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.
Of Eustace she saw but little. From the very first it was evident that
his place was nearer to Isabel than Scott's had ever been. He did not
shoulder Scott aside, but somehow as a matter of course he occupied the
position that the younger brother had sought to fill for the past seven
years. It was natural, it was inevitable. Dinah could have resented this
superseding at the outset had she not seen how gladly Scott gave place.
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