"I know, my poor old Blake," she said, "like a good ship without a rudder--caught in a strong current."

"And it has been the same with you," he insisted. "You have always wanted me more than--"

He did not finish, for her hand was on his lips, restraining him. "You mustn't say it, dear. You mustn't say it. It hurts us both too much.

There! Let me go! It does no good, you know. It's all so vain and futile--now." Her voice trembled suddenly, and she ceased to speak.

He caught her hand away, looking straight up at her with that new-born mastery of his that made him so infinitely hard to resist.

"If it is quite vain," he said, "then tell me to go,--and I will."

She tried to meet his eyes, but found she could not. "I--shall have to, Blake," she said in a whisper.

"I am waiting," he told her doggedly.

But she could not say the word. She turned her face away and sat silent.

He waited with absolute patience for minutes. Then at last very gently he took his arms away from her and stood up.

"I am going back to the inn," he said. "And I shall wait there till to-morrow morning for your answer. If you send me away, I shall go without seeing you again. But if--if you decide otherwise,"--he lowered his voice as if he could not wholly trust it--"then I shall apply at once for leave to resign. And--Daisy--we will go to the New World together, and make up there for all the happiness we have missed in the Old."

He ended almost under his breath, and she seemed to hear his heart beat through the words. It was almost too much for her even then. But she held herself back, for there was that in her woman's soul that clamoured to be heard--the patter of tiny feet that had never ceased to echo there, the high chirrup of a baby's voice, the vision of a toddling child with eager arms outstretched.

And so she held her peace and let him go, though the struggle within her left her physically weak and cold, and she did not dare to raise her eyes lest he should surprise the love-light in them once again.

It had come to this at last then--the final dividing of the ways, the definite choice between good and evil. And she knew in her heart what that choice would be, knew it even as the sound of the closing door reached her consciousness, knew it as she strained her ears to catch the fall of his feet upon the flagged path, knew it in every nerve and fibre of her being as she sprang to the window for a last glimpse of the man who had loved her all her life long, and now at last had won her for himself.

Slowly she turned round once more to the writing-table. The unopened letter caught her eye. She picked it up with a set face, looked at it closely for a few moments, and then deliberately tore it into tiny fragments.

A little later she went to her own room. From a lavender-scented drawer she took an envelope, and shook its contents into her hand.

Only a tiny unmounted photograph of a laughing baby, and a ringlet of baby hair!

Her face quivered as she looked at them. They had been her dearest treasures. Pa.s.sionately she pressed them to her trembling lips, but she shed no tears. And when she returned to the sitting-room there was no faltering in her step.

She poked the fire into a blaze, and, kneeling, dropped her treasures into its midst. A moment's torture showed in her eyes, and pa.s.sed.

She had chosen.

CHAPTER XLI

THE EAGLE'S PREY

During the whole of that day Muriel awaited in restless expectancy the coming of her _fiance_. She had not heard from him for nearly a week, and she had not written in the interval for the simple reason that she lacked his address. But every day she had expected him to pay his promised visit of farewell.

It was hard work waiting for him. If she could have written, she would have done so days before in such a fashion as to cause him almost certainly to abandon his intention of seeing her. For her mind was made up at last after her long torture of indecision. Dr. Jim's vigorous speaking had done its work, and she knew that her only possible course lay in putting an end to her engagement.

She had always liked Blake Grange. She knew that she always would like him. But emphatically she did not love him, and she knew now with the sure intuition which all women develop sooner or later that he had never loved her. He had proposed to her upon a mere chivalrous impulse, and she was convinced that he would not wish to quarrel with her for releasing him.

Yet she dreaded the interview, even though she was quite sure that he would not lose his self-control and wax violent, as had Nick on that terrible night at Simla. She was almost morbidly afraid of hurting his feelings.

Of Nick she rigidly refused to think at all, though it was no easy matter to exclude him from her thoughts, for he always seemed to be clamouring for admittance. But she could not help wondering if, when Blake had gone at last and she was free, she would be very greatly afraid.

She was sitting alone in her room that afternoon, watching the scudding rain-clouds, when Olga brought her two letters.

"Both from Brethaven," she said, "but neither from Nick. I wonder if he is at Redlands. I hope he will come over here if he is."

Muriel did not echo the hope. She knew the handwriting upon both the envelopes, and she opened Daisy's first. It did not take long to read.

It simply contained a brief explanation of her presence at Brethaven, which was due to an engagement having fallen through, mentioned Blake as being on the point of departure, and wound up with the hope that Muriel would not in any way alter her plans for her benefit as she was only at the cottage for a few days to pack her possessions and she did not suppose that she would care to be with her while this was going on.

There was no reference to any future meeting, and Muriel gravely put the letter away in thoughtful silence. She had no clue whatever to the slackening of their friendship, but she could not fail to note with pain how far asunder they had drifted.

She turned to Grange's letter with a faint wonder as to why he should have troubled himself to write when he was so short a distance from her.

It contained but a few sentences; she read them with widening eyes.

"Fate or the devil has been too strong for me, and I am compelled to break my word to you. I have no excuse to offer, except that my hand has been forced. Perhaps in the end it will be better for you, but I would have stood by had it been possible. And even now I would not desert you if I did not positively know that you were safe--that the thing you feared has ceased to exist.

"Muriel, I have broken my oath, and I can hardly ask your forgiveness. I only beg you to believe that it was not by my own choice. I was fiendishly driven to it against my will.

I came to this place to say good-bye, but I shall leave to-morrow without seeing you unless you should wish otherwise.

"B. Grange."

She reached the end of the letter and sat quite still, staring at the open page.

She was free, that was her first thought, free by no effort of her own. The explanation she had dreaded had become unnecessary. She would not even have to face the ordeal of a meeting. She drew a long breath of relief.

And then swift as a poisoned arrow came another thought,--a stabbing, intolerable suspicion. Why had he thus set her free? How had his hand been forced? By what means had he been fiendishly driven?

She read the letter through again, and suddenly her heart began to throb thick and hard, so that she gasped for breath. This was Nick's doing. She was as sure of it as if those brief, bitter sentences had definitely told her so. Nick was the motive power that had compelled Grange to this action. How he had done it, she could not even vaguely surmise. But that he had in some malevolent fashion come between them she did not for an instant doubt.

And wherefore? She put her hand to her throat, feeling suffocated, as the memory of that last interview with him on the sh.o.r.e raced with every fiery detail through her brain. He had marked her down for himself, long, long ago, and whatever Dr. Jim might say, he had never abandoned the pursuit. He meant to capture her at last. She might flee, but he was following, tireless, fleet, determined. Presently he would swoop like an eagle upon his prey, and she would be utterly at his mercy. He had beaten Grange, and there was no one left to help her.

"Oh, Muriel,"--it was Olga's voice from the window--"come here, quick, quick! I can see a hawk."

She started as one starts from a horrible dream, and looked round with dazed eyes.

"It's hovering!" cried Olga excitedly. "It's hovering! There! Now it has struck!"

"And something is dead," said Muriel, in a voiceless whisper.

The child turned round, saw something unusual in her friend's face, and went impetuously to her.

"Muriel, darling, you look so strange. Is anything the matter?"

Muriel put an arm around her. "No, nothing," she said. "Olga, will it surprise you very much to hear that I am not going to marry Captain Grange after all?"