"It's only this," said Nick. "You know as well as I do that I possess the means to prevent your marriage to Muriel Roscoe, and I shall certainly use that means unless you give her up of your own accord.

You see what it would involve, don't you? The sacrifice of your precious honour--and not yours only."

He paused as if to allow full vent to Grange's anger, but still he did not change his position.

"You d.a.m.ned cur!" said Grange, his voice hoa.r.s.e with concentrated pa.s.sion.

Nick took up his tale as if he had not heard. "But, on the other hand, if you will write and set her free now, at once--I don't care how you do it; you can tell any likely lie that occurs to you--I on my part will swear to you that I will give her up entirely, that I will never plague her again, will never write to her or attempt in any way to influence her life, unless she on her own initiative makes it quite clear that she desires me to do so."

He ceased, and there fell a dead silence, broken only by the lashing rain upon the windows and the long, deep roar of the sea. He seemed to be listening to them with bent head, but in reality he heard nothing at all. He had made the final sacrifice for the sake of the woman he loved. To secure her happiness, her peace of mind, he had turned his face to the desert, at last, and into it he would go, empty, beaten, crippled, to return no more for ever.

Across the lengthening silence Grange's voice came to him. There was a certain hesitation in it as though he were not altogether sure of his ground.

"I am to take your word for all that?"

Nick turned swiftly round. "You can do as you choose. I have nothing else to offer you."

Grange abandoned the point abruptly, feeling as a man who has lost his footing in a steep place and is powerless to climb back. Perhaps even he was vaguely conscious of something colossal hidden away behind that baffling, wrinkled mask.

"Very well," he said, with that dogged dignity in which Englishmen clothe themselves in the face of defeat. "Then you will take my word to set her free."

"To-night?" said Nick.

"To-night."

There was another pause. Then Nick crossed to the door and unlocked it.

"I will take your word," he said.

A few seconds later, when Grange had gone, he softly shut and locked the door once more, and returned to his chair before the fire. Great gusts of rain were being flung against the window-panes. The wind howled near and far with a fury that seemed to set the walls vibrating. Now and then dense puffs of smoke blew out across the hearth into the room, and the atmosphere grew thick and stifling.

But Nick did not seem aware of these things. He sat on unheeding in the midst of his dust and ashes while the storm raged relentlessly above his head.

CHAPTER XL

THE WOMAN'S CHOICE

With the morning there came a lull in the tempest though the great waves that spent themselves upon the sh.o.r.e seemed scarcely less mountainous than when they rode before the full force of the storm.

In Daisy Musgrave's cottage above the beach, a woman with a white, jaded face sat by the window writing. A foreign envelope with an Indian stamp lay on the table beside her. It had not been opened; and once, glancing up, she pushed it slightly from her with a nervous, impatient movement. Now and then she sat with her head upon her hand thinking, and each time she emerged from her reverie it was to throw a startled look towards the sea as though its ceaseless roar unnerved her.

Nevertheless, at sight of a big, loosely-slung figure walking slowly up the flagged path, a quick smile flashed into her face, making it instantly beautiful. She half rose from her chair, and then dropped back again, still faintly smiling, while the light which only one man's coming can kindle upon any woman's face shone upon hers, erasing all weariness and bitterness while it lingered.

At the opening of the door she turned without rising. "So you have come after all! But I knew you would. Sit down a minute and wait while I finish this tiresome letter. I have just done."

She was already scribbling last words as fast as her pen would move, and her visitor waited for her without a word.

In a few minutes she turned to him again. "I have been writing a note to Muriel, explaining things a little. She doesn't yet know that I am here; but it would be no good for her to join me, for I am only packing. I shall leave as soon as I can get away. And she too is going almost at once to Mrs. Langdale, I believe. So we shall probably not meet again at present. You will be seeing her this afternoon. Will you give it to her?"

She held the letter out to him, but he made no move to take it. His face was very pale, more sternly miserable than she had ever seen it.

"I think you had better post it," he said.

She rose and looked at him attentively. "Why, what's the matter, Blake?" she said.

He did not answer, and she went on immediately, still with her eyes steadily uplifted.

"Do you know, Blake, I have been thinking all night, and I have made up my mind to have done with all this foolish sentimentality finally and for ever. From to-day forward I enter upon the prosaic, middle-aged stage. I was upset yesterday at the thought of losing you so soon. It's been a lovely summer, hasn't it?" She stifled a sigh half uttered. "Well, it's over. You have to go back to India, and we must just make the best of it."

He made a sharp movement, but said nothing. The next moment he dropped down heavily into a chair and sat bowed, his head in his hands.

Daisy stood looking down at him, and slowly her expression changed. A very tender look came into her eyes, a look that made her seem older and at the same time more womanly. Very quietly she sat down on the arm of his chair and laid her hand upon him, gently rubbing it to and fro.

"My own boy, don't fret, don't fret!" she said. "You will be happier by-and-by. I am sure of it."

He took the little hand from his shoulder, and held it against his eyes. At last after several seconds of silence he spoke.

"Daisy, I have broken my engagement."

Daisy gave a great start. A deep glow overspread her face, but it faded very swiftly, leaving her white to the lips. "My dear Blake, why?" she whispered.

He answered her with his head down. "It was Nick Ratcliffe's doing. He made me."

"Made you, Blake! What can you mean?"

Sullenly Grange made answer. "He had got the whip-hand, and I couldn't help myself. He saw us on the sh.o.r.e together yesterday afternoon, made up his mind then and there that I was no suitable partner for Muriel, got me to go and dine with him, and told me so."

"But Blake, how absurd!" Daisy spoke with a palpable effort. "How--how utterly unreasonable! What made you give in to him?"

Grange would not tell her. "I shouldn't have done so," he said moodily, "if he hadn't given his word that he would never pester Muriel again. She's well rid of me anyhow. He was right there. She will probably see it in the same light."

"What did you say to her?" questioned Daisy.

"Oh, it doesn't matter, does it? I didn't see her. I wrote. I didn't tell her anything that it was unnecessary for her to know. In fact I didn't give her any particular reason at all. She'll think me an infernal cad. And so I am."

"You are not, Blake!" she declared vehemently. "You are not!"

He was silent, still tightly clasping her hand.

After a pause, she made a gentle movement to withdraw it; but at that he turned with a sudden mastery and thrust his arms about her.

"Daisy," he broke out pa.s.sionately, "I can't do without you! I can't!

I can't! I've tried,--Heaven knows how I've tried! But it can't be done. It was madness ever to attempt to separate us. We were bound to come together again. I have been drifting towards you always, always, even when I wasn't thinking of you."

Fiercely the hot words rushed out. He was holding her fast, though had she made the smallest effort to free herself he would have let her go.

But Daisy sat quite still, neither yielding nor resisting. Only at his last words her lips quivered in a smile of tenderest ridicule.