forth from it over a world of such sunshine as filled her heart with quivering gladness.

He did not want her to attend the funeral at Willowmount, would not, if he could help it, suffer her so much as to see the trappings of woe; and in this Dinah acquiesced also, comprehending fully the motive that underlay his wish.  She knew that the earthly formalities, though they had to be faced, were to Scott something of the nature of a grim farce in which, while he could not escape it himself, he was determined that she should take no part.  He was not mourning for Isabel.  He would not pretend to mourn.  Her death was to him but as the opening wide of a prison-door to one who had long lain captive, pining for liberty.  He would follow the poor worn body to its grave rather with thanksgiving than with grief.  And realizing so well that this was his inevitable feeling, even as in a smaller degree it had become her own, Dinah agreed without demur to his wish to spare her all the jarring details, the travesty of mourning, that could not fail to strike a false chord in her soul.

It was well for her that she had Biddy to think of.  The old woman was pathetically eager to serve her.  She had in fact attached herself to Dinah in a fashion that went to her heart.  It was Miss Isabel’s wish that she should take care of her, she told her tremulously, and Dinah, knew that it had been equally her friend’s wish that she should care for Biddy.

And Biddy was very good.  Probably in accordance with Scott’s desire, she made a great effort to throw off all gloom, and undoubtedly her own sense of loss and bereavement was greatly lessened by the consciousness of Dinah’s need of her.

“Time enough to weep later,” she told herself, as she lay down in the room adjoining Dinah’s on that first night in the Dower House.  “She’ll not be wanting old Biddy when Master Scott comes to her.”

The two days that followed were very fully occupied.  There were curtains and pictures to hang, furniture to be arranged, and many things to be unpacked.  Dinah went to the work with zest.  She did not know when Scott would come.  But it would be soon, she knew it would be soon; and she thrilled to the thought.  Everything must be ready for him.  She wanted him to feel that it was home from the moment he crossed the threshold.