He frowned at her heavily, his black brows meeting, but notwithstanding her avowal of a few minutes before, Daisy only grimaced in return. He was generally regarded as somewhat formidable, this gruff, square-shouldered doctor, with his iron-grey hair and black moustache, and keenly critical eyes. There was no varnish in his curt speech, no dissimulation in any of his dealings. It was said of him that he never sugared his pills. But his popularity was wide-spread nevertheless. His help was sought in a thousand ways outside his profession. To see his strong face melt into a smile was like sunshine on a gloomy day, the village mothers declared.

But Daisy's gay effrontery did not manage to provoke it at that moment.

"You have no business to take risks," he said. "How's the boy?"

Daisy sobered instantly. "His teeth have been worrying him rather to-day. Ayah is with him. I left her crooning him to sleep. Will you go up?"

Jim Ratcliffe nodded and turned aside to the stairs. But he had not reached the top when Muriel overtook him, moving more quickly than was her wont.

"Let me come with you, doctor," she said.

He put his hand on her arm unceremoniously. "Miss Roscoe," he said, "I have a message for you—from my scapegrace Olga. She wants to know if you will play hockey in her team next Saturday. I have promised to exert my influence—if I have any—on her behalf."

Muriel looked at him in semi-tragic dismay. "Oh, I can't indeed. Why, I haven't played for ages,—not since I was at school. Besides—"

"How old are you?" he cut in.

"Nearly twenty," she told him. "But—"

He brought his hand down sharply on her shoulder. "I shall never call you Miss Roscoe again. You obtained my veneration on false pretences, and you have lost it for ever. Now look here, Muriel!" Arrived at the top of the stairs, he stood still and confronted her with that smile of his that so marvellously softened his rugged face. "I am thirty years older than you are, and I haven't lived for any part of them with my eyes shut. I've been wanting to give you some advice—medical advice—for a long time. But you wouldn't have it. And now I'm not going to offer it to you. You shall take the advice of a friend instead. You join Olga's hockey team, and go paper-chasing with her too. The monkey is a rare sportswoman. She'll give you a good run for your money. Besides, she has set her heart on having you, and she is a young woman that likes her own way, though, to be sure, she doesn't always get it. Come, you can't refuse when a friend asks you."

It was difficult, certainly, but Muriel plainly desired to do so. She had escaped from the whirling vortex of life with strenuous effort, and dragged herself bruised and aching to the bank. She did not want to step down again into even the minutest eddy of that ruthless flood. Moreover, in addition to this morbid reluctance she lacked the physical energy that such a step demanded of her.

"It's very kind of your little daughter to think of asking me," she said. "But really, I shouldn't be any good. I get tired so quickly. No, there's nothing the matter with me," seeing his intent look. "I'm not ill. I never have been actually ill. Only—" her voice quivered a little—"I think I always shall be tired for the rest of my life."

"Skittles!" he returned bluntly. "That isn't what's the matter with you. Go out into the open air. Go out into the north-east wind and sweep the snow away. Shall I tell you what is wrong with you? You're stiff from inaction. It's a species of cramp, my dear, and there's only one remedy for it. Are you going to take it of your own accord, or must I come round with a physic spoon and make you?"

She laughed a little, though the deep pathos of her shadowed eyes never varied. Daisy's merry voice rose from the lower regions gaily chaffing her cousin.

"Goodness, Blake! I shouldn't have known you. You're as gaunt as a camel. Haven't you got over your picnic at Fort Wara yet? You're almost as scanty a bag of bones as Nick was six months ago."

Blake's answer was inaudible. Dr. Ratcliffe did not listen for it. He had seen the swift look of horror that the brief allusion had sent into the girl's sad face, and he understood it though he made no sign.

"Very well," he said, turning towards the nursery. "Then I take you in hand from this day forward. And if I don't find you in the hockey-field on Saturday, I shall come myself and fetch you."

There was nothing even vaguely suggestive of Nick about him, but Muriel knew as surely as if Nick had said it that he would keep his word.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE EXPLANATION

"Now," said Daisy briskly, "you two will just have to entertain each other for a little while, for I am going up to sit with my son while ayah is off duty."

"Mayn't we come too?" suggested her cousin, as he rose to open the door.

She stood a moment and contemplated him with shining eyes. "You are too magnificent altogether for this doll's house of ours," she declared. "I am sure this humble roof has never before sheltered such a lion as Captain Blake Grange, V.C."

"Only an ass in a lion's skin, my dear Daisy," said Grange modestly.

She laughed. "An excellent simile, my worthy cousin. I wish I had thought of it myself."

She went lightly away with this thrust, and Grange, after a brief pause, turned slowly back into the room.

Muriel was seated in a low chair before the fire. She was working at some tiny woollen socks, knitting swiftly in dead silence.

He moved to the hearthrug, and stood there, obviously ill at ease. A certain shyness was in his nature, and Muriel's nervousness reacted upon him. He did not know how to break the silence.

At length, with an effort, he spoke. "You heard about Nick Ratcliffe's wound, I expect, Miss Roscoe?"

Muriel's hands leapt suddenly and fell into her lap. "Nick Ratcliffe! When was he wounded? No, I have heard nothing."

He looked down at her with an uneasy suspicion that he had lighted upon an unfortunate subject.

"I thought you would have heard," he said. "Didn't Daisy know? He came back to us from Simla—got himself attached to the punitive expedition. I was on the sick list myself, so did not see him, but they say he fought like a dancing dervish, and did a lot of damage too. Every one thought he would have the V.C., but there was a rumour that he refused it."

"And—he was wounded, you say?" Muriel's voice sounded curiously strained. Her knitting lay jumbled together in her lap. Her dark face was lifted, and it seemed to Grange, unskilled observer though he was, that he had never seen deeper tragedy in any woman's eyes.

Somewhat reluctantly he made reply. "He had his arm injured by a sword-thrust at the very end of the campaign. He made light of it for ever so long till things began to look serious. Then he had to give in, and had a pretty sharp time of it, I believe. He's better again now, though, so his brother told me this evening. I never heard any details. I daresay he's all right again." He stooped to pick up a completed sock that had fallen. "He's the sort of chap who always comes out on top," he ended consolingly.

Muriel stiffened a little as she sat. She had a curious longing to hear more, and an equally curious reluctance to ask for it.

"I never heard anything about it—naturally," she remarked.

Grange, having fitted the sock on to two fingers, was examining it with a contemplative air. It struck her abruptly that he was trying to say something. She waited silently, not without apprehension. She had no idea as to how much he knew of what had passed between herself and Nick.

"I say, Miss Roscoe," he blurted out suddenly, "do you hate talking about these things—very badly, I mean?"

She looked up at him, and was surprised to see emotion on his face. It had an odd effect upon her, placing her unaccountably at her ease with him, banishing all her stiffness in a moment. She remembered with a quick warmth at her heart how she had always liked this man in those far-off days of her father's protection, how she had always found something reassuring in his gentle courtesy.

"No," she said, after a moment, speaking with absolute sincerity. "I can't bear to with—most people; but I don't think I mind with you."

She saw his pleasant smile for an instant. He laid the sock down upon her knee, and in doing so touched and lightly pressed her hand.

"Thank you," he said simply. "I know I'm not good at expressing myself, but please believe that I wouldn't hurt you for the world. Miss Roscoe, I have brought some things with me I think you will like to have—things that belonged to your father. Sir Reginald Bassett entrusted them to me—left them, in fact, in my charge, as he found them. I was coming home, and I asked leave to bring them to you. Perhaps you would like me to fetch them?"

She was on her feet as he asked the question, on her face such a look of eagerness as it had not worn for many weary months.

"Oh, please—if you would!" she said, her words falling fast and breathless. "It has been—such a grief to me—that I had nothing of his to—to treasure."

He turned at once to the door. The desolation that those words of hers revealed to him went straight to his man's heart. Poor little girl! Had the parting been so infernally hard as even now to bring that look to her eyes? Was her father's memory the only interest she had left in her sad young life? And all the evening, save for that first brief moment of their meeting, he had been thinking her cold, impassive, even cynical.

With a deep pity in his soul he departed on his errand.

Returning with the soft tread which was his peculiarity, he surprised her with her face in her hands in an attitude of such abandonment that he drew back hesitating. But, suddenly aware of him, she sprang up swiftly, with no sign of tears upon her face.

"Oh, come in, come in!" she said impatiently. "Why do you stand there?"

She ran forward to meet him with hands hungrily outstretched, and he put into them those trifles which were to her so infinitely precious—a cigarette-case, a silver match-box, a pen-knife, a little old prayer-book very worn at the edges, with all the gilt faded from its leaves. She gathered them to her breast closely, passionately. All but the prayer-book had been her gifts to the father she had worshipped. With a wrung heart she called to mind the occasion upon which each had been offered, his smile of kindly appreciation, the old-world courtliness of his thanks. With loving hands she laid them down one by one, lingering over each, seeing them through a blur of tears. She was no longer conscious of Grange, as reverently, even diffidently, she opened last of all the little shabby prayer-book that her father had been wont to take with him on all his marches. She knew that he had cherished it as her mother's gift.

It opened upon a scrap of white heather which marked the Service for the Burial of the Dead. Her tears fell upon the faded sprig, and she brushed her hand swiftly across her eyes, looking more closely as certain words underlined caught her attention. Other words had been written by her father's hand very minutely in the margin.

The passage underlined was ... "not to be sorry as men without hope, for them that sleep ..." and in a moment she guessed that her father had made that mark on the day of her mother's death. It was like a message to her, the echo of a cry.

The words in the margin were so small that she had to carry them to the light to read them. And then they flashed out at her as if sprung suddenly to light on the white paper. There, in the beloved handwriting, sure and indelible, she read it, and across the desert of her heart, voiceless but insistent, there swept the hunger-cry of a man's soul: OMNIA VINCIT AMOR.

It pulsed through her like an electric current, seeming to overwhelm every other sensation, shutting her off as it were from the home-world to which she had fled, how fruitlessly, for healing. Once more skeleton fingers held hers, shifting to and fro, to and fro, slowly, ceaselessly, flashing the deep rays that shone from ruby hearts hither and thither. Once more—But she would not bear it! She was free! She was free! She flung out the hand that once had worn those rubies, and, resisting wildly, broke away from the spell that the words her father had written had woven afresh for her.

It might be true that Love conquered all things—he had believed it—but ah, what had this uncanny force to do with Love? Love was a pure, a holy thing, the bond imperishable—the Eternal Flame at which all the little torches of the world are lighted.

Moreover, there was no fear in Love, and she—she was sick with fear whenever she encountered that haunting phantom of memory.

With a start she awoke to the fact that she was not alone. Blake Grange had taken her out-flung hand, and was speaking to her softly, soothingly.

"Don't grieve so awfully, Miss Roscoe," he urged, a slight break in his own voice. "You're not left friendless. I know how it is. I've felt like it myself. But it gets better afterwards."

Muriel suffered him with a dawning sense of comfort. It surprised her to see tears in his eyes. She wondered vaguely if they were for her.

"Yes," she said, after a pause. "It does get better, I know, in a way. Or at least one gets used to an empty heart. One gets to leave off listening for what one will never, never hear any more."

"Never is a dreary word," said Grange.

She bent her head silently, and again his heart overflowed with pity for her. He looked down at the hand that lay so passively in his.

"I hope you will always think of me as a friend," he said.

She looked up at him a quick gleam of gratitude in her eyes. "Thank you," she said. "Yes, always."

He still held her hand. "You know," he said, blundering awkwardly, "I always blamed myself that—that I wasn't the one to be with you when you escaped from Wara. I might have been. But I—I wasn't prepared to pay the possible price."

She was still looking at him with those aloof, tragic eyes of hers. "I don't quite understand," she said, "I never did understand—exactly—why Nick was chosen to protect me. I always wished it had been you."

"It ought to have been," Grange said, with feeling. "It should have been. I blame myself. But Nick is a better fighter than I. He keeps his head. Moreover, he's a savage in some respects. I wasn't savage enough."

He smiled with a hint of apology.

Muriel repressed a shudder at his words. "I don't understand," she said again.

He hesitated. "It's a difficult thing to explain to you," he said reluctantly. "You see, the fellow who took charge of you had to be prepared for—well—anything. You know what devils those tribesmen are. There was to be no chance of your falling into their hands. It didn't mean just fighting for you, you understand. We would all have done that to the last drop of our blood. But—your father—was forced to ask of us—something more. And only Ratcliffe would undertake it. He's a queer chap. I used to think him a rotter till I saw him fight, and then I had to change my mind. That was, I believe, the main reason why General Roscoe selected him as your protector. He knew he could trust the fellow's nerve. The rest of us were like women compared to Nick."

He paused. Muriel's eyes had not flinched from his. She heard his explanation as one not vitally concerned.

"Have I made myself intelligible?" he asked, as she did not speak.

"Do you mean I was to be shot if things went wrong?" she returned, in her deep, quiet voice.

He nodded. "It must have been that. Your father saw it in that light, and so did we. Of course you are bound to see it too. But we stuck at it—Marshall and I. There was only Nick left, and he volunteered."

"Only Nick left!" she repeated slowly. "Nick would stick at nothing, Captain Grange."

"I honestly don't think he would," said Grange. "Still, you know, he's awfully plucky. He would have gone any length to save you first."

She drew back with a sudden shrinking of her whole body. "Oh, I know, I know!" she said. "I sometimes think there is a devil in Nick."

She turned aside, bending once more over her father's things, putting them together with unsteady fingers. So this was the answer to the riddle—the secret of his choice for her! She understood it all now.

After a short pause, she spoke again more calmly. "Did Nick ever speak to you about me?"

"Never," said Grange.

"Then please, Captain Grange"—she stood up again and faced him—"never speak to me again about him. I—want to forget him."

Very young and slight she looked standing there, and again he felt his heart stir within him with an urgent pity. Vague rumours he had heard of those few weeks at Simla during which her name and Nick Ratcliffe's had been coupled together, but he had never definitely known what had taken place. Had Nick been good to her, he wondered for the first time? How was it that the bare mention of him was unendurable to her? What had he done that she should shudder with horror when she remembered him, and should seek thus with loathing to thrust him out of her life?

Involuntarily the man's hands clenched and his blood quickened. Had the General's trust been misplaced? Was Nick a blackguard?

Finding her eyes still upon him, he made her a slight bow that was wholly free from gallantry.

"I will remember your wish, Miss Roscoe," he said. "I am sorry I mentioned a painful subject to you, though I am glad for you to know the truth. You are not vexed with me, I hope?"

Her eyes shone with sincere friendliness. "I am not vexed," she answered. "Only—let me forget—that's all."

And in those few words she voiced the desire of her soul. It was her one longing, her one prayer—to forget. And it was the one thing of all others denied to her.

In the silence that followed, she was conscious of his warm and kindly sympathy, and she was grateful for it, though something restrained her from telling him so.

Daisy, coming lightly in upon them, put an end to their tete-a-tete. She entered softly, her face alight and tender, and laid her two hands upon Grange's great shoulders as he sat before the fire.

"Come upstairs, Blake," she whispered, "and see my baby boy. He's sleeping so sweetly. I want you to see him first while he's good."

He raised his face to her smiling, his hands on hers. "I am sure to admire anything that belongs to you, Daisy," he said.

"You're a dear old pal," responded Daisy lightly. "Come along."

When they were gone Muriel spied Will Musgrave's letter lying on the ground by Grange's chair as it had evidently fallen from Daisy's dress. She went over and picked it up. It was still unopened.

With an odd little frown she set it up prominently upon the mantelpiece.

"Does Love conquer after all?" she murmured to herself, and there was a faint twist of cynicism about her lips as she asked the question. There seemed to be so many forms of Love.



CHAPTER XIX

A HERO WORSHIPPER

"Well played! Oh, well played! Miss Roscoe, you're a brick."

The merry voice of the doctor's little daughter Olga, aged fourteen, shrilled across the hockey-ground, keen with enthusiasm. She was speeding across the field like a hare to congratulate her latest recruit.

"I'm so pleased!" she cried, bursting through the miscellaneous crowd of boys and girls that surrounded Muriel. "I wanted you to shoot that goal."

She herself had been acting as goal-keeper at her own end of the field, a position of limited opportunities which she had firmly refused to assign to the new-comer. A child of unusual character was Olga Ratcliffe, impulsive but shrewd, with quick, pale eyes which never seemed to take more than a brief glance at anything, yet which very little ever escaped. At first sight Muriel had experienced a certain feeling of aversion to her, so marked was the likeness this child bore to the man whom she desired so passionately to shut out of her very memory. But a nearer intimacy had weakened her antipathy till very soon it had altogether disappeared. Olga had a swift and fascinating fashion of endearing herself to all who caught her fancy and, somewhat curiously, Muriel was one of the favoured number. What there was to attract a child of her quick temperament in the grave, silent girl in mourning who held aloof so coldly from the rest of the world was never apparent. But that a strong attraction existed for her was speedily evident, and Muriel, who was quite destitute of any near relations of her own, soon found that a free admittance to the doctor's home circle was accorded her on all sides, whenever she chose to avail herself of it.

But though Daisy was an immense favourite and often ran into the Ratcliffes' house, which was not more than a few hundred yards away from her own little abode, Muriel went but seldom. The doctor's wife, though always kind, was too busy to seek her out. And so it had been left to the doctor himself to drag her at length from her seclusion, and he had done it with a determination that would take no refusal. She did not know him very intimately, had never asked his advice, or held any confidential talk with him. At the outset she had been horribly afraid lest he should have heard of her engagement to Nick, but, since he never referred to her life in India or to Nick as in any fashion connected with herself, this fear had gradually subsided. She was able to tell herself thankfully that Nick was dropping away from her into the past, and to hope with some conviction that the great gulf that separated them would never be bridged.

Yet, notwithstanding this, she had a fugitive wish to know how her late comrade in adversity was faring. Captain Grange's news regarding him had aroused in her a vague uneasiness, which would not be quieted.

She wondered if by any means she could extract any information from Olga, and this she presently essayed to do, when play was over for the day and Olga had taken her upstairs to prepare for tea.

Olga was the easiest person in the world to deal with upon such a subject. She expanded at the very mention of Nick's name.

"Oh, do you know him? Isn't he a darling? I have a photograph of him somewhere. I must try and find it. He is in fancy dress and standing on his head—such a beauty. Weren't you awfully fond of him? He has been ill, you know. Dad was very waxy because he wouldn't come home. He might have had sick leave, but he wouldn't take it. However, he may have to come yet, Dad says, if something happens. He didn't say what. It was something to do with his wound. Dad wants him to leave the Army and settle down on his estate. He owns a big place about twelve miles away that an old great-aunt of his left him. Dad thinks a landowner ought to live at home if he can afford to. And of course Nick might go into Parliament too. He's so clever, and rich as well. But he won't do it. So it's no good talking."

Olga jumped off the dressing-table, and wound her arm impulsively through Muriel's. "Miss Roscoe," she said coaxingly, "I do like you most awfully. May I call you by your Christian name?"

"Why, do!" Muriel said. "I should like it best."

"Oh, that's all right," said Olga, well pleased. "I knew you weren't stuck-up really. I hate stuck-up people, don't you? I'm awfully pleased that you like Nick. I simply love him—better almost than any one else. He writes to me sometimes, pages and pages. I never show them to any one, and he doesn't show mine either. You see, we're pals. But I can show you his photograph—the one I told you about. It's just like him—his grin and all. Come up after tea, and I'll find it."

And with her arm entwined in Muriel's she drew her, still talking eagerly, from the room.



CHAPTER XX

NEWS FROM THE EAST

"I have been wondering," Grange said in his shy, rather diffident way, "if you would care to do any riding while I am here."

"I?" Muriel looked up in some surprise.

They were walking back from church together by a muddy field-path, and since neither had much to say at any time, they had accomplished more than half the distance in silence.

"I know you do ride," Grange explained, "and it's just the sort of country for a good gallop now and then. Daisy isn't allowed to, but I thought perhaps you—"

"Oh, I should like to, of course," Muriel said. "I haven't done any riding since I left Simla. I didn't care to alone."

"Ah! Lady Bassett rides, doesn't she? She is an accomplished horsewoman, I believe?"

"I don't know," Muriel's reply was noticeably curt. "I never rode with her."

Grange at once dropped the subject, and they became silent again. Muriel walked with her eyes fixed straight before her. But she did not see the brown earth underfoot or the bare trees that swayed overhead in the racing winter wind. She was back again in the heart of the Simla pines, hearing horses' feet that stamped below her window in the dawning, and a gay, cracked voice that sang.

Her companion's voice recalled her. "I suppose Daisy will stay here for the summer."

"I suppose so," she answered.

Grange went on with some hesitation. "The little chap doesn't look as if he would ever stand the Indian climate. What will happen? Will she ever consent to leave him with the Ratcliffes?"

"I am quite certain she won't," Muriel answered, with unfaltering conviction. "She simply lives for him."

"I thought so," Grange said rather sadly. "It would go hard with her if—if—"

Muriel's dark eyes flashed swift entreaty. "Oh, don't say it! Don't think it! I believe it would kill her."

"She is stronger, though?" he questioned almost sharply.

"Yes, yes, much stronger. Only—not strong enough for that. Captain Grange, it simply couldn't happen."

They had reached a gate at the end of the field. Grange stopped before it, and spoke with sudden, deep feeling.

"If it does happen, Muriel," he said, using her Christian name quite unconsciously, "we shall have to stand by her, you and I. You won't leave her, will you? You would be of more use to her than I. Oh, it's—it's damnable to see a woman in trouble and not be able to comfort her."

He brought his ungloved hand down upon the gate-post with a violence that drew blood; then, seeing her face of amazement, thrust it hastily behind him.

"I'm a fool," he said, with his shy, semi-apologetic smile. "Don't mind me, Miss Roscoe. You know, I—I'm awfully fond of Daisy, always was. My people were her people, and when they died we were the only two left, as it were. Of course she was married by that time, and there are some other relations somewhere. But we've always hung together, she and I. You can understand it, can't you?"

Muriel fancied she could, but his vehemence startled her none the less. She had not deemed him capable of such intensity.

"I suppose you feel almost as if she were your sister," she remarked, groping half-unconsciously for an explanation.

Grange was holding the gate open for her. He did not instantly reply.

Then, "I don't exactly know what that feels like," he said, with an odd shame-facedness. "But in so far as that we have been playfellows and chums all our lives, I suppose you might describe it in that way."

And Muriel, though she wondered a little at the laborious honesty of his reply, was satisfied that she understood.

She was drifting into a very pleasant friendship with Blake Grange. He seemed to rely upon her in an indefinable fashion that made their intercourse of necessity one of intimacy. Moreover, Daisy's habits were still more or less those of an invalid, and this fact helped very materially to throw them together.

To Muriel, emerging slowly from the long winter of her sorrow, the growing friendship with this man whom she both liked and admired was as a shaft of sunshine breaking across a grey landscape. Insensibly it was doing her good. The deep shadow of a horror that once had overwhelmed her was lifting gradually away from her life. In her happier moments it almost seemed that she was beginning to forget.

Grange's suggestion that they should ride together awoke in her a keener sense of pleasure than she had known since the tragedy of Wara had darkened her young life, and for the rest of the day she looked forward eagerly to the resumption of this her favourite exercise.

Daisy was delighted with the idea, and when on the following morning Grange ransacked the town for suitable mounts and returned triumphant, she declared gaily that she should take no further trouble for her guest's entertainment. The responsibility from that day forth rested with Muriel.

Muriel was by no means loth to assume it. They got on excellently together, and their almost daily rides became a source of keen pleasure to her. Winter was fast merging into spring, and the magic of the coming season was working in her blood. There were times when a sense of spontaneous happiness would come over her, she knew not wherefore. Jim Ratcliffe no longer looked at her with stern-browed disapproval.

She and Grange both became regular members of Olga's hockey team. They shared most of their pursuits. Among other things she was learning the accompaniments of his songs. Grange had a well-cultivated tenor voice, to which Daisy the restless would listen for any length of time.

Altogether they were a very peaceful trio, and as the weeks slipped on it almost seemed as if the quiet home life they lived were destined to endure indefinitely. Grange spoke occasionally of leaving, but Daisy would never entertain the idea for an instant, and he certainly did not press it very strongly. He was not returning to India before September, and the long summer months that intervened made the date of his departure so remote as to be outside discussion. No one ever thought of it.

But the long, quiet interval in the sleepy little country town, interminable as it might feel, was not destined to last for ever. On a certain afternoon in March, Grange and Muriel, riding home together after a windy gallop across open country, were waylaid outside the doctor's gate by one of the Ratcliffe boys.

The urchin was cheering at the top of his voice and dancing ecstatically in the mud. Olga, equally dishevelled but somewhat more coherent, was seated on the gate-post, her long legs dangling.

"Have you seen Dad? Have you heard?" was her cry. "Jimmy, come out of the road. You'll be kicked."

Both riders pulled up to hear the news, Jimmy squirming away from the horses' legs after a fashion that provoked even the mild-tempered Grange to a sharp reproof.

"You haven't heard?" pursued Olga, ignoring her small brother's escapade as too trifling to notice at such a supreme moment. "But you haven't, of course, if you haven't seen Dad. The letter only came an hour ago. It's Nick, dear old Nick! He's coming home at last!" In her delight over imparting the information Olga nearly toppled over backwards, only saving herself by a violent effort. "Aren't you glad, Muriel? Aren't you glad?" she cried. "I was never so pleased in my life!"

But Muriel had no reply ready. For some reason her animal had become suddenly restive, and occupied the whole of her attention.

It was Grange who after a seconds hesitation asked for further particulars. "What is he coming for? Is it sick leave?"

Olga nodded. "He isn't to stay out there for the hot weather. It's something to do with his wound. He doesn't want to come a bit. But he is to start almost at once. He may be starting now."

"Not likely," put in Jimmy. "The end of March was what he said. Dad said he couldn't be here before the third week in April."

"Oh, well, that isn't long, is it?" said Olga eagerly. "Not when you come to remember that it's three years since he went away. I do think they might have given him the V.C., don't you? Captain Grange, why hasn't he got the V.C.?"

Grange couldn't say, really. He advised her to ask the man himself. He was observing Muriel with some uneasiness, and when she at length abruptly waved her whip and rode sharply on as though her horse were beyond her control, he struck spurs into his own and started in pursuit.

Muriel passed her own gate at a canter, but hearing Grange behind her she soon reined in, and they trotted some distance side by side in silence.

But Grange was still uneasy. The girl's rigid profile had that stony, aloof look that he had noted upon his arrival weeks before, and that he had come to associate with her escape from Wara.

Nevertheless, when she presently addressed him it was in her ordinary tone and upon a subject indifferent to them both. She had received a shock, he knew, but she plainly did not wish him to remark it.

They rode quite soberly back again, and separated at the door.



CHAPTER XXI

A HARBOUR OF REFUGE

To Daisy the news that Grange imparted was more pleasing than startling. "I knew he would come before long if he were a wise man," she said.

But when her cousin wanted to know what she meant, she would not tell him.

"No, I can't, Blake," was her answer. "I once promised Muriel never to speak of it. She is very sensitive on the subject."

Grange did not press for an explanation. It was not his way. He left her moodily, a frown of deep dissatisfaction upon his handsome face. Daisy did not spend much thought upon him. Her interests at that time were almost wholly centred upon her boy who was so backward and delicate that she was continually anxious about him. She was, in fact, so preoccupied that she hardly noticed at dinner that Muriel scarcely spoke and ate next to nothing.

Grange remarked both facts, and his moodiness increased. When Daisy went up to the nursery, he at once followed Muriel into the drawing-room. She was standing by the window when he entered, a slim, straight figure in unrelieved black; but though she must have heard him, she neither spoke nor turned her head.

Grange closed the door and came softly forward. There was an unwonted air of resolution about him that made him look almost grim. He reached her side and stood there silently. The wind had fallen, and the sky was starry.

After a brief silence Muriel dropped the blind and looked at him. There was something of interrogation in her glance.

"Shall we go into the garden?" she suggested. "It is so warm."

He fell in at once with the proposal. "You will want a cloak," he said. "Can I fetch you one?"

"Oh, thanks! Anything will do. I believe there's one of Daisy's in the hall."

She moved across the room quickly, as one impatient to escape from a confined space. Grange followed her. He was not smoking as usual. They went out together into the warm darkness, and passed side by side down the narrow path that wound between the bare flower-beds. It was a wonderful night. Once as they walked there drifted across them a sudden fragrance of violets.

They reached at length a rustic gate that led into the doctor's meadow, and here with one consent they stopped. Very far away a faint wind was stirring, but close at hand there was no sound. Again, from the wet earth by the gate, there rose the magic scent of violets.

Muriel rested her clasped hands upon the gate, and spoke in a voice unconsciously hushed.

"I never realised how much I liked this place before," she said. "Isn't it odd? I have been actually happy here—and I didn't know it."

"You are not happy to-night," said Grange.

She did not attempt to contradict him. "I think I am rather tired," she said.

"I don't think that is quite all," he returned, with quiet conviction.

She moved, turning slightly towards him; but she said nothing, though he obviously waited for some response.

For awhile he was discouraged, and silence fell again upon them. Then at length he braced himself for an effort. For all his shyness he was not without a certain strength.

"Miss Roscoe," he said, "do you remember how you once promised that you would always regard me as a friend?"

She turned fully towards him then, and he saw her face dimly in the starlight. He thought she looked very pale.

"I do," she said simply.

In a second his diffidence fell away from him. He realised that the ground on which he stood was firm. He bent towards her.

"I want you to keep that promise of yours in its fullest sense to-night, Muriel," he said, and his soft voice had in it almost a caressing note. "I want you—if you will—to tell me what is the matter."

Muriel stood before him with her face upturned. He could not read her expression, but he knew by her attitude that she had no thought of repelling him.

"What is it?" he urged gently. "Won't you tell me?"

"Don't you know?" she asked him slowly.

"I only know that what we heard this afternoon upset you," he answered. "And I don't understand it. I am asking you to explain."

"You will only think me very foolish and absurd."

There was a deep quiver in the words, and he knew that she was trembling. Very kindly he laid his hand upon her shoulder.

"Can't you trust me better than that?" he asked.

She did not answer him. Her breathing became suddenly sharp and irregular, and he realised that she was battling for self-control.

"I don't know if I can make you understand," she said at last. "But I will try."

"Yes, try!" he said gently. "You won't find it so very difficult."

She turned back to the gate, and leaned wearily upon it.

"You are very kind. You always have been. I couldn't tell any one else—not even Daisy. You see, she is—his friend. But you are different. I don't think you like him, do you?"

Grange hesitated a little. "I won't go so far as to say that," he said finally. "We get on all right. I was never very intimate with the fellow. I think he is a bit callous."

"Callous!" Muriel gave a sudden hard shudder. "He is much worse than callous. He is hideously, almost devilishly cruel. But—but—he isn't only that. Blake, do you think he is quite human? He is so horribly, so unnaturally strong."

Grange heard the scared note in her voice, and drew very close to her. "I think," he said quietly, "that—without knowing it—you exaggerate both his cruelty and his strength. I know he is a queer chap. I once heard it said of him that he has the eyes of a snake-charmer, and I believe it more or less. But I assure you he is human—quite human. And"—he spoke with unwonted emphasis—"he has no more power over you—not an inch—than you choose to give him."

Muriel uttered a faint sigh. "I knew I should never make you understand."

Grange was silent. He might have retorted that she had given him very little information to go upon, but he forebore. There was an almost colossal patience about this man. His silence had in it nothing of resentment.

After a few seconds Muriel went on, her voice very low. "I would give anything—all I have—not to meet him when he comes back. But I don't know how to get away from him. He is sure to seek me out. And I—I am only a girl. I can't prevent it."

Again there sounded that piteous quiver in her words. It was like the cry of a lost child. Grange heard it, and clenched his hands, but he did not speak. He was gazing straight ahead, stern-eyed and still.

Muriel scarcely noticed his attitude. Having at length broken through her barrier of reserve, she found a certain relief in speech.

"I might go away, of course," she said. "I expect I shall do that, for I don't think I could endure it here. But I haven't many friends. My year in India seemed to cut me off from every one. It's a little difficult to know where to go. And then, too, there is Daisy."

She paused, and suddenly Grange spoke, with more abruptness than was his wont.

"Why do you think he is sure to seek you out? Did he ever say so?"

She shivered. "No, he never said so. But—but—in a way I feel it. He is so merciless. He always makes me think of an eagle swooping down on its prey. No doubt you think me very fanciful and ridiculous. Perhaps I am. But once—in the mountains—he told me that I belonged to him—that he would not let me go, and—and—I have never been able to forget it."

Her voice sank, and it seemed to Grange that she was crying in the darkness. Her utter forlornness pierced him to the heart. He leaned towards her, trying ineffectually to see her face.

"My dear little girl," he said gently, "don't be so distressed. He deserves to be kicked for frightening you like this."

"It's my own fault," she whispered back. "If I were stronger, or if Daddy were with me—it would be different. But I am all alone. There is no one to help me. I used to think it didn't matter what happened to me, but I am beginning to feel it does."

"Of course it does," Grange said. His hand felt along the rail for hers, and, finding them, held them closely. Her weakness gave him confidence. "Poor child!" he murmured softly. "Poor little girl! You do want some one to take care of you."

Muriel mastered herself with an effort. It was not often now that she gave way so completely.

"It's only now and then," she said. "It's better than it used to be. Only somehow I got frightened when I heard that Nick was coming. I daresay—when I begin to get used to the idea—I shan't mind it quite so much. Never mind about my silly worries any more. No doubt I shall get wiser as I grow older."

She tried to laugh with the words, but somehow no laugh came. Grange's great hand closed very tightly upon hers, and she looked up in surprise.

Almost instantly he began to speak, very humbly, but also very resolutely. "Muriel," he said, "I'm an unutterable fool at expressing things. I can only say them straight out and hope for the best. You want a protector, don't you? And I—should like to be the one to protect you if—if it were ever possible for you to think of me in that light."

He spoke with immense effort. He was afraid of scaring her, afraid of hurting her desolate young heart, afraid almost of the very impulse that moved him to speak.

Absolute silence reigned when he ended.

Muriel had become suddenly rigid, and so still that she did not seem to breathe. For several seconds he waited, but still she made no sign. He had not the remotest clue to guide him. He began to feel as if a door had unexpectedly closed against him, not violently, but steadily, soundlessly, barring him out.

It was but a fleeting impression. In a few moments more it was gone. She drew a long quivering breath, and turned slightly towards him.

"I would rather trust myself to you," she said, "than to any one else in the world."

She spoke in her deep, sincere voice which gave him no doubt that she meant what she said, and at once his own trepidation departed. He put his arm around her, and pressed her close to him.

"Come to me then," he said very tenderly. "And I will take such care of you, Muriel, that no one shall ever frighten you again."

She yielded to his touch as simply as a child, leaning her head against him with a little, weary gesture of complete confidence. She was desperately tired of standing alone.

"I know I shall be safe with you," she whispered.

"Quite safe, dear," he answered gravely. He paused a moment as though irresolute; then, still holding her closely, he bent and kissed her forehead.

He did it very quietly and reverently, but at the action she started, almost shrank. One of those swift flashes of memory came suddenly upon her, and as in a vision she beheld another face bending over her—a yellow, wrinkled face of terrible emaciation, with eyes of flickering fire—eyes that never slept—and heard a voice, curiously broken and incoherent that seemed to pray. She could not catch the words it uttered.

The old wild panic rushed over her, the old frenzied longing to escape. With a sobbing gasp she turned in Grange's arms, and clung to him.

"Oh, Captain Grange," she panted piteously, "promise—promise you will never let me go!"

Her agitation surprised him, but it awaked in him a responsive tenderness that compassed her with a strength bred rather of emergency than habit.

"My little girl, I swear I will never let you go," he said, with grave assurance. "You are quite safe now. No one shall ever take you from me."

And it was to Muriel as if, after long and futile battling in the open sea, she had drifted at last into the calm heaven which surely had always been the goal of her desires.



CHAPTER XXII

AN OLD STORY

Jim Ratcliffe was in the drawing-room with Daisy when they returned. He scrutinised them both somewhat sharply as they came in, but he made no comment upon their preference for the garden. Very soon he rose to take his leave.

Grange accompanied him to the door, and Muriel, suddenly possessed by an overwhelming sense of shyness, bent over Daisy and murmured a hasty goodnight.

Daisy looked at her for a moment. "Tired, dear?"

"A little," Muriel admitted.

"I hope you haven't been catching cold—you and Blake," Daisy said, as she kissed her.

Muriel assured her to the contrary, and hastened to make her escape. In the hall she came face to face with Blake. He met her with a smile.

"What! Going up already?"

She nodded. Her face was burning. For an instant her hand lay in his.

"You tell Daisy," she whispered, and fled upstairs like a scared bird.

Grange stood till she was out of sight; then turned aside to the drawing-room, the smile wholly gone from his face.

Daisy, from her seat before the fire, looked up with her gay laugh. "I'm sure there is a secret brewing between you two," she declared. "I can feel it in my bones."

Grange closed the door carefully. There was a queer look on his face, almost an apprehensive look. He took up his stand on the hearthrug before he spoke.

"You are not far wrong, Daisy," he said then.

She answered him lightly as ever. "I never am, my dear Blake. Surely you must have noticed it. Well, am I to be let into the plot, or not?"

He looked at her for a moment uneasily. "Of course we shall tell you," he said. "It—it's not a thing we could very well keep to ourselves for any length of time."

A sudden gleam of understanding flashed into Daisy's upturned face, and instantly her expression changed. With a swift, vehement movement she sprang up and stood before him.

"Blake!" she exclaimed, and in her voice astonishment, dismay, and even reproach were mingled.

He averted his eyes from hers. "Won't you congratulate me, Daisy?" he said, speaking almost under his breath.

Daisy had turned very white. She put out both hands, and leaned upon the mantelpiece.

"But, my dear Blake," she said, after a moment, "she is not for you."

"What do you mean?" Grange's jaw suddenly set itself. He squared his great shoulders as if instinctively bracing himself to meet opposition.

"I mean"—Daisy spoke very quietly and emphatically—"I mean, Blake, that she is Nick's property. She belonged to Nick before ever you thought of wanting her. I never dreamed that you would do anything so shabby as to step in at the last moment, just when Nick is coming home, and cut him out. How could you do such a thing, Blake? But surely it isn't irrevocable? You can't have said anything definite?"

Grange's face had become very stern. He no longer avoided her eyes. For once he was really angry, and showed it.

"You make a mistake," he told her curtly. "I have done nothing whatever of which I am ashamed, or of which any man could be ashamed. Certainly I have taken a definite step. I have proposed to her, and she has accepted me. With regard to Nick Ratcliffe, I believe myself that the fellow is something of a blackguard, but in any case she both fears and hates him. He can have no shadow of a right over her."

"You forget that he saved her life," said Daisy.

"Is she to hold herself at his disposal on that account? I must say I fail to see the obligation."

There was even a hint of scorn in Grange's tone. At sound of it, Daisy turned round and laid her hand winningly upon his arm.

"Dear old boy," she said gently, "don't be angry. I'm not against you."

He softened instantly. It was not in him to harbour resentment against a woman. He took her hand, and heaved a deep sigh.

"No, Daisy," he said half sadly, "you mustn't be against me. I always count on you."

Daisy laughed a little wistfully. "Always did, dear, didn't you? Well, tell me some more. What made you propose all of a sudden like this? Are you—very much in love?"

He looked at her. "Perhaps not quite as we used to understand the term," he said, seeming to speak half-reluctantly.

"Oh, we were very extravagant and foolish," rejoined Daisy lightly. "I didn't mean quite in that way, Blake. You at least are past the age for such feathery nonsense, or should be. I was—aeons and aeons ago."

"Were you?" he said, and still he looked at her half in wonder, it seemed, and half in regret.

Daisy nodded at him briskly. The colour had come back to her face. "Yes, I have arrived at years of discretion," she assured him. "And I quite agree with Solomon that childhood and youth are vanity. But now let us talk about this. Is she in love with you, I wonder? I must be remarkably blind not to have seen it. How in the world I shall ever face Nick again, I can't imagine."

Grange frowned. "I'm getting a bit tired of Nick," he said moodily. "He crops up everywhere."

Daisy's face flushed. "Don't you ever again say a word against him in my hearing," she said. "For I won't bear it. He may not be handsome like you; but for all that, he's about the finest man I know."

"Good heavens!" said Blake. "As much as that!"

She nodded vehemently. "Yes, quite as much. And he loves her, too, loves her with his whole soul. Perhaps you never knew that they would have been married long ago in Simla if Muriel hadn't overheard some malicious gossip and thrown him over. How in the world she made him let her go I never knew, but she did it, though I believe it nearly broke his heart. He came to me afterwards and begged me to keep her with me as long as I could, and take care of her."

"All this," broke in Grange, "is what you promised never to speak of?"

"Yes," she admitted recklessly. "But it is what you ought to know—what you must know—before you go any further."

"It will make no difference to me," he observed. "It is quite obvious that she never cared for him in the smallest degree. Why, my dear girl, she hates the man!"

Daisy gave vent to a sigh of exasperation. "When you come to talk about women's feelings, Blake, you make me tired. You will never be anything but a great big booby in that respect as long as you live."

Grange became silent. He never argued with Daisy. She had always had the upper hand. He watched her as she sat down again, her pretty face in the glow of the fire; but though fully aware of the fact, she would not look at him.

"She is a dear girl, and you are not half good enough for her," she said, stooping a little to the blaze.

"I know that," he answered bluntly. "I wasn't good enough for you, either, but you would have had me—once."

She made a dainty gesture with one shoulder. "That also was aeons ago. Why disturb that poor old skeleton?"

He did not answer, but he continued to watch her steadily with eyes that held an expression of dumb faithfulness—like the eyes of a dog.

Daisy was softly and meditatively poking the fire. "If you marry her, Blake," she said, "you will have to be enormously good to her. She isn't the sort of girl to be satisfied with anything but the best."

"I should do my utmost to make her happy," he answered.

She glanced up momentarily. "I wonder if you would succeed," she murmured.

For a single instant their eyes met. Daisy's fell away at once, and the firelight showed a swift deepening of colour on her face.

As for Blake, he stood quite stiff for a few seconds, then with an abruptness of movement unusual with him, he knelt suddenly down beside her.

"Daisy," he said, and his voice sounded strained, almost hoarse, "you're not vexed about it? You don't mind my marrying? It isn't—you know—it isn't—as if—"

He broke off, for Daisy had jerked upright as if at the piercing of a nerve. She looked at him fully, with blazing eyes. "How can you be so ridiculous, Blake?" she exclaimed, with sharp impatience. "That was all over and done with long, long ago, and you know it. Besides, even if it hadn't been, I'm not a dog in the manger. Surely you know that too. Oh, go away, and don't be absurd!"

She put her hand against his shoulder, and gave him a small but vehement push.

He stood up again immediately, but he did not look hurt, and the expression of loyalty in his eyes never wavered.

There was a short pause before Daisy spoke again.

"Well," she said, with a brief sigh, "I suppose it's no good crying over spilt milk, but I wish you had chosen any girl in the world but Muriel, Blake; I do indeed. You will have to write to Sir Reginald Bassett. He is her guardian, subject to his wife's management. Perhaps she will approve of you. She hated Nick for some reason."

"I don't see how they can object," Grange said, in the moody tone he always used when perplexed.

"No," said Daisy. "Nor did Nick. But Lady Bassett managed to put a spoke in his wheel notwithstanding. Still, if Muriel wants to marry you—or thinks she does—she will probably take her own way. And possibly regret it afterwards."

"You think I shall not make her happy?" said Grange.

Daisy hesitated a little. "I think," she said slowly, "that you are not the man for her. However,"—she rose with another shrug—"I may be wrong. In any case you have gone too far for me to meddle. I can't help either of you now. You must just do what you think best." She held out her hand. "I must go up now. Baby is restless to-night, and may want me. Good-night."

Blake stooped, and carried her hand softly and suddenly to his lips. He seemed for an instant on the verge of saying something, but no words came. There was a faint, half-mocking smile on Daisy's face as she turned away. But she was silent also. It seemed that they understood each other.



CHAPTER XXIII

THE SLEEP CALLED DEATH

It was an unspeakable relief to Muriel that, in congratulating her upon her engagement, Daisy made no reference to Nick. She did not know that this forbearance had been dictated long before by Nick himself.

The days that followed her engagement had in them a sort of rapture that she had never known before. She felt as a young wild creature suddenly escaped from the iron jaws of a trap in which it had long languished, and she rioted in the sense of liberty that was hers. Her youth was coming back to her in leaps and bounds with the advancing spring.

She missed nothing in Blake's courtship. His gentleness had always attracted her, and the intimacy that had been growing up between them made their intercourse always easy and pleasant. They never spoke of Nick. But ever in Muriel's heart there lay the soothing knowledge that she had nothing more to fear. Her terrible, single-handed contests against overwhelming odds were over, and she was safe. She was convinced that, whatever happened, Blake would take care of her. Was he not the protector she would have chosen from the beginning, could she but have had her way?

So, placidly and happily, the days drifted by, till March was nearly gone; and then, sudden and staggering as a shell from a masked battery, there fell the blow that was destined to end that peaceful time.

Very late one night there came a nervous knocking at Muriel's door, and springing up from her bed she came face to face with Daisy's ayah. The woman was grey with fright, and babbling incoherently. Something about "baba" and the "mem-sahib" Muriel caught and instantly guessed that the baby had been taken ill. She flung a wrap round her, and hastened to the nursery.

It was a small room opening out of Daisy's bedroom. The light was turned on full, and here Daisy herself was walking up and down with the baby in her arms.

Before Muriel was well in the room, she stopped and spoke. Her face was ghastly pale, and she could not raise her voice above a whisper, though she made repeated efforts. "Go to Blake!" she panted. "Go quickly! Tell him to fetch Jim Ratcliffe. Quick! Quick!"

Muriel flew to do her bidding. In her anxiety she scarcely waited to knock at Blake's door, but burst in upon him headlong. The room was in total darkness, but he awoke instantly.

"Hullo! What is it? That you, Muriel?"

"Oh, Blake!" she gasped. "The child's ill. We want the doctor."

He was up in a moment. She heard him groping for matches, but he only succeeded in knocking something over.

"Can't you find them?" she asked. "Wait! I'll get you a light."

She ran back to her own room and fetched a candle. Her hands were shaking so that she could scarcely light it. Returning, she found Grange putting on his clothes in the darkness. He was fully as flurried as she.

As she set down the candle there arose a sudden awful sound in Daisy's room.

Muriel stood still. "Oh, what is that?"

Grange paused in the act of dragging on his coat. "It's that damned ayah," he said savagely.

And in a second Muriel understood. Daisy's ayah was wailing for the dead.

She put her hands over her ears. The dreadful cry seemed to pierce right through to her very soul. Then she remembered Daisy, and turned to go to her.

Out in the passage she met the white-faced English servants huddling together and whispering. One of them was sobbing hysterically. She passed them swiftly by.

Back in Daisy's room she found the ayah crouched on the floor, and rocking herself to and fro while she beat her breast and wailed. The door that led into the nursery was closed.

Muriel advanced fiercely upon the woman. She almost felt as if she could have choked her. She seized her by the shoulders without ceremony. The ayah ceased her wailing for a moment, then recommenced in a lower key. Muriel pulled her to her feet, half-dragged, half-led her to her own room, thrust her within, and locked the door upon her. Then she returned to Daisy.

She found her sunk in a rocking-chair before the waning fire, softly swaying to and fro with the baby on her breast. She looked at Muriel entering, with a set, still face.

"Has Blake gone?" she asked, still in that dry, powerless whisper.

Muriel moved to her side, and knelt down. "He is just going," she began to say, but the words froze on her lips.

She remained motionless for a long second, gazing at the tiny, waxen face on Daisy's breast. And for that second her heart stood still; for she knew that the baby was dead.

From the closed room across the passage came the muffled sound of the ayah's wailing. Daisy made a slight impatient movement.

"Stir the fire," she whispered. "He feels so cold."

But Muriel did not move to obey. Instead she held out her arms.

"Let me take him, dear," she begged tremulously. Daisy shook her head with a jealous tightening of her clasp. "He has been so ill, poor wee darling," she whispered. "It came on so suddenly. There was no time to do anything. But he is easier now. I think he is asleep. We won't disturb him."

Muriel said no more. She rose and blindly poked the fire. Then—for the sight of Daisy rocking her dead child with that set, ashen face was more than she could bear—she turned and stole away, softly closing the door behind her.

Again meeting the English servants hovering outside, she sent them downstairs to light the kitchen fire, going herself to the dining-room window to watch for the doctor. Her feet were bare and freezing, but she would not return to her room for slippers. She felt she could not endure that awful wailing at close quarters again. Even as it was, she heard it fitfully; but from the nursery there came no sound.

She wondered if Blake had gone across the meadow to the doctor's house—it was undoubtedly the shortest cut—and tried to calculate how long it would take him.

The waiting was intolerable. She bore it with a desperate endurance. She could not rid herself of the feeling that somehow Nick was near her. She almost expected to see him come lightly in and stand beside her. Once or twice she turned shivering to assure herself that she was really alone.

There came at last the click of the garden-gate. They had come across the drenched meadows. In a transient gleam of moonlight she saw the two figures striding towards her. Grange stopped a moment to fasten the gate. The doctor came straight on.

She ran to the front door and threw it open. The wind blew swirling all about her, but she never felt it, though her very lips were numb and cold.

"It's too late!" she gasped, as he entered. "It's too late!"

Jim Ratcliffe took her by the shoulders and forced her away from the open door.

"Go and put something on," he ordered, "instantly!"

There was no resisting the mastery of his tone. She responded to it instinctively, hardly knowing what she did.

The ayah's paroxysm of grief had sunk to a low moaning when she re-entered her room. It sounded like a dumb creature in pain. Hastily she dressed, and twisted up her hair with fingers that she strove in vain to steady.

Then noiselessly she crept back to the nursery.

Daisy was still rocking softly to and fro before the ore, her piteous burden yet clasped against her heart. The doctor was stooping over her, and Muriel saw the half-eager, half-suspicious look in Daisy's eyes as she watched him. She was telling him in rapid whispers what had happened.

He listened to her very quietly, his keen eyes fixed unblinking upon the baby's face. When she ended, he stooped a little lower, his hand upon her arm.

"Let me take him," he said.

Muriel trembled for the answer, remembering the instant refusal with which her own offer had been met. But Daisy made no sort of protest. She seemed to yield mechanically.

Only, as he lifted the tiny body from her breast, a startled, almost a bereft look crossed her face, and she whispered quickly, "You won't let him cry?"

Jim Ratcliffe was silent a moment while he gazed intently at the little lifeless form he held. Then very gently, very pitifully, but withal very steadily, his verdict fell through the silent room.

"He will never cry any more."

Daisy was on her feet in a moment, the agony in her eyes terrible to see. "Jim! Jim!" she gasped, in a strangled voice. "He isn't dead! My little darling,—my baby,—the light of my eyes; tell me—he isn't—dead!"

She bent hungrily over the burden he held, and then gazed wildly into his face. She was shaking as one in an ague.

Quietly he drew the head-covering over the baby's face. "My dear," he said, "there is no death."

The words were few, spoken almost in an undertone; but they sent a curious, tingling thrill through Muriel—a thrill that seemed to reach her heart. For the first time, unaccountably, wholly intangibly, she was aware of a strong resemblance between this man whom she honoured and the man she feared. She almost felt as if Nick himself had uttered the words.

Standing dumbly by the door, she saw the doctor stoop to lay the poor little body down in the cot, saw Daisy's face of anguish, and the sudden, wide-flung spread of her empty arms.

The next moment, her woman's instinct prompting her, she sprang forward; and it was she who caught the stricken mother as she fell.



CHAPTER XXIV

THE CREED OF A FIGHTER

It was growing very hot in the plains. A faint breeze born at sunset had died away long ago, leaving a wonderful, breathless stillness behind. The man who sat at work on his verandah with his shirt-sleeves turned up above his elbows sighed heavily from time to time as if he felt some oppression in the atmosphere. He was quite a young man, fair-skinned and clean-shaven, with an almost pathetically boyish look about him, a wistful expression as of one whose youth still endured though the zest thereof was denied to him. His eyes were weary and bloodshot, but he worked on steadily, indefatigably, never raising them from the paper under his hand.

Even when a step sounded in the room behind him, he scarcely looked up. "One moment, old chap!" He was still working rapidly as he spoke. "I've a toughish bit to get through. I'll talk to you in a minute."

There was no immediate reply. A man's figure, dressed in white linen, with one arm quite invisible under the coat, stood halting for a moment in the doorway, then moved out and slowly approached the table at which the other sat.

The lamplight, gleaming upwards, revealed a yellow face of many wrinkles, and curious, glancing eyes that shone like fireflies in the gloom.

He stopped beside the man who worked. "All right," he said. "Finish what you are doing."

In the silence that followed he seemed to watch the hand that moved over the paper with an absorbing interest. The instant it rested he spoke.

"Done?"

The man in the chair stretched out his arms with a long gesture of weariness; then abruptly leapt to his feet.

"What am I thinking of, keeping you standing here? Sit down, Nick! Yes, I've done for the present. What a restless beggar you are! Why couldn't you lie still for a spell?"

Nick grimaced. "It's an accomplishment I have never been able to acquire. Besides, there's no occasion for it now. If I were going to die, it would be a different thing, and even then I think I'd rather die standing. How are you getting on, my son? What mean these hieroglyphics?"

He dropped into the empty chair and pored over the paper.

"Oh, you wouldn't understand if I told you," the other answered. "You're not an engineer."

"Not even a greaser of wheels." admitted Nick modestly. "But you needn't throw it in my teeth. I suppose you are going to make your fortune soon and retire—you and Daisy and the imp—to a respectable suburb. You're a very lucky chap, Will."

"Think so?" said Will.

He was bending a little over his work. His tone sounded either absent or dubious.

Nick glanced at him, and suddenly swept his free right hand across the table. "Put it away!" he said. "You're overdoing it. Get the wretched stuff out of your head for a bit, and let's have a smoke before dinner. I'll bring her out to you next winter. See if I don't!"

Will turned towards him impulsively. "Oh, man, if you only could!"

"Only could!" echoed Nick. "I tell you I will. Ten quid on it if you like. Is it done?"

But Will shook his head with a queer, unsteady smile. "No, it isn't. But come along and smoke, or you will be having that infernal neuralgia again. It was confoundedly good of you to look me up like this when you weren't fit for it."

Nick laughed aloud. "Man alive! You don't suppose I did it for your sake, do you? Don't you know I wanted to break the journey to the coast?"

"Odd place to choose!" commented Will.

Nick arose in his own peculiarly abrupt fashion, and thrust his hand through his friend's arm.

"Perhaps I thought a couple of days of your society would cheer me up," he observed lightly. "I daresay that seems odd too."

Will laughed in spite of himself. "Well, you've seen me with my nose to the grindstone anyhow. You can tell Daisy I'm working like a troop-horse for her and the boy! Jove! What a knowing little beggar that youngster used to be! He isn't very strong though, Daisy writes."

"How often do you hear?" asked Nick.

"Oh, the last letter came three weeks ago. They were all well then, but she didn't stop to say much because Grange was there. He is staying with them, you know."

"You haven't heard since then?" There was just a hint of indignation in Nick's query.

Will shook his head. "No. She's a bad correspondent, always was. I write by every mail, and of course, if there were anything I ought to know, she would write too. But they are leading a fairly humdrum existence just now. She can't have much to tell me."

Nick changed the subject. "How long has Grange been there?"

"I don't know. Some time, I think. But I really don't know. They are very old pals, you know, he and Daisy. There was a bit of a romance between them, I believe, years ago, when she was in her teens. Their people wouldn't hear of it because they were first cousins, so it fizzled out. But they are still great friends. A good sort of fellow, I always thought."

"Too soft for me," said Nick. "He's like a well-built ship adrift without a rudder. He's all manners and no grit—the sort of chap who wants to be pushed before he can do anything. I often ached to kick him when we were boxed up at Wara."

Will smiled. "The only drawback to indulging in that kind of game is that you may get kicked back, and a kick from a giant like Grange would be no joke."

Nick looked supremely contemptuous. "Fellows like Grange don't kick. They don't know how. That's why I had to leave him alone."

He turned into Will's sitting-room and stretched himself out upon an ancient charpoy furnished with many ancient cushions that stood by the window.

Will gave him a cigarette, and lighted it. "I wonder how many nights I have spent on that old shake-down," he remarked, as he did it.

Nick glanced upwards. "Last year?"

Will nodded. "It was like hell," he said, with terrible simplicity. "I came straight back here, you know, after Daisy left Simla. I suppose the contrast made it worse. Then, too, the sub was ill, and it meant double work. Well," with another sigh, "we pulled through somehow, and I suppose we shall again. But, Nick, Daisy couldn't possibly stand this place more than four months out of the twelve. And as for the kiddie—"

Nick removed his cigarette to yawn.

"You won't be here all your life, my son," he said. "You're a rising man, remember. There's no sense in grizzling, anyhow, and you're getting round-shouldered. Why don't you do some gymnastics? You've got a swimming bath. Go and do a quarter of a mile breast-stroke every day. Jupiter! What wouldn't I give to"—He broke off abruptly. "Well, I'm not going to cry for the moon either. There's the khit on the verandah. What does he want?"

Will went out to see. Nick, idly watching, saw the native hand him something on a salver which Will took to the lamp by which he had been working. Dead silence ensued. From far away there came the haunting cry of a jackal, but near at hand there was no sound. A great stillness hung upon all things.

To Nick, lying at full length upon the cushions, there presently came the faint sound of paper crackling, and a moment later his friend's voice, pitched very low, spoke to the waiting servant. He heard the man softly retire, and again an intense stillness reigned.

He could not see Will from where he lay, and he smoked on placidly for nearly five minutes in the belief that he was either answering some communication or looking over his work. Then at last, growing impatient of the prolonged silence, he lifted his voice without moving.

"What in the world are you doing, you unsociable beggar? Can't you tear yourself away from that beastly work for one night even? Come in here and entertain me. You won't have the chance to-morrow."

There was no reply. Only from far away there came again the weird yell of a jackal. For a few seconds more Nick lay frowning. Then swiftly and quietly he arose, and stepped to the window.

There he stopped dead as if in sudden irresolution; for Will was sunk upon his knees by the table with his head upon his work and his arms flung out with clenched hands in an attitude of the most utter, the most anguished despair. He made no sound of any sort; only, as Nick watched, his bowed shoulders heaved once convulsively.

It was only for a moment that Nick stood hesitating. The next, obeying an impulse that he never stopped to question, he moved straight forward to Will's side; and then saw—what he had not at first seen—a piece of paper crumpled and gripped in one of his hands.

He bent over him and spoke rapidly, but without agitation. "Hullo, old boy! What is it! Bad news, eh?"

Will started and groaned, then sharply turned his face upwards. It was haggard and drawn and ghastly, but even then its boyishness remained.

He spoke at once, replying to Nick in short, staccato tones. "I've had a message—just come through. It's the kiddie—our little chap—he died—last night."

Nick heard the news in silence. After a moment he stooped forward and took the paper out of Will's hand, thrusting it away without a glance into his own pocket. Then he took him by the arm and hoisted him up. "Come inside!" he said briefly.

Will went with him blindly, too stricken to direct his own movements.

And so he presently found himself crouching forward in a chair staring at Nick's steady hand mixing whiskey and water in a glass at his elbow. As Nick held it towards him he burst into sudden, wild speech.

"I've lost her!" he exclaimed harshly. "I've lost her! It was only the kiddie that bound us together. She never cared a half-penny about me. I always knew I should never hold her unless we had a child. And now—and now—"

"Easy!" said Nick. "Easy! Just drink this like a good chap. There's no sense in letting yourself go."

Will drank submissively, and covered his face. "Oh, man," he whispered brokenly, "you don't know what it is to be despised by the one being in the world you worship."

Nick said nothing. His lips twitched a little, that was all.

But when several miserable seconds had dragged away and Will had not moved, he bent suddenly down and put his arm round the huddled shoulders. "Keep a stiff upper lip, old chap," he urged gently. "Don't knock under. She'll be coming to you for comfort presently."

"Not she!" groaned Will. "I shall never get near her again. She'll never come back to me. I know. I know."

"Don't be a fool!" said Nick still gently. "You don't know. Of course she will come back to you. If you stick to her, she'll stick to you."

Will made a choked sound of dissent. Nevertheless, after a moment he raised his quivering face, and gripped hard the hand that pressed his shoulder. "Thanks, dear fellow! You're awfully good. Forgive me for making an ass of myself. I—I was awfully fond of the little nipper too. Poor Daisy! She'll be frightfully cut up." He broke off, biting his lips.

"Do you know," he said presently in a strained whisper, "I've wanted her sometimes—so horribly, that—that I've even been fool enough to pray about it."

He glanced up as he made this confidence, half expecting to read ridicule on the alert face above him, but the expression it wore surprised him. It was almost a fighting look, and wholly free from contempt.

Nick seated himself on the edge of the table, and smote him on the shoulder. "My dear chap," he said, with a sudden burst of energy, "you're only at the beginning of things. It isn't just praying now and then that does it. You've got to keep up the steam, never slack for an instant, whatever happens. The harder going it is, the more likely you are to win through if you stick to it. But directly you slack, you lose ground. If you've only got the grit to go on praying, praying hard, even against your own convictions, you'll get it sooner or later. You are bound to get it. They say God doesn't always grant prayer because the thing you want may not do you any good. That's gammon—futile gammon. If you want it hard enough, and keep on clamouring for it, it becomes the very thing of all others you need—the great essential. And you'll get it for that very reason. It's sheer pluck that counts, nothing else—the pluck to go on fighting when you know perfectly well you're beaten, the pluck to hang on and worry, worry, worry, till you get your heart's desire."

He sprang up with a wide-flung gesture. "I'm doing it myself," he said, and his voice rang with a certain grim elation. "I'm doing it myself. And God knows I sha'n't give Him any peace till I'm satisfied. I may be small, but if I were no bigger than a mosquito, I'd keep on buzzing."

He walked to the end of the room, stood for a second, and came slowly back.

Will was looking at him oddly, almost as if he had never seen him before.

"Do you know," he said, smiling faintly, "I always thought you were a rotter."

"Most people do," said Nick. "I believe it's my physiognomy that's at fault. What can any one expect from a fellow with a face like an Egyptian mummy? Why, I've been mistaken for the devil himself before now." He spoke with a semi-whimsical ruefulness, and, having spoken, he went to the window and stood there with his face to the darkness.

"Hear that jackal, Will?" he suddenly said. "The brute is hungry. You bet, he won't go empty away."

"Jackals never do," said Will, with his weary sigh.

Nick turned round. "It shows what faithless fools we are," he said.

In the silence that followed, there came again to them, clear through the stillness, and haunting in its persistence, the crying of the beast that sought its meat from God.



CHAPTER XXV

A SCENTED LETTER

There is no exhaustion more complete or more compelling than the exhaustion of grief, and it is the most restless temperaments that usually suffer from it the most keenly. It is those who have watched constantly, tirelessly, selflessly, for weeks or even months, for whom the final breakdown is the most utter and the most heartrending.

To Daisy, lying silent in her darkened room, the sudden ending of the prolonged strain, the cessation of the anxiety that had become a part of her very being, was more intolerable than the sense of desolation itself. It lay upon her like a physical, crushing weight, this absence of care, numbing all her faculties. She felt that the worst had happened to her, the ultimate blow had fallen, and she cared for nought besides.

In those first days of her grief she saw none but Muriel and the doctor. Jim Ratcliffe was more uneasy about her than he would admit. He knew as no one else knew what the strain had been upon the over-sensitive nerves, and how terribly the shock had wrenched them. He also knew that her heart was still in a very unsatisfactory state, and for many hours he dreaded collapse.

He was inclined to be uneasy upon Muriel's account as well, at first, but she took him completely by surprise. Without a question, without a word, simply as a matter of course, she assumed the position of nurse and constant companion to her friend. Her resolution and steady self-control astonished him, but he soon saw that these were qualities upon which he could firmly rely. She had put her own weakness behind her, and in face of Daisy's utter need she had found strength.

He suffered her to have her way, seeing how close was the bond of sympathy between them, and realising that the very fact of supporting Daisy would be her own support.

"You are as steady-going as a professional," he told her once.

To which she answered with her sad smile, "I served my probation in the school of sorrow last year. I am only able to help her because I know what it is to sit in ashes."

He patted her shoulder and called her a good girl. He was growing very fond of her, and in his blunt, unflattering way he let her know it.

Certain it was that in those terrible days following her bereavement, Daisy clung to her as she had never before clung to any one, scarcely speaking to her, but mutely leaning upon her steadfast strength.

Muriel saw but little of Blake though he was never far away. He wandered miserably about the house and garden, smoking endless cigarettes, and invariably asking her with a piteous, dog-like wistfulness whenever they met if there were nothing that he could do. There never was anything, but she had not the heart to tell him so, and she used to invent errands for him to make him happier. She herself did not go beyond the garden for many days.

One evening, about three weeks after her baby's death, Daisy heard his step on the gravel below her window and roused herself a little.

"Who is taking care of Blake?" she asked.

Muriel glanced down from where she sat at the great listless figure nearing the house. "I think he is taking care of himself," she said.

"All alone?" said Daisy.

"Yes, dear."

Daisy uttered a sudden hard sigh. "You mustn't spend all your time with me any longer," she said. "I have been very selfish. I forgot. Go down to him, Muriel."

Muriel looked up, struck by something incomprehensible in her tone. "You know I like to be with you," she said. "And of course he understands."

But Daisy would not be satisfied. "That may be. But—but—I want you to go to him. He is lonely, poor boy. I can hear it in his step. I always know."

Wondering at her persistence, and somewhat reluctant, Muriel rose to comply. As she was about to pass her, with a swift movement Daisy caught her hand and drew her down.

"I want you—so—to be happy, dearest," she whispered, a quick note of passion in her voice. "It's better for you—it's better for you—to be together. I'm not going to monopolise you any longer. I will try to come down to-morrow, if Jim will let me. It's hockey day, isn't it? You must go and play as usual, you and he."

She was quivering with agitation as she pressed her lips to the girl's cheek. Muriel would have embraced her, but she pushed her softly away. "Go—go, dear," she insisted. "I wish it."

And Muriel went, seeing that she would not otherwise be pacified.

She found Blake depressed indeed, but genuinely pleased to see her, and she walked in the garden with him in the soft spring twilight till the dinner hour.

Just as they were about to go in, the postman appeared with foreign letters for them both, which proved to be from Sir Reginald and Lady Bassett.

The former had written briefly but very kindly to Grange, signifying his consent to his engagement to his ward, and congratulating him upon having won her. To Muriel he sent a fatherly message, telling her of his pleasure at hearing of her happiness, and adding that he hoped she would return to them in the following autumn to enable him to give her away.

Grange put his arm round his young fiancee as he read this passage aloud, but she only stood motionless within it, not yielding to his touch. It even seemed to him that she stiffened slightly. He looked at her questioningly and saw that she was very pale.

"What is it?" he asked gently. "Will that be too soon for you?"

She met his eyes frankly, but with unmistakable distress. "I—I didn't think it would be quite so soon, Blake," she faltered. "I don't want to be married at present. Can't we go on as we are for a little? Shall you mind?"

Blake's face wore a puzzled look, but it was wholly free from resentment. He answered her immediately and reassuringly.

"Of course not, dear. It shall be just when you like. Why should you be hurried?"

She gave him a smile of relief and gratitude, and he stooped and kissed her forehead with a soothing tenderness that he might have bestowed upon a child.

It was with some reluctance that she opened Lady Bassett's letter in his presence, but she felt that she owed him this small mark of confidence.

There was a strong aroma of attar of roses as she drew it from the envelope, and she glanced at Grange with an expression of disgust.

"What is the matter?" he asked. "Nothing wrong, I hope?"

"It's only the scent," she explained, concealing a faint sense of irritation.

He smiled. "Don't you like it? I thought all women did."

"My dear Blake!" she said, and shuddered.

The next minute she threw a sharp look over her shoulder, suddenly assailed by an uncanny feeling that Nick was standing grimacing at her elbow. She saw his features so clearly for the moment with his own peculiarly hideous grimace upon them that she scarcely persuaded herself that her fancy had tricked her. But there was nothing but the twilight of the garden all around her, and Blake's huge bulk by her side, and she promptly dismissed the illusion, not without a sense of shame.

With a gesture of impatience she unfolded Lady Bassett's letter. It commenced "Dearest Muriel," and proceeded at once in terms of flowing elegance to felicitate her upon her engagement to Blake Grange.

"In according our consent," wrote Lady Bassett, "Sir Reginald and I have not the smallest scruple or hesitation. Only, dearest, for Blake Grange's sake as well as for your own, make quite sure this time that your mind is fully made up, and your choice final."

When Muriel read this passage a deep note of resentment crept into her voice, and she lifted a flushed face.

"It may be very wicked," she said deliberately, "but I hate Lady Bassett."

Grange looked astonished, even mildly shocked. But Muriel returned to the letter before he could reply.

It went on to express regret that the writer could not herself return to England for the summer to assist her in the purchase of her trousseau and to chaperon her back to India in the autumn; but her sister, Mrs. Langdale, who lived in London, would she was sure, be delighted to undertake the part of adviser in the first case, and in the second she would doubtless be able to find among her many friends who would be travelling East for the winter, one who would take charge of her. No reference was made to Daisy till the end of the letter, when the formal hope was expressed that Mrs. Musgrave's health had benefited by the change.

"She dares to disapprove of Daisy for some reason," Muriel said, closing the letter with the rapidity of exasperation.

Grange did not ask why. He was engrossed in brushing a speck of mud from his sleeve, and she was not sure that he even heard her remark.

"You—I suppose you are not going to bother about a trousseau yet then?" he asked rather awkwardly.

She shook her head with vehemence. "No, no, of course not. Why should I hurry? Besides, I am in mourning."

"Exactly as you like," said Grange gently. "My leave will be up in September, as you know, but I am not bound to stay in the Army. I will send in my papers if you wish it."

Muriel looked at him in amazement. "Send in your papers! Why no, Blake! I wouldn't have you do it for the world. I never dreamed of such a thing."

He smiled good-humouredly. "Well, of course, I should be sorry to give up polo, but there are plenty of other things I could take to. Personally, I like a quiet existence."

Was there just a shade of scorn in Muriel's glance as it fell away from him? It would have been impossible for any bystander to say with certainty, but there was without doubt a touch of constraint in her voice as she made reply.

"Yes. You are quite the most placid person I know. But please don't think of leaving the Army for my sake. I am a soldier's daughter remember. And—I like soldiers."

Her lip quivered as she turned to enter the house. Her heart at that moment was mourning over a soldier's unknown grave. But Grange did not know it, did not even see that she was moved.

His eyes were raised to an upper window at which a dim figure stood looking out into the shadows. And he was thinking of other things.



CHAPTER XXVI

THE ETERNAL FLAME

Daisy maintained her resolution on the following day, and though she did not speak again of going downstairs, she insisted that Muriel should return to the hockey-field and resume her place in Olga's team. It was the last match of the season, and she would not hear of her missing it.

"You and Blake are both to go," she said. "I won't have either of you staying at home for me."

But Blake, when Muriel conveyed this message to him, moodily shook his head. "I'm not going. I don't want to. You must, of course. It will do you good. But I couldn't play if I went. I've strained my wrist."

"Oh, have you?" Muriel said, with concern. "What a nuisance! How did you manage it?"

He reddened, and looked slightly ashamed. "I vaulted the gate into the meadow this morning. Idiotic thing to do. But I shall be all right. Never mind about me. I shall smoke in the garden. I may go for a walk."

Thus pressed on all sides, though decidedly against her own inclination, Muriel went. The day was showery with brilliant intervals. Grange saw her off at the field-gate.