He took and held them.  “Dinah has told you?  I am sure you are glad.  Eustace is waiting downstairs.  Come and tell him how glad you are!”

His eyes, very straight and steadfast, met hers.

Isabel tried to speak in answer, but caught her breath in a sudden sob.

He waited a second.  Then, “Isabel!” he said gently.

Sharply she controlled herself.  “Yes.  Yes.  Let us go!” she said.  “I must—­congratulate Eustace.”

They went; and old Biddy was left alone.

She looked after them with a piteous expression on her wrinkled face; then suddenly, with a wistful gesture, she clasped her old worn hands.

“I pray the Almighty,” she said, with great earnestness, “to open the dear young lady’s eyes, before it is too late.  And if He wants anyone to help Him—­sure it’s meself that’ll be only too pleased.”

It was the most impressive prayer that Biddy had ever uttered.

PART II

CHAPTER I

CINDERELLA’S PRINCE

The early dusk of February was falling, together with a fine, drenching rain.  The trees that over-hung the muddy lane were beating their stark branches together as though in despair over the general hopelessness of the outlook.  The west wind that raced across the brown fields had the sharpness of snow in its train.

“We shall catch it before we’ve done,” said Bathurst to his hunter.

Rupert the hunter, a dapple grey with powerful hindquarters, cocked a knowing ear in a fashion that Dinah always described as “his smile.”

It had not been a good day for either of them.  The meet had been at a considerable distance, there had been no run worth mentioning; and now that it was over they were returning, thoroughly tired, from the kennels.

Bathurst’s pink coat clung to him like a sack, all streaked and darkened with rain.  It had weathered a good many storms in its time, as its many varieties of tint testified; but despite this fact, its wearer never failed to look a sportsman and a gentleman.  There was nothing of the vagabond about Bathurst, but he had the vagabond’s facility for making himself at home wherever he went.  He was never at a loss, never embarrassed, never affronted.  He took life easily, as he himself put it; and on the whole he found it good.

Riding home at a jog-trot in that driving rain with the prospect of having to feed and rub down Rupert at the end of it before he could attend to his own needs was not a particularly entrancing prospect; but he faced it philosophically.  After today the little girl would be at home, and she could do it for him again.  She loved to wait on him hand and foot, and it really was a pleasure to let her.