"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 att.i.tude 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 gla.s.s 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 a.s.s 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d.

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 a.s.sumed 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.