Mrs. Musgrave opened her eyes wide, but she said nothing at once, for Nick had sprung to his feet and was restlessly pacing the room.

"Come back, Nick," she said at last. "Tell me a little about her. We have never met, you know. And why do you ask this of me when she is in Lady Bassett's care?"

"Lady Bassett!" said Nick. He made a hideous grimace, and said no more.

Mrs. Musgrave laughed. "How eloquent! Do you hate her, too, then? I thought all men worshipped at that shrine."

Nick came back and sat down. "I nearly killed her once," he said.

"What a pity you didn't quite!" ejaculated Mrs. Musgrave.

Nick grinned. "Sits the wind in that quarter? I wonder why."

"Oh, I hate her by instinct," declared Mrs. Musgrave recklessly, "though her scented notes to me always begin, 'Dearest Daisy'! She always disapproved of me openly till baby came. But she has found another niche for me now. I am not supposed to be so fascinating as I was. She prefers unattractive women."

"Gracious heaven!" interjected Nick.

"Yes, you may laugh. I do myself." Daisy Musgrave spoke almost fiercely notwithstanding. "She's years older than I am anyhow, and I shall score some day if I don't now. Have you ever watched her dance? There's a sort of snaky, coiling movement runs up her whole body. Goodness!" breaking off abruptly. "I'm getting venomous myself. I had better stop before I frighten you away."

"Oh, don't mind me!" laughed Nick. "No one knows better than I that she is made to twist all ways. She hates me as a cobra hates a mongoose."

"Really?" Daisy Musgrave was keenly interested. "But why?"

He shook his head. "You had better ask Lady Bassett. It may be because I had the misfortune to set fire to her once. It is true I extinguished her afterwards, but I don't think she enjoyed it. It was a humiliating process. Besides, it spoilt her dress."

"But she is always so gracious to you," protested Daisy.

"Honey-sweet. That's exactly how I know her cobra feelings. And that brings me round to Muriel Roscoe again, and the favour I have to ask."

Daisy shot him a sudden shrewd glance. "Do you want to marry her?" she asked him point blank.

Nick's colourless eyebrows went up till they nearly met his colourless hair. "Dearest Daisy," he said, "you are a genius. I mean to do that very thing."

Daisy got up and softly closed the window. "Surely she is very young," she said. "Is she in love with you?"

She did not turn at the sound of his laugh. She had almost expected it. For she knew Nick Ratcliffe as very few knew him. The bond of sympathy between them was very strong.

"Can you imagine any girl falling in love with me?" he asked.

"Of course I can. You are not so unique as that. There isn't a man in the universe that some woman couldn't be fool enough to love."

"Many thanks!" said Nick. "Then—I may count upon your support, may I? I know Lady Bassett will put a spoke in my wheel if she can. But I have Sir Reginald's consent. He is Muriel's guardian, you know. Also, I had her father's approval in the first place. It has got to be soon, you see, Daisy. The present state of affairs is unbearable. She will be miserable with Lady Bassett."

Daisy still stood with her back to him. She was fidgeting with the blind-cord, her pretty face very serious.

"I am not sure," she said slowly, "that it lies in my power to help you. Of course I am willing to do my best, because, as you say, we are pals. But, Nick, she is very young. And if—if she really doesn't love you, you mustn't ask me to persuade her."

Nick sprang up impulsively. "Oh, but you don't understand," he said quickly. "She would be happy enough with me. I would see to that. I—I would be awfully good to her, Daisy."

She turned swiftly at the unwonted quiver in his voice. "My dear Nick," she said earnestly, "I am sure of it. You could make any woman who loved you happy. But no one—no one—knows the misery that may result from a marriage without love on both sides—except those who have made one."

There was something almost passionate in her utterance. But she turned if off quickly with a smile and a friendly hand upon his arm.

"Come," she said lightly. "I want to show you my boy. I left him almost in tears. But he always smiles when he sees his mother."

"Who doesn't?" said Nick gallantly, following her lead.



CHAPTER IX

THE SCHOOL OF SORROW

The aromatic scent of the Simla pines literally encircled and pervaded the Bassetts' bungalow, penetrating to every corner. Lady Bassett was wont to pronounce it "distractingly sweet," when her visitors drew her attention to the fact. Hers was among the daintiest as well as the best situated bungalows in Simla, and she was pleasantly aware of a certain envy on the part of her many acquaintances, which added a decided relish to the flavour of her own appreciation. But notwithstanding this, she was hardly ever to be found at home except by appointment. Her social engagements were so numerous that, as she often pathetically remarked, she scarcely ever enjoyed the luxury of solitude. As a hostess she was indefatigable, and being an excellent bridge-player as well as a superb dancer, it was not surprising that she occupied a fairly prominent position in her own select circle. In appearance she was a woman of about five-and-thirty—though the malicious added a full dozen years more to her credit—with fair hair, a peculiarly soft voice, and a smile that was slightly twisted. She was always exquisitely dressed, always cool, always gentle, never hasty in word or deed. If she ever had reason to rebuke or snub, it was invariably done with the utmost composure, but with deadly effect upon the offender. Lady Bassett was generally acknowledged to be unanswerable at such times by all but the very few who did not fear her.

There were not many who really felt at ease with her, and Muriel Roscoe was emphatically not one of the number. Her father had nominated Sir Reginald her guardian, and Sir Reginald, aware of this fact, had sent her at once to his wife at Simla. The girl had been too ill at the time to take any interest in her destination or ultimate disposal. It was true that she had never liked Lady Bassett, that she had ever felt shy and constrained in her presence, and that, had she been consulted, she would probably have asked to be sent to England. But Sir Reginald had been too absorbed in the task before him to spend much thought on his dead comrade's child at that juncture, and he had followed the simplest course that presented itself, allowing Nick Ratcliffe to retain the privilege which General Roscoe himself had bestowed. Thus Muriel had come at last into Lady Bassett's care, and she was only just awaking to the fact that it was by no means the guardianship she would have chosen for herself had she been in a position to choose. As the elasticity of her youth gradually asserted itself, and the life began to flow again in her veins, the power to suffer returned to her, and in the anguish of her awakening faculties she knew how utterly she was alone. It was in one sense a relief that Lady Bassett, being caught in the full swing of the Simla season, was unable to spare much of her society for the suddenly bereaved girl who had been thrust upon her. But there were times during that period of dragging convalescence when any presence would have been welcome.

She was no longer acutely ill, but a low fever hung about her, a species of physical inertia against which she had no strength to struggle. And often she wondered to herself with a dreary amazement, why she still lived, why she had survived the horrors of that flight through the mountains, why she had been thus, as it were, cast up upon a desert rock when all that had made life good in her eyes had been ruthlessly swept away. At such times there would come upon her a loneliness almost unthinkable, a shrinking more terrible than the fear of death, and the future would loom before her black as night, a blank and awful desert which she felt she could never dare to travel.

Sometimes in her dreams there would come to her other visions—visions of the gay world that throbbed so close to her, the world she had entered with her father so short a time before. She would hear again the hubbub of laughing voices, the music, the tramp of dancing feet. And she would start from her sleep to find only a great emptiness, a listening silence, an unspeakable desolation.

If she ever thought of Nick in those days, it was as a phantom that belonged to the nightmare that lay behind her. He had no part in her present, and the future she could not bring herself to contemplate. No one even mentioned his name to her till one day Lady Bassett entered her room before starting for a garden-party at Vice-Regal Lodge, a faint flush on her cheeks, and her blue eyes brighter than usual.

"I have just received a note from Captain Ratcliffe, dear Muriel," she said. "I have already mentioned to him that you are too unwell to think of receiving any one at present, but he announces his intention of paying you a visit notwithstanding. Perhaps you would like to write him a note yourself, and corroborate what I have said."

"Captain Ratcliffe!" Muriel echoed blankly, as though the name conveyed nothing to her; and then with a great start as the blood rushed to her white cheeks, "Oh, you mean Nick. I—I had almost forgotten his other name. Does he want to see me? Is he in Simla still?"

She turned her hot face away with a touch of petulance from the peculiar look with which Lady Bassett was regarding her. What did she mean by looking at her so, she wondered irritably?

There followed a pause, and Lady Bassett began to fasten her many-buttoned gloves.

"Of course, dear," she said gently, at length, "there is not the smallest necessity for you to see him. Indeed, if my advice were asked, I should recommend you not to do so; for after such a terrible experience as yours, one cannot be too circumspect. It is so perilously easy for rumours to get about. I will readily transmit a message for you if you desire it, though I think on the whole it would be more satisfactory if you were to write him a line yourself to say that you cannot receive him."

"Why?" demanded Muriel, with sudden unexpected energy. She turned back again, and looked at Lady Bassett with a quick gleam that was almost a challenge in her eyes. "Why should I not see him? After all, I suppose I ought to thank him. Besides—besides—why should I not?"

She could not have said what moved her to this unwonted self-assertion. Had Lady Bassett required her to see Nick she would probably have refused to do so, and listlessly dismissed the matter from her mind. But there was that in Lady Bassett's manner which roused her antagonism almost instinctively. But vaguely understanding, she yet resented the soft-spoken words. Moreover, a certain perversity, born of her weakness, urged her. What right had Lady Bassett to deny her to any one?

"When is he coming?" she asked. "I will see him when he comes."

Lady Bassett yielded the point at once with the faintest possible shrug. "As you wish, dear child, of course; but I do beg of you to be prudent. He speaks of coming this afternoon. But would you not like him to postpone his visit till I can be with you?"

"No, I don't think so," Muriel said, with absolute simplicity.

"Ah, well!" Lady Bassett spoke in the tone of one repudiating all responsibility. She bent over the girl with a slightly wry smile, and kissed her forehead. "Good-bye, dearest! I shouldn't encourage him to stay long, if I were you. And I think you would be wise to call him Captain Ratcliffe now that you are living a civilised life once more."

Muriel turned her face aside with a species of bored patience that could scarcely be termed tolerance. She did not understand these veiled warnings, and she cared too little for Lady Bassett and her opinions to trouble herself about them. She had never liked her, though she knew that her father had conscientiously tried to do so for the sake of his friend, Sir Reginald.

As Lady Bassett went away she rubbed the place on her forehead which her cold lips had touched. "If she only knew how I hate being kissed!" she murmured to herself.

And then with an effort she rose and moved wearily across the room to ring the bell. Since by some unaccountable impulse she had decided to see Nick, it might be advisable, she reflected, to give her own orders regarding his visit.

Having done so, she lay down again. But she did not sleep. Sleep was an elusive spirit in those days. It sometimes seemed to her that she was too worn out mentally and physically ever to rest naturally again.

Nearly an hour passed away while she lay almost unconsciously listening. And then suddenly, with a sense of having experienced it all long before, there came to her the sound of careless footsteps and of a voice that hummed.

It went through her heart like a sword-thrust as she called to mind that last night at Fort Wara when she had clung to her father for the last time, and had heard him bid her good-bye—till they should meet again.

With a choked sensation she rose, and stood steadying herself by the back of the sofa. Could she go through this interview? Could she bear it? Her heart was beating in heavy, sickening throbs. For an instant she almost thought of escaping and sending word that she was not equal to seeing any one, as Lady Bassett had already intimated. But even as the impulse flashed through her brain, she realised that it was too late. The shadow of the native servant had already darkened the window, and she knew that Nick was just behind him on the verandah. With a great, sobbing gasp, she turned herself to meet him.



CHAPTER X

THE EAGLE SWOOPS

He came in as lightly and unceremoniously as though they had parted but the day before, a smile of greeting upon his humorous, yellow face, words of careless good-fellowship upon his lips.

He took her hand for an instant, and she felt rather than saw that he gave her a single, scrutinising glance from under eyelids that flickered incessantly.

"I see you are better," he said, "so I won't put you to the trouble of saying so. I suppose dear Lady Bassett has gone to the Vice-Regal garden-party. But it's all right. I told her I was coming. Did you have to persuade her very hard to let you see me?"

Muriel stiffened a little at this inquiry. Her agitation was rapidly subsiding. It left her vaguely chilled, even disappointed. She had forgotten how cheerily inconsequent Nick could be.

"I didn't persuade her at all," she said coldly. "I simply told her that I should see you in order—"

"Yes?" queried Nick, looking delighted. "In order—"

To her annoyance she felt herself flushing. With a gesture of weariness she dismissed the sentence and sat down. She had meant to make him a brief and gracious speech of gratitude for his past care of her, but somehow it stuck in her throat. Besides, it was quite obvious that he did not expect it.

He came and sat down beside her on the sofa. "Let's talk things over," he said. "You are out of the doctor's hands, I'm told."

Muriel was leaning back against the cushions. She did not raise her heavy eyes to answer. "Oh, yes, ever so long ago. I'm quite well, only rather tired still."

She frowned slightly as she gave this explanation. Though his face was not turned in her direction, she had a feeling that he was still closely observant of her.

He nodded to himself twice while he listened and then suddenly he reached out and laid his hand upon both of hers as they rested in her lap. "I'm awfully pleased to hear you are quite well," he said, in a voice that seemed to crack on a note of laughter. "It makes my business all the easier. I've come to ask you, dear, how soon you can possibly make it convenient to marry me. To-day? To-morrow? Next week? I don't of course want to hurry you unduly, but there doesn't seem to be anything to wait for. And—personally—I abhor waiting. Don't you?"

He turned towards her with the last words. He had spoken very gently, but there seemed to be an element of humour in all that he said.

Muriel's eyes were wide open by the time he ended. She was staring at him in blank astonishment. The flush on her face had deepened to crimson.

"Marry you?" she gasped at length, stammering in her confusion. "I? Why—why—whatever made you dream of such a thing?"

"I'll tell you," said Nick instantly, and quite undismayed. "I dreamed that a certain friend of mine was lonely and heart-sick and sad. And she wanted—horribly—some one to come and take care of her, to cheer her up, to lift her over the bad places, to give her things which, if they couldn't compensate for all she had lost, would be anyhow a bit of a comfort to her. And then I remembered how she belonged to me, how she had been given to me by her own father to cherish and care for. And so I plucked up courage to intrude upon her while she was still wallowing in her Slough of Despair. And I didn't pester her with preliminaries. We're past that stage, you and I, Muriel. I simply came to her because it seemed absurd to wait any longer. And I just asked her humble-like to fix a day when we would get up very early, and bribe the padre and sweet Lady Bassett to do likewise, and have a short—very short—service all to ourselves at church, and when it was over we would just say good-bye to all kind friends and depart. Won't you give the matter your serious consideration? Believe me, it is worth it."

He still held her hand closely in his while he poured out his rapid explanation, and his eyebrows worked up and down so swiftly that Muriel was fascinated by them. His eyes baffled her completely. They were like a glancing flame. She listened to his proposal with more of bewilderment than consternation. It took her breath away without exactly frightening her. The steady grasp of his hand and the exceedingly practical tones of his voice kept her from unreasoning panic; but she was too greatly astounded to respond very promptly.

"Tell me what you think about it," he said gently.

But she was utterly at a loss to describe her feelings. She shook her head and was silent.

After a little he went on, still quickly, but with less impetuosity. "It isn't just a sudden fancy of mine—this. Don't think it. There's nothing capricious about me. Your father knew about it. And because he knew, he put you in my care. It was his sole reason for trusting you to me. I had his full approval."

He paused, for her fingers had closed suddenly within his own. She was looking at him no longer. Her memory had flashed back to that last terrible night of her father's life. Again she heard him telling her of the one man to whom he had entrusted her, who would make it his sole business to save her, who would protect her life with his own, heard his speculative question as to whether she knew whom he meant, recalled her own quick reply, and his answer—and his answer.

With a sudden sense of suffocation, she freed her hand and rose. Once more her old aversion to this man swept over her in a nauseating wave. Once more there rose before her eyes the dread vision which for many, many nights had haunted her persistently, depriving her of all rest, all peace of mind—the vision of a man in his death-struggle, fighting, agonising, under those merciless fingers.

It was more than she could bear. She covered her eyes, striving to shut out the sight that tortured her weary brain. "Oh, I don't know if I can!" she almost wailed. "I don't know if I can!"

Nick did not move. And yet it seemed to her in those moments of reawakened horror as if by some magnetic force he still held her fast. She strove against it with all her frenzied strength, but it eluded her, baffled her—conquered her.

When he spoke at length, she turned and listened, lacking the motive-power to resist.

"There is nothing to frighten you anyhow," he said, and the tone in which he said it was infinitely comforting, infinitely reassuring. "I only want to take care of you; for you're a lonely little soul, not old enough, or wise enough to look after yourself. And I'll be awfully good to you, Muriel, if you'll have me."

Something in those last words—a hint of pleading, of coaxing even—found its way to her heart, as it were, against her will. Moreover, what he said was true. She was lonely: miserably, unspeakably lonely. All her world was in ashes around her, and there were times when its desolation positively appalled her.

But still she stood irresolute. Could she, dared she, take this step? What if that phantom of horror pursued her relentlessly to the day of her death? Would she not come in time to shrink with positive loathing from this man whose offer of help she now felt so strangely tempted in her utter friendlessness to accept?

It was impossible to answer these tormenting questions satisfactorily. But there was nothing—so she told herself—to be gained by waiting. She had no one to advise her, no one really to mind what happened to her, with the single exception of this friend of hers, who only wanted to take care of her. And after all, since misery was to be her portion, what did it matter? Why should she refuse to listen to him? Had he not shown her already that he could be kind?

A sudden warmth of gratitude towards him stirred in her heart—a tiny flame springing up among the ashes of her youth. Her horror sank away like an evil dream.

She turned round with a certain deliberation that had grown upon her of late, and went back to Nick still seated on the sofa.

"I don't care much what I do now," she said wearily. "I will marry you, if you wish it, if—if you are quite sure you will never wish you hadn't."

"Well done!" said Nick, with instant approval. "That's settled then, for I was quite sure of that ages ago."

He smiled at her quizzically, his face a mask of banter. Of what his actual feelings were at that moment she had not the faintest idea.

With a piteous little smile in answer she laid her hand upon his knee. "You will have to be very patient with me," she said tremulously. "For remember—I have come to the end of everything, and you are the only friend I have left."

He took her hand into his own again, with a grasp that was warm and comforting. "My dear," he said very kindly, "I shall always remember that you once told me so."



CHAPTER XI

THE FIRST FLIGHT

Muriel lay awake for hours that night, going over and over that interview with Nick till her tired brain reeled. She was not exactly frightened by this new element that had come into her life. The very fact of having something definite to look forward to was a relief after dwelling for so long in the sunless void of non-expectancy. But she was by no means sure that she welcomed so violent a disturbance at the actual heart of her darkened existence. She could not, moreover, wholly forget her fear of the man who had saved her by main force from the fate she would fain have shared with her father. His patience—his almost womanly gentleness—notwithstanding, she could not forget the demon of violence and bloodshed that she knew to be hidden away somewhere behind that smiling, yellow mask.

She marvelled at herself for her tame surrender, but she felt it to be irrevocable nevertheless. So broken was she by adversity, that she lacked the energy to resist him or even to desire to do so. She tried to comfort herself with the thought that she was carrying out her father's wishes for her; but this did not take her very far. She could not help the doubt arising as to whether he had ever really gauged Nick's exceedingly elusive character.

Tired out, at last she slept, and dreamed that an eagle had caught her and was bearing her swiftly, swiftly, through wide spaces to his eyrie in the mountains.

It was a long, breathless flight fraught with excitement and a nameless exultation that pierced her like pain. She awoke from it with a cry that was more of disappointment than relief, and started up gasping to hear horses' hoofs dancing in the compound below her window to the sound of a cracked, hilarious voice.

She almost laughed as she realised what it was, and in a moment all her misgivings of the night vanished like wraiths of the darkness. He had extracted a promise from her to ride with him at dawn, and he meant to keep her to it. She got up and pulled aside the blind.

A wild view-halloa greeted her, and she dropped it again sharply; but not before she had seen Nick prancing about the drive on a giddy, long-limbed Waler, and making frantic signs to her to join him. Another horse with a side-saddle was waiting, held by a grinning little saice. The sun was already rising rapidly behind the mountains. She began to race through her toilet at a speed that showed her to have caught some of the fever of her cavalier's impatience.

She wondered what Lady Bassett thought of the disturbance (Lady Bassett never rose early), and nearly laughed aloud.

Hastening out at length she found Nick dismounted and waiting for her by the verandah-steps. He sprang up to meet her with an eager whoop of greeting.

"Hope you enjoyed my serenade. Come along! There's no time to waste. Jakko turned red some minutes ago. Were you asleep?"

Muriel admitted the fact.

"And dreaming of me," he rattled on, "as was sweet and proper?"

She did not answer, and he laughed like a boy, rudely but not insolently.

"Didn't I know it? Jump up! We're going to have a glorious gallop. I've brought some slabs of chocolate to keep you from starvation. Ready? Heave ho! My dear girl, you're disgracefully light still. Why don't you eat more?"

"You're as thin as a herring yourself," Muriel retorted, with a most unwonted flash of spirit.

He lifted his grinning face to her as she settled herself in the saddle, and then uncovering swiftly he bent and kissed the black cloth of her habit, humbly, reverently, as became a slave.

It sent a queer thrill through her, that kiss of his. She felt that it was in some fashion a revelation; but she was still too blinded by groping in dark places to understand its message. As they trotted side by side out of the compound, she knew her face was burning, and turned it aside that he might not see.

It was a wonderful morning. There was intoxication in the scent of the pines. The whole atmosphere seemed bewitched. They gave their horses the rein and raced with the wind through an enchanted world. It was the wildest, most alluring ride that she had ever known, and when Nick called a halt at last she protested with a flushed face and sparkling eyes.

Nevertheless, it was good to sit and watch the rapid transformation that the sun-god was weaving all about them. She saw the spurs of Jakko fade from pink to purest amber, and then in the passage of a few seconds gleam silver in the flood of glory that topped the highest crests. And her heart fluttered oddly at the sight, while again she thought of the eagle of her dream, cleaving the wide spaces, and bearing her also.

She glanced round for Nick, but he had wheeled his horse and was staring out towards the plains. She wondered what was passing in his mind, for he sat like a statue, his face turned from her. And suddenly the dread loneliness of the mountains gripped her as with a chilly hand. It seemed as if they two were alone together in all the world.

She walked over to him. "I'm cold, Nick," she said, breaking in upon his silence almost apologetically. "Shall we go?"

He stretched out a hand to her without turning his head, without speaking. But she would not put her own within it, for she was afraid.

After a long pause he gave a sudden sharp sigh, and pulled his horse round. "Eh? Cold? We'll fly down to Annandale. There's plenty of time before us. By the way, I want to introduce you to a friend of mine—Daisy Musgrave. Ever heard of her? She and Blake Grange are first cousins. You'll like Daisy. We are great chums, she and I."

Muriel had heard of her from Captain Grange. She had also once upon a time met Daisy's husband.

"I liked him, rather," she said. "But I thought he must be very young."

"So he is," said Nick. "A mere infant. He's in the Civil Service, and works like an ox. Mrs. Musgrave is very delicate. She and the baby were packed off up here in a hurry. I believe she has a weak heart. She may have to go home to recruit even now. She doesn't go out at all herself, but she hopes I will take you to see her. Will you come?"

Muriel hesitated for a moment. "Nick," she said, "are you telling—everybody—of our—engagement?"

"Of course," said Nick, instantly. "Why not?"

She could not tell him, only she was vaguely dismayed.

"I told Lady Bassett yesterday evening," he went on. "Didn't she say anything to you?"

"Oh, yes. She kissed me and said she was very pleased." Muriel's cheeks burned at the recollection.

"How nice of her!" commented Nick. He shot her a sidelong glance. "Dear Lady Bassett always says and does the right thing at the right moment. It's her speciality. That's why we are all so fond of her."

Muriel made no response, though keenly aware of the subtlety of this speech. So Nick disliked her hostess also. She wondered why.

"You see," he proceeded presently, "it is as well to be quite open about it as we are going to be married so soon. Of course every one realises that it is to be a strictly private affair. You needn't be afraid of any demonstration."

It was not that that had induced her feeling of dismay, but she could not tell him so.

"And Mrs. Musgrave knows?" she questioned.

"I told her first," said Nick. "But you mustn't mind her. She won't commit the fashionable blunder of congratulating you."

Muriel laughed nervously. She longed to say something careless and change the subject, but she was feeling stiff and unnatural, and words failed her.

Nick brought his horse up close to hers.

"There's one thing I want to say to you, Muriel, before we go down," he said.

"Oh, what?" She turned a scared face towards him.

"Nothing to alarm you," said Nick, frowning at her quizzically. "I wanted to say it some minutes ago only I was shy. Look here, dear." He held out to her a twist of tissue-paper on the palm of his hand. "It's a ring I want you to wear for me. There's a message inside it. Read it when you are alone."

Muriel looked at the tiny packet without taking it. She had turned very white. "Oh, Nick," she faltered at last, "are you—are you—quite sure?"

"Quite sure of what?" questioned Nick. "Your mind? Or my own?"

"Don't!" she begged tremulously. "I can't laugh over this."

"Laugh!" said Nick sharply. And then swiftly his whole manner changed. "Yes, it's all right, dear," he said, smiling at her. "Take it, won't you? I am—quite—sure."

She took it obediently, but her reluctance was still very manifest. Nick, however, did not appear to notice this.

"Don't look at it now," he said. "Wait till I'm not there. Put it away somewhere for the present, and let's have another gallop."

She glanced at him as she slipped his gift into her pocket. "Won't you let me thank you, Nick?" she asked shyly.

"Wait till you've seen it," he returned. "You may not think it worth it. Ready? One! Two! Three!"

In the scamper that followed, the blood surged back to her face, and her spirits rose again; but in her secret heart there yet remained a nameless dread that she was as powerless to define as to expel.



CHAPTER XII

THE MESSAGE

Lady Bassett was still invisible when Muriel returned to the bungalow though breakfast was waiting for them on the verandah. She passed quickly through to her room and commenced hasty preparations for a bath. It had been a good ride, and she realised that, though tired, she was also very hungry.

She slipped Nick's gift out of the pocket of her riding-habit, but she would not stop to open it then. That should come presently, when she had the whole garden to herself, and all the leisure of the long summer morning before her. She felt that in a sense she owed him that.

But a note that caught her eye lying on the table she paused to open and hastily peruse. The writing was unfamiliar to her—a dashing, impetuous scrawl that excited her curiosity.

"Dear Miss Roscoe," it ran,—"Don't think me an unmitigated bore if you can help it. I am wondering if you would have the real kindness to waive ceremony and pay me a visit this afternoon. I shall be quite alone, unless my baby can be considered in the light of a social inducement. I know that Nick contemplates bringing you to see me, and so he shall, if you prefer it. But personally I consider that he would be decidedly de trop. I feel that we shall soon know each other so well that a formal introduction seems superfluous. Let me know your opinion by word of mouth, or if not, I shall understand. Nick, being of the inferior species, could hardly be expected to do so, though I admit that he is more generously equipped in the matter of intellect than most.—Your friend to be,

"Daisy Musgrave."

Muriel laid down the letter with a little smile. Its spontaneous friendliness was like a warm hand clasping hers. Yes, she would go, she decided, as she splashed refreshingly in her bath, and that not for Nick's sake. She knew instinctively that she was going to discover a close sympathy with this woman who, though an utter stranger to her, yet knew how to draw her as a sister. And Muriel's longing for such human fellowship had already driven her to extremes.

She had the note in her hand when she finally joined Lady Bassett upon the verandah.

Lady Bassett, though ever-gracious, was seldom at her best in the morning. She greeted the girl with a faint, wry smile, and proffered her nearest cheek to be kissed.

"Quite an early bird, dear child!" was her comment. "I should imagine Captain Ratcliffe's visitation awakened the whole neighbourhood. I think you must not go out again with him before sunrise. I should not have advised it this morning if you had consulted me."

Muriel flushed at the softly-conveyed reproof. "It is not the first time," she said, in her deep voice that was always deepest when indignation moved her. "We have seen the sun rise together and the moon rise too, before to-day."

Lady Bassett sighed gently. "I am sure, dearest," she said, "that you do not mean to be uncouth or unmannerly, far less—that most odious of all propensities in a young girl—forward. But though my authority over you were to be regarded as so slight as to be quite negligible, I should still feel it my duty to remonstrate when I saw you committing a breach of the conventions which might be grievously misconstrued. I trust, dear Muriel, that you will bear my protest in mind and regulate your actions by it in the future. Will you take coffee?"

Muriel had seated herself at the other side of the table, and was regarding her with wide, dark eyes that were neither angry nor ashamed, only quite involuntarily disdainful.

After a distinct pause she decided to let the matter drop, reflecting that Lady Bassett's subtleties were never worth pursuing.

"I am going to see a friend of Nick's this afternoon," she said presently. "I expect you know her—Mrs. Musgrave."

Lady Bassett's forehead puckered a little. It could hardly be called a frown. "Have you ever met Mrs. Musgrave?" she asked.

"No, never. But she is Nick's friend, and of course I know her cousin, Captain Grange, quite well."

Lady Bassett made no comment upon this. "Of course, dear," she said, "you are old enough to please yourself, but it is not usual, you know, to plunge into social pleasures after so recent a bereavement as yours."

The sudden silence that followed this gentle reminder had in it something that was passionate. Muriel's face turned vividly crimson, and then gradually whitened to a startling pallor.

"It is the last thing I should wish to do," she said, in a stifled voice.

Lady Bassett continued, softly suggestive. "I say nothing of your marriage, dear child. For that, I am aware, is practically a matter of necessity. But I do think that under the circumstances you can scarcely be too careful in what you do. Society is not charitably inclined towards those who even involuntarily transgress its rules. And you most emphatically are not in a position to do so wilfully."

She paused, for Muriel had risen unexpectedly to her feet. Her eyes were blazing in her white face.

"Why should you call my marriage a matter of necessity?" she demanded. "Sir Reginald told me that my father had provided for me."

"Of course, of course, dear." Lady Bassett uttered a faint, artificial laugh. "It is not a question of means at all. But, there, since you are so childishly unsophisticated, I need not open your eyes. It is enough for you to know that there is a sufficiently urgent reason for your marriage, and the sooner it can take place, the better. But in the meantime, let me counsel you to be as prudent as possible in all that you do. I assure you, dear, it is very necessary."

Muriel received this little homily in silence. She did not in the least understand to what these veiled allusions referred, and she decided impatiently that they were unworthy of her serious consideration. It was ridiculous to let herself be angry with Lady Bassett. As if it mattered in the least what she said or thought! She determined to pay her projected visit notwithstanding, and quietly said so, as she turned at length from the table.

Lady Bassett raised no further remonstrance beyond a faint, eloquent lift of the shoulders. And Muriel went away into the shady compound, her step firmer and her dark head decidedly higher than usual. She felt for Nick's gift as she went, with a little secret sensation of pleasure. After all, why had she been afraid? All girls wore rings when they became engaged to be married.

Reaching her favourite corner, she drew it forth from its hiding-place, a quiver of excitement running through her.

She was sitting in the hammock under the pines as she unwrapped it. The hot sunshine, glinting through the dark boughs overhead, flashed upon precious stones and dazzled her as the wisp of tissue-paper fell from her hand.

And in a moment she was looking at an old marquise ring of rubies in a setting of finely-wrought gold. Her heart gave a throb of sheer delight at the beauty of the thing. She slipped it impetuously on to her finger, and held it up to the sunlight.

The rubies shone with a deep lustre—red, red as heart's blood, ardent as flame. She gazed and gazed with sparkling, fascinated eyes.

Suddenly his words flashed into her mind. A message inside it! She had been so caught by the splendour of the stones that she had not looked inside. She drew the ring from her finger, and examined it closely, with burning cheeks.

Yes, there was the message—three words engraved in minute, old-fashioned characters inside the gold band. They were so tiny that it took her a long time to puzzle them out. With difficulty at length she deciphered the quaint letters, but even then it was some time before she grasped the meaning that they spelt.

It flashed upon her finally, as though a voice had spoken into her ear. The words were: OMNIA VINCIT AMOR. And the ring in her hand was no longer the outward visible sign of her compact. It was a love-token, given to her by a man who had spoken no word of love.



CHAPTER XIII

THE VOICE OF A FRIEND

"So you didn't bring Nick after all. That was nice of you," said Daisy Musgrave, with a little, whimsical smile. "I wanted to have you all to myself. The nicest of men can be horribly in the way sometimes."

She smiled upon her visitor whom she had placed in the easiest chair and in the pleasantest corner of her drawing-room. Her pretty face was aglow with friendliness. No words of welcome were needed.

Muriel was already feeling happier than she had felt for many, many weary weeks. It had been an effort to come, but she was glad that she had made it.

"It was kind of you to ask me," she said, "though of course I know that you did it for Nick's sake."

"You are quite wrong," Daisy answered instantly. "He told me about you, I admit. But after that, I wanted you for your own. And now I have got you, Muriel, I am not going to stand on ceremony the least bit in the world. And you mustn't either; but I can see you won't. Your eyes are telling me things already. I don't get on with stiff people somehow. Lady Bassett calls me effusive. And I think myself there must have been something meteoric about my birth star. Doubtless that is why I agree so well with Nick. He's meteoric, too." She slipped cosily down upon a stool by Muriel's side. "He's a nice boy, isn't he?" she said sympathetically. "And is that his ring? Ah, let me look at it! I think I have seen it before. No, don't take it off! That's unlucky."

But Muriel had already drawn it from her finger. "It's beautiful," she said warmly. "Do you know anything about it? It looks as if it had a history."

"It has," said Daisy. "I remember now. He showed it to me once when I was staying at his brother's house in England. I know the Ratcliffes well. My husband used to live with them as a boy. It came from the old maiden aunt who left him all his money. She gave it to him before she died, I believe, and told him to keep it for the woman he was sure to love some day. Nick was an immense favourite of hers."

"But the ring?" urged Muriel.

Daisy was frowning over the inscription within it, but she was fully aware of the soft colour that had flooded the girl's face at her words.

"OMNIA VINCIT AMOR," she read slowly. "That is it, isn't it? Ah, yes, and the history of it. It's rather sad. Do you mind?"

"I am used to sad things," Muriel reminded her, with her face turned away toward the mountains.

Daisy pressed her hand gently. "It is a French ring," she said. "It belonged to an aristocrat who was murdered in the Reign of Terror. He sent it by his servant to the girl he loved from the steps of the guillotine. I don't know their names. Nick didn't tell me that. But she was English."

Muriel had turned quickly back. Her interest was aroused. "Yes," she said eagerly, as Daisy paused. "And she?"

"She!" Daisy's voice had a sudden hard ring in it. "She remained faithful to him for just six months. And then she married an Englishman. It was said that she did it against her will. Still she did it. Luckily for her, perhaps, she died within the year—when her child was born."

Daisy rose abruptly and moved across the room. "That was more than a hundred years ago," she said, "and women are as great fools still. If they can't marry the man they love—they'll marry—anything."

Muriel was silent. She felt as if she had caught sight of something that she had not been intended to see.

But in a moment Daisy came back, and, kneeling beside her, slipped the ring on to her finger again. "Yet love conquers all the same, dear," she said, passing her arm about the girl. "And yours is going to be a happy love story. The ring came finally into the possession of the lady's grandson, and it was he who gave it to Nick's aunt—the maiden aunt. It was her engagement ring. She never wore any other, and she only gave it to Nick when her fingers were too rheumatic to wear it any longer. Her lover, poor boy, was killed in the Crimea. There! Forgive me if I have made you sad. Death is not really sad, you know, where there is love. People talk of it as if it conquered love, whereas it is in fact all the other way round. Love conquers death."

Muriel hid her face suddenly on Daisy's shoulder. "Oh, are you quite sure?" she whispered.

"I am quite sure, darling." The reply was instant and full of conviction. "It doesn't need a good woman to be quite sure of that. Over and over again it has been the only solid thing I have had to hold by. I've clung to it blindly in outer darkness, God only knows how often."

Her arms tightened about Muriel, and she fell silent. For minutes the room was absolutely quiet. Then Muriel raised her head.

"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you so much."

Her eyes were full of tears as her lips met Daisy's, but she brushed them swiftly away before they fell.

Daisy was smiling at her. "Come," she said, "I want to show you my baby. He is just the wee-est bit fractious, as he is cutting a tooth. The doctor says he will be all right, but he still threatens to send us both to England."

"And you don't want to go?" questioned Muriel.

Daisy shook her head. "I want to see my cousin Blake," she said lightly, "when he comes marching home again. Did you hear the rumour that he is to have the V.C.? They ought to give it to Nick, too, if he does."

"Oh, I shouldn't think so. Nick didn't do anything. At least," Muriel stumbled a little, "nothing to be proud of."

Daisy laughed and caught her face between her hands. "Except save his girl from destruction," she said. "Doesn't that count? Oh, Muriel, I know exactly what made him want you. No, you needn't be afraid. I'm not going to tell you. Wild horses sha'n't drag it from me. But he's the luckiest man in India, and I think he knows it. What lovely hair you have! I'll come round early on your wedding-day and do it for you. And what will you wear? It mustn't be a black wedding whatever etiquette may decree. You look too pathetic in black, and it's a barbarous custom anyway. I have warned my husband fairly that if he goes into mourning for me, I'll never speak to him hereafter again. He is coming up to see us next week, and to discuss our fate with the doctor. Have you ever met Will?"

"Once," said Muriel. "It was at a dance at Poonah early last summer."

"Ah! When I was at Mahableshwar. He is a good dancer, isn't he? He does most things well, I think."

Daisy smiled tolerantly as she indicated the photograph of a boy upon the mantelpiece. "He isn't sixteen," she said; "he is nearly twenty-eight. Now come and see his son and the light of my eyes." She linked her arm in Muriel's, and, still smiling, led her from the room.



CHAPTER XIV

THE POISON OF ADDERS

The week that followed that first visit of hers was a gradual renewal of life to Muriel. She had come through the darkest part of her trouble, and, thick though the shadows might still lie about her, she had at last begun to see light ahead. She went again and yet again to see Daisy, and each visit added to her tranquillity of mind. Daisy was wonderfully brisk for an invalid, and her baby was an endless source of interest. Even Lady Bassett could not cavil when her charge spoke of going to nursery tea at Mrs. Musgrave's. She made no attempt to check the ripening friendship, though Muriel was subtly aware that she did not approve of it.

She also went every morning for a headlong gallop with Nick who, in fact, would take no refusal in the matter. He came not at all to the house except for these early visits, and she had a good many hours to herself. But her health was steadily improving, and her loneliness oppressed her less than formerly. She spent long mornings lying in the hammock under the pines with only an occasional monkey far above her to keep her company. It was her favourite haunt, and she grew to look upon it as exclusively her own. There was a tiny rustic summer-house near it, which no one ever occupied, so far as she knew. Moreover, the hammock had been decorously slung behind it, so that even though a visitor might conceivably penetrate as far as the arbour, it was extremely unlikely that the hammock would come into the range of discovery.

Even Lady Bassett had never sought her here, her time being generally quite fully occupied with her countless social engagements. Muriel often wondered that that garden on the mountainside in which she revelled seemed to hold so slight an attraction for its owner. But then of course Lady Bassett was so much in demand that she had little leisure to admire the beauties that surrounded her.

Growing daily stronger, Muriel's half-childish panic regarding her approaching marriage as steadily diminished. She enjoyed her rides with Nick, becoming daily more and more at her ease with him. They seldom touched upon intimate matters. She wore his ring, and once she shyly thanked him for it. But he made no further reference to the words engraved within it, and she was relieved by his forbearance.

Nick, on his part, was visiting Daisy Musgrave every day, and sedulously imbibing her woman's wisdom. He had immense faith in her insight and her intuition, and when she entreated him to move slowly and without impatience he took a sterner grip of himself and resolutely set himself to cultivate the virtue she urged upon him.

"You mustn't do anything in a hurry," Daisy assured him, "either before your marriage or after. She has had a very bad shock, and she is only just getting over it. You will throw everything back if you try to precipitate matters. She is asleep, you know, Nick, and it is for you to waken her, but gradually—oh, very gradually—or she will start up in the old nightmare terror again. If she doesn't love you yet, she is very near it. But you will only win her by waiting for her. Never do anything sudden. Always remember what a child she is, though she has outgrown her years. And children, you know, though they will trust those they love to the uttermost, are easily frightened."

Nick knew that she was right. He knew also that he was steadily gaining ground, and that knowledge helped him more than all Daisy's counsels. He was within sight, so he felt, of the great consummation of all his desires, and he was drawing daily nearer.

Their wedding-day was little more than a week away. He had already made full preparation for it. It was to be as quiet a ceremony as it was possible to arrange. Daisy Musgrave had promised to be there, and he expected her husband also. Lady Bassett, whose presence he realised with a grimace to be indispensable, would complete the wedding-party.

He had arranged to leave Simla directly the service was over, and to go into Nepal. It would not be his first visit to that most wonderful country, and it held many things that he desired to show her. He expected much from that wedding journey, from the close companionship, the intimacy that must result. He would teach her first beyond all doubting that she had nothing to fear, and then—then at last, as the reward of infinite patience, he would win her love. His blood quickened whenever he thought of it. Alone with her once more among the mountains, in perfect security, surrounded by the glory of the eternal snows, so he would win her. They would come back closely united, equipped to face the whole world hand-in-hand, so joined together that no shadow of evil could ever come between them any more. For they would be irrevocably made one. Thus ran the current of his splendid dream, and for this he curbed himself, mastered his eagerness, controlled his passion.

On the day that Daisy's husband arrived, he considerately absented himself from their bungalow, knowing how the boy loved to have his wife to himself. He had in consequence the whole afternoon at his disposal, and he contemplated paying a surprise visit to his betrothed. He had ridden with her that morning, and he did not doubt that she was to be found somewhere in Lady Bassett's compound. So in fact she was, and had he carried out his first intention, he would have explored behind the summer-house and found her in her retreat. But he did not after all pay his projected visit. A very small matter frustrated his plans—a matter of no earthly importance, but which he always looked upon afterwards as a piece of the devil's own handiwork. He remembered some neglected correspondence, and decided to clear it off. She would not be expecting him, possibly she might not welcome his intrusion. And so, in consequence of that rigid self-restraint that he was practising, he suffered this latter reflection to sway him in the direction of his unanswered letters, and sat down to his writing-table with a strong sense of virtue, utterly unsuspicious of the evil which even at that moment was drawing near imperceptibly but surely to the girl he loved.

She was lying in her hammock with an unread book on her knees. It was a slumberous afternoon, making for drowsiness. The mountains were wrapped in a vague haze, and the whole world was very still. Very far overhead, the pines occasionally whispered to one another, but below there was no movement, save when a lizard scuttled swiftly over the pine-needles, and once when an enquiring monkey-face peered at her round the red bole of a pine.

It was all very restful, and Muriel was undeniably sleepy. She had ridden farther than usual with Nick that morning, and it did not take much to tire her. Lady Bassett had gone to a polo-match, she knew, and she luxuriated in undisturbed solitude. It lay all about her like a spell of enchantment. With her cheek pillowed on her hand she presently floated into serene slumber. It was like drifting down a tidal river into a summer sea....

Her awakening was abrupt, almost startling. She felt as if some one had touched her, though she realised In a moment that this was impossible; for she was still alone. No one was in sight. Only from the arbour a few feet away there came the sound of voices, and the tinkle of tea-cups.

Visitors evidently! Lady Bassett had returned and brought back a couple of guests with her. She frowned impatiently over the discovery, realising that she was a prisoner unless she elected to show herself. For her corner behind the summer-house was bounded by the wall of the compound, and there was no retreat save by the path that led to the bungalow, and this wound in front of the arbour itself.

It was very annoying, but there was no help for it. She knew very few people in Simla, and neither of the voices that mingled with Lady Bassett's was familiar to her. It did not take her long to decide that she had no desire for a closer acquaintance with their owners. One was a man's voice, sonorous and weighty, that sounded as if it were accustomed to propound mighty problems from the pulpit. The other was a woman's, high-pitched as the wail of a cat on a windy night, that caused the listening girl to nestle back on her pillow with the instant resolution to remain where she was until the intruders saw fit to depart, even if by so doing she had to forego her tea.

She opened her book with an unwarrantable feeling of resentment. Of course Lady Bassett could not know she was there, and of course she was at liberty to go whither she would in her own garden. But no one likes to have their cherished privacy invaded even in ignorance. And Lady Bassett might surely have concluded that she would be out somewhere under the pines.

Well, they probably would not stay for long, and she was in no hurry. With a faint sigh of lingering annoyance she began to read.

But the piercing, feline voice soon pounded flail-like into her consciousness, scattering her thoughts with ruthless insistence.

"Of course," it asserted, "it was the only thing he could possibly do. No man with any decent feeling could have done otherwise. But it was a little hard on him. Surely you agree with me there?"

Lady Bassett's voice, soft and precise, made answer. "Indeed I think he has behaved most generously in the matter. As you say, it would have been but a gentleman's duty to make an offer of marriage, considering all the circumstances. But he went further than that. He actually insisted upon the arrangement. I suppose he felt bound to do so as the poor child's father had placed her in his charge. She is quite unformed still, and is very far from realising her grave position. Indeed, I scarcely expected her to accept him without the urgent reason for the match being explained to her; for it is quite obvious that she does not care for him in that way. Poor child, she is scarcely old enough to know the true meaning of love. It is very sad for them both."

A gentle sigh closed the sentence. Muriel's book had slid down upon a cushion of pine-needles. She had raised herself in the hammock, and was staring at the rustic woodwork of the summer-house as though she saw a serpent twining there.

There followed a brief silence. Then came the man's voice, deliberate and resounding.

"I am sure it must have caused you much anxiety, dear Lady Bassett. With my knowledge of Nicholas Ratcliffe I confess that I should have felt very grave misgivings as to whether he were endowed with the chivalry to fulfil the obligation he had incurred. My esteem for him has increased fourfold since I heard of his intention to shoulder his responsibilities thus courageously. I had not deemed him capable of such a sacrifice. I sincerely trust that he will be given strength to carry it through worthily."

"I shall not feel really easy till they are married," confessed Lady Bassett.

"Ah!" The sonorous voice broke in again with friendly reproof. "But—pardon me—does not that indicate a certain lack of faith, Lady Bassett? Since the young man has been led to see that the poor girl has been so sadly compromised, surely we may trust that he will be enabled to carry out his engagement. I consider it doubly praiseworthy that he has taken this action on his own initiative. I may tell you in confidence that I was seriously debating with myself as to whether it were not my duty to approach him on the subject. But the news of his engagement relieved me of all responsibility. It is no doubt something of a sacrifice to a man of his stamp. We can only trust that he will be duly rewarded."

Here the shrill, feline voice suddenly made itself heard, tripping in upon the deeper tones without ceremony.

"Oh, but poor Nick! I can't picture him married and done for. He has always been so gay. Why, look at him with Daisy Musgrave! I know for a fact that he goes there every day at least, and she refusing to receive any one else. I call it quite scandalous."

"My dear! My dear!" It was Lady Bassett's turn to reprove. "Not quite every day surely!"

"I do assure you that isn't the smallest exaggeration," protested her informant. "I had it from Mrs. Gybbon-Smythe who never misstates anything. It was she who first told me of this engagement, and she considered that Nick was positively throwing himself away. A mere chivalrous fad she called it, and declared that it would simply ruin his prospects. For it is well known that married officers are almost invariably passed over by the powers that be. And he is regarded as so promising too. Really I am almost inclined to agree with her. Just a little more tea, dear, if I may. Your tea is always so delicious, and doubly so out here under the pines."

The soft jingling of tea-cups ensued, and through it presently came Lady Bassett's gentle tones. They sounded as if she were smiling.

"Well, all I can say is, I was unspeakably relieved when I heard that Captain Ratcliffe had decided to treat the matter as a point of honour and marry dear Muriel. She is a sweet girl and I am devoted to her, which made it doubly hard for me. For I should scarcely have dared to venture, after what has happened, to ask any of my friends to receive her. Naturally, she shrinks from speaking of that terrible time, but I understand that she spent no less than three nights alone in the mountains with him. And that fact in itself would be more than sufficient to blight any girl's career from a social standpoint. I often think that the rules of our modern etiquette are very rigid, though I know well that we cannot afford to disregard them." Again came that soft, regretful sigh; and then in an apologetic tone, "You will say, I know, that for the good of the community this must be so, but you are great enough to make allowances for a woman's weakness. And I must confess that I cannot but feel the pity of it in such a case as this."

"Indeed, Lady Bassett, I think your feminine weakness does you credit," was the kind response this elicited. "We must all of us sympathise most deeply with the poor little wanderer, who, I am well assured, could not be in better hands than she is at the present moment. Your protecting care must, I am convinced, atone to her in a very great measure for all that she has been called upon to undergo."

"So sweet of you to say so!" murmured Lady Bassett. "Words cannot express my reluctance to explain to her the actual state of affairs, or my relief that I have been able to avoid doing so with a clear conscience. Ah! Your cup is empty! Will you let me refill it? No? But you are not thinking of leaving me yet, surely?"

"Ah, but indeed we must. We are dining with the Boltons to-night, and going afterwards to the Parkers' dance. You will be there of course? How delightful! Then we shall soon meet again."

The penetrating voice was accompanied by the sounds of a general move, and there ensued the usual interchange of compliments at departure, Lady Bassett protesting that it had been so sweet of her friends to visit her, and the friends assuring her of the immense pleasure it had given them to do so. All the things that are never said by people who are truly intimate with each other were said several times over as the little party moved away. Their voices receded into the distance, though they continued for a while to prick through the silence that fell like a velvet curtain behind them.

Finally they ceased altogether. The summer-house was empty, and an enterprising monkey slipped down the trunk of a tree and peered in. But he was a nervous beast, and he had a feeling that the place was not so wholly devoid of human presence as it seemed. He approached cautiously, gibbering a little to himself. It looked safe enough, and there was some dainty confectionery within. But, uneasy instinct still urging him, he deemed it advisable to peer round the corner of the summer-house before he yielded to the promptings of a rapacious appetite.

The next instant his worst fears were realised, and he was scudding up the nearest tree in a panic.

There, on the ground, face downwards on the pine-needles, lay a human form. True, it was only a woman lying there. But her silence and her stillness were eloquent of tragedy even to his monkey-intelligence. From a safe height he sat and reviled her till he was tired for having spoilt his sport. Finally, as she made no movement, he forgot his grievance, and tripped airily away in quest of more thrilling adventures.

But the woman remained prone upon the ground for a long, long time.



CHAPTER XV

THE SUMMONS

Nick's fit of virtue evaporated with his third letter, and he got up, feeling that he had spent an unprofitable afternoon. He also discovered that he was thirsty, and while quenching his thirst he debated with himself whether he would after all stroll round to the Musgraves. He and Will were old school-fellows, and the friendship between them was of the sort that wears forever. He was moreover dissatisfied with regard to Daisy's appearance, and he wanted to know the doctor's verdict.

He had just decided to chance his welcome and go, when a note was brought to him which proved to be from Will himself.

"DEAR OLD NICK," it ran,—"I have been wanting to shake your hand ever since I heard of your gallant return from the jaws of death. Well done, old chap, if it isn't a stale sentiment!

"Will you come and dine with us? Do thy diligence, for though we are neither of us the best of company, we both want you. The doctor has ordered Daisy and the youngster home. They are to leave before the chota-bursat. Damn the chota-bursat, and the whole beastly show!—Yours ever,

"WILL"

Nick considered this outburst with a sympathetic frown, and at once despatched an answer in the affirmative. He had almost expected the news. It had been quite plain to him that Daisy was not making any progress towards the recovery of her strength. Her quick temperament would not allow her to be listless, but he had not been deceived. And he was glad that Will had come up at length to see for himself.

It was horribly unlucky for them both, he reflected, for he knew that Will could not accompany his wife to England. And the thought presently flashed across him,—How would it go with him if he ever had to part with Muriel in that way? Having once possessed her, could he ever bear to let her go again? Would he not rather relinquish his profession for her sake, dear though it was to him? He had made her his own by sheer dogged effort. He had planned for her, fought for her, suffered for her,—almost he had died for her. Now that she was his at last, he knew that he could never let her go.

He turned impetuously to a calendar on his writing-table, and ticked off another day. There were only six left before his wedding-day. He counted them with almost savage exultation. Finally he tossed down the pencil with a sudden, quivering laugh, and stood up with wide-flung arms. She was his—his—his! No power or force of circumstance could ever come between them now. He would trample every obstacle underfoot.

But there were no obstacles left. He had overcome them all. He had won her fairly; and the reward of patience was very near.

For the first time he slackened the bonds of his self-restraint; and instantly the fire of his passion leapt up, free and fierce, overflowing its confines in a wide-spread, molten stream that carried all before it.

When later he departed to keep his engagement, he was as a man treading upon air. Not a dozen yards from the gate one of Lady Bassett's servants met him and presented a note. He guessed it was from Muriel, and the blood rose in a hot wave to his head and pounded at his temples as he opened it. It was the first she had ever written to him.

"I must see you at once,—M."

That was all. He dismissed the waiting native, and returned to his room. There he wrote a note to Will Musgrave warning him that he had been delayed.

Then he suddenly straightened himself and stood tense. Something had happened. He was sure of it. That urgent summons rang in his brain like a cry for help. Some demand was about to be made upon him, a demand which he might find himself ill-equipped to meet. He was not lacking in courage. He could meet adversity without a quiver. But for once he was not sure of himself. He was not prepared to resist any sudden strain that night.

Several minutes passed before he moved. Then, glancing down, he saw her message fast gripped in his hand. With a swift, passionate movement he carried the paper to his lips. And he remembered suddenly how he had once held her hand there and breathed upon the little cold fingers to give them life. He had commanded himself then. Was he any the less his own master now? And was he fool enough to destroy all in a moment that trust of hers which he had built up so laboriously? He felt as if a fiend had ensnared him, and with a fierce effort he broke free. Surely he was torturing himself in vain. She had only sent for him to explain that she could not ride with him in the morning, or some other matter equally trifling. He would go to her at once since she had desired it, and set her mind at rest on whatever subject happened to be troubling it.

And so with steady tread he left the house once more. She had called him for the first time. He would not keep her waiting.



CHAPTER XVI

THE ORDEAL

The drawing-room was empty when he entered it, the windows standing flung wide to the night. Strains of dance music were wafted in from somewhere lower down the hill, and he guessed that Lady Bassett would be from home. The pine-trees of the compound stood black and silent. There seemed to be a hush of expectancy in the air.

He stood with his back to the room and his face to the mountains. The moon was still below the horizon, but stars blazed everywhere with a marvellous brightness. It was a night for dreams, and he thought with a quickening heart of the nights that were coming when they two would be alone once more among the hills, no longer starved and fleeing for their lives, but wandering happily together in an enchanted world where the past was all forgotten, and the future gleamed like the peaks of Paradise.

At sound of a quiet footfall, he turned back into the room. Muriel had entered and was closing the door behind her. At first sight he fancied that she was ill, so terribly did her deep mourning and heavy hair emphasise her pallor. But as she moved forward he reassured himself. It was growing late. Doubtless she was tired.

He went impetuously to meet her, and in a moment he had her hands in his; but they lay in his grasp cold and limp, with no responding pressure. Her great eyes, as they looked at him, were emotionless and distant, remote as the lights of a village seen at night across a far-reaching plain. She gave him no word or smile of welcome.

A sudden dark suspicion flashed through his brain, and he drew her swiftly to the light, looking at her closely, searchingly.

"What have you been doing?" he said.

She fathomed his suspicion, and faintly smiled. "Nothing—nothing whatever. I have never touched opium since the night you—"

He cut in sharply, as if the reminiscence hurt him. "I beg your pardon. Well, what is it then? There's something wrong."

She did not contradict him. Merely with a slight gesture of weariness, she freed herself and sat down.

Nick remained on his feet, looking down at her, waiting grimly for enlightenment.

It did not come very readily. Seconds had passed into minutes before she spoke, and then her words did not bear directly upon the matter in hand.

"I hope it was quite convenient to you to come to-night. I was a little afraid you would have an engagement."

He remembered the urgency of her summons and decided that she spoke thus conventionally to gain time. On another occasion he might have humoured such a whim, but to-night it goaded him almost beyond endurance. Surely they had passed that stage, he and she.

With an effort he controlled himself, but it sounded in his voice as he made reply.

"My engagement to you stands before any other. What is it you want to say to me?"

Her expression changed slightly at his words, and a shade of apprehension flitted across her face. She threw him a swift upward glance, half-scared, half-questioning. Unconsciously her hands locked themselves together.

"I want you not to be vexed, Nick," she said, in a low voice.

He made an abrupt movement. "My dear girl, don't be silly. What's the trouble? Let me hear it and have done."

His tone was reassuring. She looked up at him with more confidence.

"Yes, I am silly," she acknowledged. "I'm perfectly idiotic to fancy for a moment that it can make any difference to you. Nick, I have been thinking things over seriously, and—and—I find that I can't marry you after all. I hope you won't mind, though of course—" she uttered a little laugh that was piteously insincere—"I know you will feel bound to say you do. But—anyhow—you needn't say it to me, because I understand. I thought it was only fair to let you know at once."

"Thank you," said Nick, and there was that in his voice which was like the sudden snapping of a tense spring.

She saw his hands clench with the words, and an overwhelming sense of danger swept over her. Instinctively she started to her feet. If a tiger had leapt in upon her through the window she could not have been more terrified.

Nick took a single stride towards her, and she stopped as if struck powerless. His face was the face she had once seen bent over a man in his death-agony, convulsed with passion, savage, merciless,—the face of a devil.

She shrank away from him in nameless terror, gasping and panic-stricken. "Nick," she whispered, "are you—mad?"

He answered her jerkily in a strangled voice that was like the snarl of a beast. "Yes—I am mad. If you try to run away from me now—I won't answer for myself."

She gazed at him with widening eyes. "But, but—" she faltered—"I—I don't understand. Oh, Nick, you frighten me!"

It was the cry of a child, lost, bewildered, piteous. Had she withstood him, had she sought to escape, the demon in him would have burst the last restraining bond, and have shattered in one moment of unshackled violence all the chivalrous patience which during the last few weeks he had spent his whole strength to achieve.

But that cry of desolation pierced straight through his madness, cutting deeper than reproach or protest, wounding him to the heart.

With a sound that was half-sob, half-groan, he turned his back upon her and covered his face.

For a space of seconds he stood so, not moving, seeming not even to breathe. And Muriel, steadying herself by the mantelpiece, watched him with a panting heart.

Then abruptly, moving with a quick, light tread that made no sound, he crossed the room to one of the wide-flung windows and stopped there.

From across the quiet garden there came the strains of "The Blue Danube," fitful, alluring, plaintive—that waltz to which countless lovers have danced and wooed and whispered through the years. Muriel longed intensely to shut it out, to stop her ears, to make some noise to drown it. Her nerves were all on edge, and she felt as if its persistent sweetness would drive her mad.

Surely Nick felt the same; but if he did, he made no sign. He stood without movement with his face to the night, gripping the woodwork of the window with both hands, every bone of them standing out in sharp, skeleton lines.

She watched him, fascinated, for a long time, but he did not stir from his tense position. He seemed to have utterly forgotten her presence in the room behind him. And still that maddening waltz kept on and on and on till she felt sick and dazed with listening to it. It seemed as if for the rest of her life she would never again be free from those haunting strains.

The soft shutting of the window made her start and quiver. Nick had moved at last, and her heart began to throb thick and fast as he turned. She tried to read his face, but she could not even see it. There was a swimming mist before her eyes, and her limbs felt powerless, heavy as lead.

In every nerve, she felt him drawing near, and in an agony of helplessness she awaited him, all the surging horror of that night when he had drugged her rushing back upon her with tenfold force. Again she saw him as she had seen him then, monstrous, silent, terrible, a man of superhuman strength, whose mastery appalled her. Again in desperate fear she shrank from him, seeking wildly, fruitlessly, for a way of escape.

And then came the consciousness of his arm about her, supporting her; and the voice that had quieted her wildest delirium was speaking in her ear.

"The goblins are all gone, dear," she heard him say. "Don't be frightened."

He led her gently to a sofa and made her sit down, bending over her and softly rubbing her cold cheek.

"Tell me when you're better," he said, "and we'll talk this thing out. But don't be frightened anyway. It's all right."

The tenderness of voice and touch, the sudden cessation of all tension, the swift putting to flight of her fear, all combined to produce in her a sense of relief so immense that the last shred of her self-control went from her utterly. She laid her head down upon the cushions and burst into a storm of tears.

Nick's hand continued to stroke and soothe, but he said no more while her paroxysm of weeping lasted. He who was usually so ready of speech, so quick to console, found for once no words wherewith to comfort her.

Only when her distress had somewhat spent itself, he bent a little lower and dried her tears with his own handkerchief, his lips twitching as he did it, his eyes flickering so rapidly that it was impossible to read their expression.

"There!" he said at last. "There's nothing to cry about. Finish what you were saying when I interrupted you. I think you were in the middle of throwing me over, weren't you? At least, you had got through that part of it, and were just going to tell me why."

His tone was reassuringly flippant.

Looking up at him, she saw the old kindly, quizzical look on his face. He met her eyes, nodding shrewdly.

"Let's have it," he said, "straight from the shoulder. You're tired of me, eh?"

She drew back from him, but with no gesture of shrinking. "I'm tired of everything—everything," she said, a little passionate quiver in her voice. "I wish—I wish with all my heart, you had left me to die."

"Is that the grievance?" said Nick. He sat down on the head of the sofa, and drove his fist into the cushion. "If I could explain things to you, I would. But you're such a chicken, aren't you, dear, and about as easily scared? Since when have you harboured this grudge against me?"

The gentle banter of his tone did not deceive her into imagining that she could trifle with him, nor was she addicted to trifling. She made answer with a certain warmth of indignation that seemed to have kindled on its own initiative and wholly without her volition.

"I haven't, I don't. I'm not so absurd. It isn't that at all."

"You're not tired of me?" queried Nick.

"No."

"If I were to die to-morrow for instance—and there's no telling, you know, Muriel,—you'd be a little sorry?"

Again, though scarcely aware of it, she resented the question. "Why do you ask me that? Of course I should be sorry."

"Of course," acquiesced Nick. "But all the king's horses and all the king's men wouldn't bring me back again. That's the worst of being mortal. You can't dance at your own funeral."

"What do you mean?" There was a note of exasperation in Muriel's voice. She saw that he had an object in view, but his method of attaining it was too tortuous for her straightforward understanding.

He explained himself with much patience. His mood had so completely changed that she could barely recall to mind the vision that had so appalled her but a few minutes before.

"What I mean is that it's infernal to think that some one may be shedding precious tears on your grave and you not there to see. I've often wondered if one could get a ticket of leave for such an occasion." He smiled down at her with baffling directness. "I should value those tears unspeakably," he said.

Muriel made a slight movement of impatience. The discussion seemed to her inconsequent and unprofitable.

Nick began to enumerate his points. "You're not tired of me—though I see I'm boring you hideously; put up with it a little longer, I've nearly finished—and you'd shed quite a respectable number of tears if I were to die young. Yes, I am young though as ugly as Satan. I believe you think I'm some sort of connection, don't you? Is that why you don't want to marry me?"

He put the question with startling suddenness, and Muriel glanced up quickly, but was instantly reassured. He was no more formidable at that moment than a grinning schoolboy. Still she did not feel wholly at her ease with him. She had a curious suspicion that he was in some fashion testing her.

"No," she answered, after a moment. "It is nothing of that sort."

"Quite sure there is a reason?" he asked quizzically.

Her white cheeks flushed. "Yes, of course. But—I would rather not tell you what it is."

"Quite so," said Nick. "I suppose that also is 'only fair'?"

Her colour deepened. He made her feel unaccountably ashamed. "I will tell you if you wish to know," she said reluctantly. "But I would rather not."

Nick made an airy gesture. "Not for the world! My intelligence department is specially fitted for this sort of thing. Besides, I know exactly what happened. It was something like this." He passed his hand over his face, then turned to her with a faint, wry smile so irresistibly reminiscent of Lady Bassett that Muriel gasped with a sudden hysterical desire to laugh.

He silenced her by beginning to speak in soft, purring accents. "You know, darling Muriel, I have never looked upon Nicholas Ratcliffe as a marrying man. He is such a gay butterfly." (This with an indulgent shake of the head.) "Indeed, I have heard dear Mrs. Gybbon-Smythe describe him as a shocking little flirt. And they say he is fond of his glass too, but let us hope this is an exaggeration. I know for a fact that he has a very violent temper, and this may have given rise to the rumour. I assure you, dearest, he is quite formidable, notwithstanding his size. But there, if I tell you any more you will think I am prejudiced against him, whereas we are really the greatest friends—the greatest possible friends. I only thought it kind to warn you not to expect too much. It is a mistake so many young girls make, and I want you to be as happy as you can, poor child."

Muriel was laughing helplessly when he stopped. The mimicry of voice and action was so perfect, so free from exaggeration, so sublimely spontaneous.

Nick did not laugh with her. Behind his mask of banter he was watching, watching closely. He had clad himself in jester's garb to feel for the truth. Perhaps she realised something of this as she recovered herself, for again that glance, half-questioning, half-frightened, flashed up at him as she made reply.

"No, Nick. She never said that, indeed. I wouldn't have cared if she had. It was only—only—"

"I know," he broke in abruptly. "If it wasn't that, there is only one thing left that it could have been. I don't want you to tell me. It's as plain as daylight. Let me tell you instead. It's all for the sake of your poor little personal pride. I know—yes, I know. They've been throwing mud at you, and it's stuck. You'd sooner die than marry me, wouldn't you? But what will you do if I refuse to set you free?"

She turned suddenly crimson. "You—you wouldn't, Nick! You couldn't! You haven't—the right."

"Haven't I?" said Nick, with an odd smile. "I thought I had."

He looked down at her, and a queer little flame leaped up like an evil spirit in his eyes, flickered an instant, and was gone. "I thought I had," he said again, in a different tone. "But we won't quarrel about that. Tell me what you want to do."

Her answer came with a vehemence that perhaps he had hardly expected. "Oh, I want to get away—right away. I want to go home. I—I hate this place."

"And every one in it?" suggested Nick.

"Almost." Muriel spoke recklessly, even defiantly. She was fighting for her freedom, and the battle was infinitely harder than she had anticipated.

He nodded. "The sole exception being Mrs. Musgrave. Do you know Mrs. Musgrave is going home? You would like to go with her."

Muriel looked at him with sudden hope. "Alone with her?" she said.

"Oh, I'm not going," declared Nick. "I'm going to Khatmandu for my honeymoon."

The hope died out of Muriel's eyes. "Don't—jeer at me, Nick," she said, in a choked voice. "I can't bear it."

"Jeer!" said Nick. "I!" He reached down suddenly and took her hand. The light sparkled on the ring he had given her, and he moved it slowly to and fro watching it.

"I am going to ask you to take it back," she said.

He did not raise his eyes. "And I am going to refuse," he answered promptly. "I don't say you must wear it, but you are to keep it—not as a bond, merely in remembrance of a promise which you will make to me."

"A promise—" she faltered.

Still he did not look up. He was watching the stones with eyes half-shut.

"Yes," he said, after a moment. "I will let you go on the sole condition that you give me this promise."

She began to tremble a little. "What is it?" she whispered.

He glanced at her momentarily, but his expression was enigmatical. She felt as if his look lighted and dwelt upon something beyond her.

"Simply this," he said. "You'll laugh, I daresay; but if you are able to laugh it won't hurt you to promise. I want your word of honour that if you ever change your mind about marrying me, you will come to me like a brave woman and tell me so."

Thus, quite calmly, he made known to her his condition, and in the amazed silence with which she received it he continued to flash hither and thither the wonderful rays that shone from the gems upon her hand. He did not appear to be greatly concerned as to what her answer would be. Simply with an inscrutable countenance he waited for it.

"Is it a bargain?" he asked at last.

She started with an involuntary gesture of shrinking. "Oh, no, Nick! How could I promise you that? You know I shall never change my mind."

He raised his eyebrows ever so slightly. "That isn't the point under discussion. If it's an impossible contingency, it costs you the less to promise."

He kept her hand in his as he said it, though she fidgeted to be free. "Please, Nick," she said earnestly, "I would so much rather not."

"You prefer to marry me at once?" he asked, and suddenly it seemed to her that this was the alternative to which he meant to drive her.

She rose in a panic, and he rose also, still keeping her hand. His face looked like a block of yellow granite.

"Must it—must it—be one or the other?" she panted.

He looked at her under flickering eyelids. "I have said it," he remarked.

Her resistance flagged, sank, rose again, and finally died away. After all, why should she hesitate? What was there in such an undertaking as this to send the blood so wildly to her heart?

"Very well," she said faintly at last. "I promise. But—but—I never shall change my mind, Nick—never—never."

He was still looking at her with veiled, impenetrable eyes. He paid no attention to her protest. It was as if he had not so much as heard it.

"You've done your part," he said. "Now hear me do mine. I swear to you—before God—that I will never marry you unless you ask me to."

He bent with the words, and solemnly, reverently, he pressed his lips upon the hand he held.

Muriel waited, half-frightened still, and wholly awestruck. She did not know Nick in this mood.

But when he straightened himself again, the old whimsical smile was on his face, and she breathed a sigh of relief. With a quick, caressing movement he took her by the shoulders.

"That's over then," he said lightly. "Turn over and start another page. Go back to England, go back to school; and let them teach you to be young again."

They were his last words to her. Yet an instant longer he waited, and very deep down in her heart something that was hidden there stirred and quivered as a blind creature moves at the touch of the sun. It awoke a vague pain within her, that was all.

The next moment Nick had turned upon his heel and was departing.

She heard him humming a waltz tune under his breath as he went away with his free British swagger. And she knew with no sense of elation that she had gained her point.

For good or ill he had left her, and he would not return.



PART III



CHAPTER XVII

AN OLD FRIEND

"There!" said Daisy, standing back from the table to review her handiwork with her head on one side. "I may be outrageously childish, but if Blake fails to appreciate this masterpiece of mine, I shall feel inclined to turn him out-of-doors, and leave him to spend the night on the step."

Muriel, curled up in the old-fashioned window-seat, looked round with her low laugh. "It's snowing hard," she remarked.

Daisy did not heed her. "Come and look at it," she said.

The masterpiece in question consisted of an enormous red scroll bearing in white letters the words: "Welcome to the Brave."

"It never before occurred to me that Blake was brave," observed Daisy. "He is so shy and soft and retiring. I can't somehow feel as if I am going to entertain a lion. He ought to be here by this time. Let's go and hang my work of art in the hall."

She slipped her hand through Muriel's arm, and glanced at her sharply when she felt it tremble.

"It will be good to see him again, won't it?" she said.

"Yes," Muriel agreed, but there was a little tremor in her voice as well.

Very vividly were the circumstances under which she had last seen this man in her mind that night. Eight months that were like as many years stretched between that tragic time and the present, but the old wild horror had still the power to make her blood turn cold, the old wound had not lost its ache. These things had made a woman of her before her time, but yet she was not as other women. It seemed that she was destined all her life to live apart, and only to look on at the joys of others. They did not attract her, and she had no heart for gaiety. Yet she was not cold, or Daisy had not found in her so congenial a companion. But even Daisy seldom penetrated behind the deep reserve that had grown over the girl's sad young heart. They were close friends, but their friendship lay mainly in what they left unsaid. For all her quick warmth, Daisy too had her inner shrine—a place so secret that she herself never entered it save as it were by stealth.

But something of Muriel's mood she understood on that bitter night in January on which they awaited the coming of Blake Grange, and her close hand-pressure conveyed as much as they passed out together into the little hall that glowed so snugly in the firelight.

"He is sure to be frozen, poor boy," she said. "I hope Jim Ratcliffe won't forget to send the motor to the station as he promised."

"I am quite sure he never forgets anything," Muriel declared, with reassuring confidence.

Daisy laughed lightly. "Yes, he's very dependable, deliciously solid, isn't he? A trifle domineering perhaps, but all doctors are. They rule us weak women with a rod of iron. I am a little afraid of Dr. Jim myself, and most unfortunately he knows it."

Muriel's silence expressed a certain scepticism that provoked another laugh from Daisy. She was almost frivolously light-hearted that night.

"It's a fact, I assure you. Have you never noticed how docile I am in his presence? I always feel as if I want to confess all my sins to him. I should like intensely to have his opinion upon some of them. I think it would do me good."

"Then why not ask for it?" suggested Muriel.

"For the reason aforementioned—a slavish timidity." Daisy broke off to carol a few bars of a song. "I've known the Ratcliffe family ever since I became engaged to Will," she said presently. "Jim Ratcliffe, you know, was left his guardian, and he was always very good to him. Will made his home with them and he and Nick are great pals, just like brothers. I should think Dr. Jim had his hands full with the two of them." Again Daisy stopped to sing. Muriel was stooping over the fire. It was seldom that Nick's name was mentioned between them, though the fact that Daisy had placed herself and her baby in the hands of his half-brother formed a connecting link which could not always be ignored. She always dropped into silence when a reference was made to him. Not in the most casual conversation had Daisy ever heard her utter his name.

Having successfully fixed her message of welcome in a prominent position, she joined the girl in front of the fire. Her face was flushed and her eyes were sparkling. Muriel thought that she had never seen her look so well or so happy.

"You're quite excited," she said.

Daisy put up a hand to her hot cheek. "Yes, isn't it absurd? I hope Dr. Jim won't come with him, or he will be cross. But I can't help it. Blake and I have been chums all our lives, and of course I am glad to see him after all this while. So nice, too, not to have Lady Bassett looking on."

There was a spice of venom in this, over which Muriel smiled in her sad way.

"Does she disapprove?" she asked.

Daisy nodded impatiently. "She chose altogether to overlook the fact that we are first cousins. It was intolerable. But—" again came her light laugh—"everything is intolerable till you learn to shrug your shoulders and laugh. Hark! Surely I heard something!"

Both listened intently. Footsteps were approaching the door. Daisy sprang to open it.

But it was only the evening post, and she came back holding a letter with a very unwonted expression of disappointment.

"From Will," she said. "I forgot it was mail night. I don't suppose there is anything very exciting in it."

She pushed the flimsy envelope into the front of her dress and fell again to listening.

"Can he have missed the train? Surely it's getting very late. A fog on the line perhaps. No! What's that? Ah! It really is this time. That's the horn, and, yes, Jim Ratcliffe's voice."

In a moment she had the door open again, and was out upon the step crying welcome to her guest.

Muriel crouched a little lower over the fire. Her hands were fast gripped together. It was more of an ordeal than she had thought it possibly could be.

An icy blast blew in through the open door, and she heard Dr. Ratcliffe's voice, sharp and curt, ordering Daisy back into the house. Then came another voice, slow and soft as a woman's, and for an instant Muriel covered her face, overwhelmed by bitter memory.

When she looked up they were entering the hall together, Daisy, radiant, eager, full of breathless questioning; Blake, upright, soldierly, magnificent, wearing the shy, pleased smile that she so well remembered.

He did not at once see her, and she stood hesitating, till Daisy, who was clinging to her cousin's arm, turned swiftly round and called her.

"Muriel, dear, where are you? Why are you hiding yourself? See, Blake! Here is Muriel Roscoe! You knew we were living together?"

He saw her then, and came across to her, with both hands outstretched.

"Forgive me, Miss Roscoe," he said, with his pleasant smile. "You know how glad I am to meet you again."

He looked down at her with eyes full of frank and friendly sympathy, and the grasp of his hands was such that she felt it for long after. It warmed her through and through, but she could not speak just then, and with ready understanding he turned back to Daisy.

"Dr. Ratcliffe told me you had sent him to fetch me from the station," he said. "I am immensely grateful to you and to him."

Daisy was greeting the doctor with much animation and a hint of mischief.

"I knew you would come," she laughed. "You never trust me to take care of myself, do you?"

He brushed some flakes of snow from her dress. "Events prove me to be justified," he remarked dryly. "Since Will has put you in my care, I labour under a twofold responsibility. What possessed you to go out in that murderous north-easter?"