She was at first somewhat anxious lest Nick should feel called upon to entertain her, and should invite her to accompany him and Olga upon some of their expeditions. But he did not apparently think of it, and she was always very emphatic in a.s.suring Olga that she was enjoying her quiet time.

She and Nick had not met for some weeks, and she began to think it more than probable that they would not do so during Daisy's absence.

Under ordinary circ.u.mstances this expectation of hers would doubtless have been realised, for Nick had plainly every intention of keeping out of her way; but the day of emergency usually dawns upon a world of sleepers.

The brooding heat culminated at last in an evening of furious storm, and Muriel speedily left the dinner-table to watch the magnificent spectacle of vivid and almost continuous lightning over the sea.

It was a wonder that always drew her. She did not feel the nervous oppression that torments so many women, or if she felt it she rose above it. The splendour of the rising storm lifted her out of herself.

She had no thought for anything else.

For more than half an hour she stood by the little sitting-room window, gazing out upon the storm-tossed water. It had not begun to rain, but the sound of it was in the air, and the earth was waiting expectantly. There seemed to be a feeling of expectation everywhere.

She was vaguely restless under it, curiously impatient for the climax.

It came at last, so suddenly, so blindingly, that she reeled back against the curtain in sheer, physical recoil. The whole sky seemed to burst into flame, and the crash of thunder was so instantaneous that she felt as if a sh.e.l.l had exploded at her feet. Trembling, she hid her face. The world seemed to rock all around her. For the first time she was conscious of fear.

Then as the thunder died into a distant roar, the heavens opened as if at a word of command, and in one marvellous, glittering sheet the rain burst forth.

She lifted her head to gaze upon this new wonder that the incessant lightning revealed. The noise was like the sharp rattle of musketry, and it almost drowned the heavier artillery overhead. The window was blurred and streaming, but the brilliance outside was such that every detail in the little garden was clear to her notwithstanding. And though she still trembled, she nerved herself to look forth.

An instant later she sprang backwards with a wild cry of terror.

A face--a wrinkled face that she knew--was there close against the window-pane, and had looked into her own.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

THE LIFTING OF THE MASK

Out of a curious numbness that had almost been a swoon there came to her the consciousness of a hand that rapped and rapped and rapped upon the pane. She had fled away to the farther end of the room in her panic. She had turned the lamp low at the beginning of the storm, and now it burned so dimly that it scarcely gave out any light at all.

Beyond the window, the lightning flashed with an awful luridness upon the rushing hail. Beyond the window, looking in upon her, and knocking, knocking, knocking, stood the figure of her dread.

She came to herself slowly, with a quaking heart. It was more horrible to her than anything she had known since the days of her flight from the beleaguered fort; but she knew that she must fight down her horror, she knew as certainly as if a physical force compelled her that she would have to go to the window, would have to open to the man who waited there.

Slowly she brought her quivering body into subjection, while every nerve twitched and clamoured to escape. Slowly she dragged herself back to the vision that had struck her with that paralysis of terror.

Resisting feebly, invisibly compelled, she went.

He ceased to knock, and, his face against the pane, he spoke imperatively. What he said, she could not hear in that tumult of mighty sound. Only she felt his insistence, answered to it, was mastered by it.

White-faced, with horror clutching at her heart, she undid the catch.

His one hand, strong, instinct with energy, helped her to raise the sash. In a moment he was in the room, bare-headed, drenched from head to foot.

She fell back before him, but he scarcely looked at her. He shut the window sharply, then strode to the lamp, and turned it up.

Then, abruptly he wheeled and spoke in a voice half-kindly, half-contemptuous. "Muriel, you're a little idiot!"

There was little in the words to comfort her, yet she was instantly and vastly rea.s.sured. She was also for the moment overwhelmingly ashamed, but he did not give her time to think of that.

"I couldn't get in any other way," he said. "I tried the doors first, hammered at them, but no one came. Look here! Olga is ill, very ill, and she wants you badly. Are you brave enough to come?"

"Oh!" Muriel said, with a gasp. "Now, do you mean? With--with you?"

He threw her an odd look under his flickering eyelids, and she noted with a scared minuteness of attention the gleam of the lamplight on their pale lashes. She had always hated pale eyelashes. They seemed to her untrustworthy.

"Yes," he told her grimly. "All alone--with me--in the storm. Shall you be afraid--if I give you my hand to hold? You've done it before."

Was he mocking her weakness? She could not say. She only knew that he watched her with the intensity of an eagle that marks its quarry. He did not mean her to refuse.

"What is the matter with Olga?" she asked.

"I don't know. I believe it is sunstroke. We were motoring in the mid-day heat. She didn't seem to feel it at the time, but her head ached when we got in. She is in a high fever now. I've sent my man on in the motor to fetch Jim's loc.u.m from Weir. I should have brought the dogcart myself, to fetch you, but I couldn't trust the horse in this."

"You left her alone to come here?" Muriel questioned.

He nodded. "I had no choice. She wished it. Besides, there were none but women-folk left. She's got one of them with her, the least imbecile of the lot, which isn't saying much. They're all terrified of course at the storm--all except Olga. She is never afraid of anything."

A frightful crash of thunder carried away his words. Before it had rolled away, Muriel was at the door. She made a rapid sign to him, and was gone.

Nick chafed up and down the room, waiting for her. The storm continued with unabated violence, but he did not give it a thought. He was counting the moments with feverish impatience.

Muriel's absence scarcely lasted for five minutes, but when she came back all trace of fear had left her. Her face showed quiet and matter-of-fact above the long waterproof in which she had wrapped herself. Over her arm she carried a waterproof cloak.

She held it out to him. "It's one of Daisy's, but you are to wear it.

I think you must be mad to have come out without anything."

She put it round his shoulders; and he thanked her with a smothered laugh.

A terrific blast of wind and rain met them as they emerged from the cottage, nearly whirling Muriel off her feet. She made an instinctive clutch at her companion and instantly her hand was caught fast in his.

He drew her arm close under his own, and she did not resist him. There was something rea.s.suring in his touch.

Later she wondered if they spoke at all during that terrible walk. She could never recall a word on either side. And yet, though in a measure frightened, she was not panic-stricken.

The storm was beginning to subside a little before they reached Redlands, though the rain still fell heavily. In the intervals between the lightning it was pitch dark. They had no lantern, but Nick was undismayed. He walked as lightly and surely as a cat, and Muriel had no choice but to trust herself unreservedly to his guidance. She marvelled afterwards at the complete trust with which that night he had managed to inspire her, but at the time she never questioned it.

Yet when the lights of Redlands shone at last through the gloom, she breathed a sigh of relief. Instantly Nick spoke.

"Well done!", he said briefly. "You are your father's daughter still."

She knew that she flushed in the darkness, and was glad that he could not see her face.

"You must go and get dry, first of all," he went on. "I told them to light a fire somewhere. And you are to have some coffee too. Mind, I say it."

To this she responded with some spirit. "I will if you will."

"I must go straight to Olga," he said. "I promised I would."

"Not in your wet things!" Muriel exclaimed. "No, Nick! Listen! I am not wet, not as you are. Let me go to Olga first. You can send me some coffee in her room if you like. But you must go at once and change.

Promise you will, Nick!"

She spoke urgently. For some reason the occasion seemed to demand it.