She quickened her pace in the silence that followed. The rain was coming down sharply. Reaching the door that led into the doctor's walled garden, she stretched out her hand with impetuous haste to push it open.

Instantly, with disconcerting suddenness, Nick dropped the hockey-stick and swooped upon it like a bird of prey.

"Who gave you that?" he demanded.

He had spied a hoop of diamonds upon her third finger. She could not see his eyes under the flickering lids, but he held her wrist forcibly, and it seemed to her that there was a note of savagery in his voice.

Her heart beat fast for a few seconds, so fast that she could not find her voice. Then, almost under her breath, "Blake gave it to me," she said. "Blake Grange."

"Yes?" said Nick. "Yes?"

Suddenly he looked straight at her, and his eyes were alight, fierce, glowing. But she felt a curious sense of scared relief, as if he were behind bars,--an eagle caged, of which she need have no fear.

"We are engaged to be married," she said quietly.

There fell a momentary silence, and a voice cried out in her soul that she had stabbed him through the bars.

Then in a second Nick dropped her hands and stooped to pick up the hockey-stick. His face as he stood up again flashed back to its old, baffling gaiety.

"What ho!" he said lightly. "Then I'm in time to dance at the wedding.

Pray accept my heartiest congratulations!"

Muriel murmured her thanks with her face averted. She was no longer afraid merely, but strangely, inexplicably ashamed.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE LION'S SKIN

The news of Nick's return spread like wildfire through the doctor's house, and the whole establishment a.s.sembled to greet him. Jim himself came striding out into the rain to shake his hand and escort him in.

His "Hullo, you scapegrace!" had in it little of sentiment, but there was nothing wanting in his welcome in the opinion of the recipient thereof.

Nick's rejoinder of "Hullo, you old buffer!" was equally free from any gloss of eloquence, but he hooked his hand in the doctor's arm as he made it, and kept it there.

Jim gave him one straight, keen look that took in every detail, but he made no verbal comment of any sort. His heavy brows drew together for an instant, that was all.

It was an exceedingly clamorous home-coming. The children, having arrived in the motor, swarmed all about the returned hero, who was more than equal to the occasion, and obviously enjoyed his boisterous reception to the uttermost. There never had been any shyness about Nick.

Muriel, standing watching in the background with a queer, unaccountable pain at her heart, a.s.sured herself that the news of her engagement had meant nothing to him whatever. He had managed to deceive her as usual. She realised it with burning cheeks, and ardently wished that she had borne herself more proudly. Well, she was not wanted here. Even Olga, her faithful and loving admirer, had eyes only for Nick just then. As for Dr. Jim, he had not even noticed her.

Quietly she stole away from the merry, chattering group. The hall-door stood open, and she saw that it was raining heavily; but she did not hesitate. With a haste that was urged from within by something that was pa.s.sionate, she ran out hatless into the storm.

The cracked, careless laugh she knew so well pursued her as she went, and once she fancied that some one called her by name. But she did not slacken speed to listen. She only dashed on a little faster than before.

Drenched and breathless, she reached home at length, to be met upon the threshold by Blake. In her exhaustion she almost fell into his arms.

"Hullo!" he said, steadying her. "You shouldn't run like that. I never dreamed you would come back in this, or I would have come across with an umbrella to fetch you."

She sank into a chair in the hall, speechless and gasping, her hair hanging about her neck in wildest disorder.

Blake stood beside her. He was wearing his worried, moody look.

"You shouldn't," he said again. "It's horribly bad for you."

"Ah, I'm better," she gasped back. "I had to run--all the way--because of the rain."

"But why didn't you wait?" said Blake. "What were they thinking of to let you come in this down-pour?"

"They couldn't help it." Muriel raised herself with a great sobbing sigh. "It was n.o.body's fault but my own. I wanted to get away. Oh, Blake, do you know--Nick is here?"

Blake started. "What? Already? Do you mean he is actually in the place?"

She nodded. "He came up in a motor while we were playing. I suppose he is staying at Redlands, but I don't know. And--and--Blake, he has lost his left arm. It makes him look so queer." She gave a sudden, uncontrollable shudder. The old dumb horror looked out of her eyes.

"I thought I shouldn't mind," she said, under her breath. "Perhaps--if you had been there--it would have been different. As it was--as it was--" She broke off, rising impetuously to her feet, and laying trembling hands upon his arms. "Oh, Blake," she whispered, like a scared child. "I feel so helpless. But you promised--you promised--you would never let me go."

Yes, he had promised her that. He had sworn it, and, sick at heart, he remembered that in her eyes at least he was a man of honour. It had been in his mind to tell her the simple truth, just so far as he himself was concerned, and thereafter to place himself at her disposal to act exactly as she should desire. But suddenly this was an impossibility to him. He realised it with desperate self-loathing.

She trusted him. She looked to him for protection. She leaned upon his strength. She needed him. He could not--it almost seemed as if in common chivalry he could not--reveal to her the contemptible weakness which lay like a withering blight upon his whole nature. To own himself the slave of a married woman, and that woman her closest friend, would be to throw her utterly upon her own resources at a time when she most needed the support and guidance of a helping hand. Moreover, the episode was over; so at least both he and Daisy resolutely persuaded themselves. There had been a lapse--a vain and futile lapse--into the long-cherished idyll of their romance. It must never recur. It never should recur. It must be covered over and forgotten as speedily as might be. They had come to their senses again. They were ready, not only to thrust away the evil that had dominated them, but to ignore it utterly as though it had never been.

So, rapidly, the man reasoned with himself with the girl's hands clasping his arm in earnest entreaty, and her eyes of innocence raised to his.

His answer when it came was slow and soft and womanly, but, in her ears at least, there was nothing wanting in it. She never dreamed that he was reviling himself for a blackguard even as he uttered it.

"My dear little girl, there is nothing whatever for you to be afraid of. You're a bit overstrung, aren't you? The man isn't living who could take you from me."

He patted her shoulder very kindly, soothing her with a patient, almost fatherly tenderness, and gradually her panic of fear pa.s.sed.

She leaned against him with a comforting sense of security.

"I can't think how it is I'm so foolish," she told him. "You are good to me, Blake. I feel so safe when I am with you."

His heart smote him, yet he bent and kissed her. "You're not quite strong yet, dear," he said. "It takes a long time to get over all that you had to bear last year."

"Yes," she agreed with a sigh. "And do you know I thought I was so much stronger than I am? I actually thought that I shouldn't mind--much--when he came. And yet I did mind--horribly. I--I--told him about our engagement, Blake."

"Yes, dear," said Blake.

"Yes, I told him. And he laughed and offered his congratulations.

I don't think he cared," said Muriel, again with that curious, inexplicable sensation of pain at her heart.

"Why should he?" said Blake.

She looked at him with momentary irresolution. "You know, Blake, I never told you. But I was--I was--engaged to him for about a fortnight that dreadful time at Simla."

To her relief she marked no change in Blake's courteously attentive face.

"You need not have told me that, dear," he said quietly.