"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 rea.s.sured. 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 pa.s.sed his hand over his face, then turned to her with a faint, wry smile so irresistibly reminiscent of Lady Ba.s.sett 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 b.u.t.terfly." (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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.sure 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 antic.i.p.ated.

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.