Almost instantly he began to speak, very humbly, but also very resolutely. "Muriel," he said, "I"m an unutterable fool at expressing things. I can only say them straight out and hope for the best. You want a protector, don"t you? And I--should like to be the one to protect you if--if it were ever possible for you to think of me in that light."
He spoke with immense effort. He was afraid of scaring her, afraid of hurting her desolate young heart, afraid almost of the very impulse that moved him to speak.
Absolute silence reigned when he ended.
Muriel had become suddenly rigid, and so still that she did not seem to breathe. For several seconds he waited, but still she made no sign.
He had not the remotest clue to guide him. He began to feel as if a door had unexpectedly closed against him, not violently, but steadily, soundlessly, barring him out.
It was but a fleeting impression. In a few moments more it was gone.
She drew a long quivering breath, and turned slightly towards him.
"I would rather trust myself to you," she said, "than to any one else in the world."
She spoke in her deep, sincere voice which gave him no doubt that she meant what she said, and at once his own trepidation departed. He put his arm around her, and pressed her close to him.
"Come to me then," he said very tenderly. "And I will take such care of you, Muriel, that no one shall ever frighten you again."
She yielded to his touch as simply as a child, leaning her head against him with a little, weary gesture of complete confidence. She was desperately tired of standing alone.
"I know I shall be safe with you," she whispered.
"Quite safe, dear," he answered gravely. He paused a moment as though irresolute; then, still holding her closely, he bent and kissed her forehead.
He did it very quietly and reverently, but at the action she started, almost shrank. One of those swift flashes of memory came suddenly upon her, and as in a vision she beheld another face bending over her--a yellow, wrinkled face of terrible emaciation, with eyes of flickering fire--eyes that never slept--and heard a voice, curiously broken and incoherent that seemed to pray. She could not catch the words it uttered.
The old wild panic rushed over her, the old frenzied longing to escape. With a sobbing gasp she turned in Grange"s arms, and clung to him.
"Oh, Captain Grange," she panted piteously, "promise--promise you will never let me go!"
Her agitation surprised him, but it awaked in him a responsive tenderness that compa.s.sed her with a strength bred rather of emergency than habit.
"My little girl, I swear I will never let you go," he said, with grave a.s.surance. "You are quite safe now. No one shall ever take you from me."
And it was to Muriel as if, after long and futile battling in the open sea, she had drifted at last into the calm heaven which surely had always been the goal of her desires.
CHAPTER XXII
AN OLD STORY
Jim Ratcliffe was in the drawing-room with Daisy when they returned.
He scrutinised them both somewhat sharply as they came in, but he made no comment upon their preference for the garden. Very soon he rose to take his leave.
Grange accompanied him to the door, and Muriel, suddenly possessed by an overwhelming sense of shyness, bent over Daisy and murmured a hasty goodnight.
Daisy looked at her for a moment. "Tired, dear?"
"A little," Muriel admitted.
"I hope you haven"t been catching cold--you and Blake," Daisy said, as she kissed her.
Muriel a.s.sured her to the contrary, and hastened to make her escape.
In the hall she came face to face with Blake. He met her with a smile.
"What! Going up already?"
She nodded. Her face was burning. For an instant her hand lay in his.
"You tell Daisy," she whispered, and fled upstairs like a scared bird.
Grange stood till she was out of sight; then turned aside to the drawing-room, the smile wholly gone from his face.
Daisy, from her seat before the fire, looked up with her gay laugh.
"I"m sure there is a secret brewing between you two," she declared. "I can feel it in my bones."
Grange closed the door carefully. There was a queer look on his face, almost an apprehensive look. He took up his stand on the hearthrug before he spoke.
"You are not far wrong, Daisy," he said then.
She answered him lightly as ever. "I never am, my dear Blake. Surely you must have noticed it. Well, am I to be let into the plot, or not?"
He looked at her for a moment uneasily. "Of course we shall tell you,"
he said. "It--it"s not a thing we could very well keep to ourselves for any length of time."
A sudden gleam of understanding flashed into Daisy"s upturned face, and instantly her expression changed. With a swift, vehement movement she sprang up and stood before him.
"Blake!" she exclaimed, and in her voice astonishment, dismay, and even reproach were mingled.
He averted his eyes from hers. "Won"t you congratulate me, Daisy?" he said, speaking almost under his breath.
Daisy had turned very white. She put out both hands, and leaned upon the mantelpiece.
"But, my dear Blake," she said, after a moment, "she is not for you."
"What do you mean?" Grange"s jaw suddenly set itself. He squared his great shoulders as if instinctively bracing himself to meet opposition.
"I mean"--Daisy spoke very quietly and emphatically--"I mean, Blake, that she is Nick"s property. She belonged to Nick before ever you thought of wanting her. I never dreamed that you would do anything so shabby as to step in at the last moment, just when Nick is coming home, and cut him out. How could you do such a thing, Blake? But surely it isn"t irrevocable? You can"t have said anything definite?"
Grange"s face had become very stern. He no longer avoided her eyes.
For once he was really angry, and showed it.
"You make a mistake," he told her curtly. "I have done nothing whatever of which I am ashamed, or of which any man could be ashamed.
Certainly I have taken a definite step. I have proposed to her, and she has accepted me. With regard to Nick Ratcliffe, I believe myself that the fellow is something of a blackguard, but in any case she both fears and hates him. He can have no shadow of a right over her."
"You forget that he saved her life," said Daisy.