And then, still trembling, still unnerved, she descended to meet him.

He was with her father in the drawing-room.  The place was littered with wedding-presents.

As she entered, he came towards her, and in a moment his quiet hand closed upon hers.  Her father went out in search of her mother and they were alone.

“What a collection of beautiful things you have here!” he said.

She looked at him, met his steady eyes, and suddenly some force of speech broke loose within her; she uttered words wild and passionate, such as she had never till that moment dreamed of uttering.

“Oh, don’t talk of them!  Don’t think of them!  They suffocate me!”

She saw his face change, but she could not have analysed the expression it took.  He was silent for a moment, and in that moment his fingers tightened hard and close upon her hand.

Then, “I have brought you a small offering on my own account,” he said in his courteous, rather tired voice.  “May I present it?  Or would you rather I waited a little?”

She felt the tears welling up, swiftly, swiftly, and clasped her throat to stay them.  “Of course I would like it,” she murmured almost inarticulately.  “That—­that is different.”

He took a small, white packet from his pocket and put it into the hand he had been holding, without a word.

Dumbly, with quivering fingers, she opened it.  There was something of tragedy in the silence, something of despair.

The paper fluttered to the ground, leaving a leather case in her grasp.  She glanced up at him.

“Won’t you look inside?” he said gently.

She did so, in her eyes those burning tears she could not check.  And there, gleaming on its bed of white velvet, she saw a wonderful jewel—­a great star-shaped sapphire, deep as the heart of a fathomless pool, edged with diamonds that flashed like the sun upon the ripples of its shores.  She gazed and gazed in silence.  It was the loveliest thing she had ever seen.

Scott was watching her, his eyes very still, unchangeably steadfast.  “The sapphire for friendship,” he said.

She started as one awaking from a dream.  In the passage outside the half-open door she heard the sound of her mother’s voice approaching.  With a swift movement she closed the case and hid it in her dress.

“I can’t show it to anyone yet,” she said hurriedly.

Her tone appealed.  He answered her immediately.  “It is for you and no one else.”

His voice held nought but kindness, comprehension, comfort.

He turned from her the next moment to meet her mother, and she heard him speaking in his easy, leisured tones, gaining time for her, making her path easy, as had ever been his custom.

And again unbidden, unavoidable, there came to her the vision of Greatheart—­Greatheart the valiant—­her knight of the golden armour, going before her, strong to defend,—­invincible, unafraid, sure by means of that sureness which is given only to those who draw upon a Higher Power than their own, given only to the serving-men of God.