_ PART III CHAPTER XXI. A HARBOUR OF REFUGE
To Daisy the news that Grange imparted was more pleasing than startling. "I knew he would come before long if he were a wise man," she said.
But when her cousin wanted to know what she meant, she would not tell him.
"No, I can't, Blake," was her answer. "I once promised Muriel never to speak of it. She is very sensitive on the subject."
Grange did not press for an explanation. It was not his way. He left her moodily, a frown of deep dissatisfaction upon his handsome face. Daisy did not spend much thought upon him. Her interests at that time were almost wholly centred upon her boy who was so backward and delicate that she was continually anxious about him. She was, in fact, so preoccupied that she hardly noticed at dinner that Muriel scarcely spoke and ate next to nothing.
Grange remarked both facts, and his moodiness increased. When Daisy went up to the nursery, he at once followed Muriel into the drawing-room. She was standing by the window when he entered, a slim, straight figure in unrelieved black; but though she must have heard him, she neither spoke nor turned her head.
Grange closed the door and came softly forward. There was an unwonted air of resolution about him that made him look almost grim. He reached her side and stood there silently. The wind had fallen, and the sky was starry.
After a brief silence Muriel dropped the blind and looked at him. There was something of interrogation in her glance.
"Shall we go into the garden?" she suggested. "It is so warm."
He fell in at once with the proposal. "You will want a cloak," he said. "Can I fetch you one?"
"Oh, thanks! Anything will do. I believe there's one of Daisy's in the hall."
She moved across the room quickly, as one impatient to escape from a confined space. Grange followed her. He was not smoking as usual. They went out together into the warm darkness, and passed side by side down the narrow path that wound between the bare flower-beds. It was a wonderful night. Once as they walked there drifted across them a sudden fragrance of violets.
They reached at length a rustic gate that led into the doctor's meadow, and here with one consent they stopped. Very far away a faint wind was stirring, but close at hand there was no sound. Again, from the wet earth by the gate, there rose the magic scent of violets.
Muriel rested her clasped hands upon the gate, and spoke in a voice unconsciously hushed.
"I never realised how much I liked this place before," she said. "Isn't it odd? I have been actually happy here--and I didn't know it."
"You are not happy to-night," said Grange.
She did not attempt to contradict him. "I think I am rather tired," she said.
"I don't think that is quite all," he returned, with quiet conviction.
She moved, turning slightly towards him; but she said nothing, though he obviously waited for some response.
For awhile he was discouraged, and silence fell again upon them. Then at length he braced himself for an effort. For all his shyness he was not without a certain strength.
"Miss Roscoe," he said, "do you remember how you once promised that you would always regard me as a friend?"
She turned fully towards him then, and he saw her face dimly in the starlight. He thought she looked very pale.
"I do," she said simply.
In a second his diffidence fell away from him. He realised that the ground on which he stood was firm. He bent towards her.
"I want you to keep that promise of yours in its fullest sense to-night, Muriel," he said, and his soft voice had in it almost a caressing note. "I want you--if you will--to tell me what is the matter."
Muriel stood before him with her face upturned. He could not read her expression, but he knew by her attitude that she had no thought of repelling him.
"What is it?" he urged gently. "Won't you tell me?"
"Don't you know?" she asked him slowly.
"I only know that what we heard this afternoon upset you," he answered. "And I don't understand it. I am asking you to explain."
"You will only think me very foolish and absurd."
There was a deep quiver in the words, and he knew that she was trembling. Very kindly he laid his hand upon her shoulder.
"Can't you trust me better than that?" he asked.
She did not answer him. Her breathing became suddenly sharp and irregular, and he realised that she was battling for self-control.
"I don't know if I can make you understand," she said at last. "But I will try."
"Yes, try!" he said gently. "You won't find it so very difficult."
She turned back to the gate, and leaned wearily upon it.
"You are very kind. You always have been. I couldn't tell any one else--not even Daisy. You see, she is--his friend. But you are different. I don't think you like him, do you?"
Grange hesitated a little. "I won't go so far as to say that," he said finally. "We get on all right. I was never very intimate with the fellow. I think he is a bit callous."
"Callous!" Muriel gave a sudden hard shudder. "He is much worse than callous. He is hideously, almost devilishly cruel. But--but--he isn't only that. Blake, do you think he is quite human? He is so horribly, so unnaturally strong."
Grange heard the scared note in her voice, and drew very close to her. "I think," he said quietly, "that--without knowing it--you exaggerate both his cruelty and his strength. I know he is a queer chap. I once heard it said of him that he has the eyes of a snake-charmer, and I believe it more or less. But I assure you he is human--quite human. And"--he spoke with unwonted emphasis--"he has no more power over you--not an inch--than you choose to give him."
Muriel uttered a faint sigh. "I knew I should never make you understand."
Grange was silent. He might have retorted that she had given him very little information to go upon, but he forebore. There was an almost colossal patience about this man. His silence had in it nothing of resentment.
After a few seconds Muriel went on, her voice very low. "I would give anything--all I have--not to meet him when he comes back. But I don't know how to get away from him. He is sure to seek me out. And I--I am only a girl. I can't prevent it."
Again there sounded that piteous quiver in her words. It was like the cry of a lost child. Grange heard it, and clenched his hands, but he did not speak. He was gazing straight ahead, stern-eyed and still.
Muriel scarcely noticed his attitude. Having at length broken through her barrier of reserve, she found a certain relief in speech.
"I might go away, of course," she said. "I expect I shall do that, for I don't think I could endure it here. But I haven't many friends. My year in India seemed to cut me off from every one. It's a little difficult to know where to go. And then, too, there is Daisy."
She paused, and suddenly Grange spoke, with more abruptness than was his wont.
"Why do you think he is sure to seek you out? Did he ever say so?"
She shivered. "No, he never said so. But--but--in a way I feel it. He is so merciless. He always makes me think of an eagle swooping down on its prey. No doubt you think me very fanciful and ridiculous. Perhaps I am. But once--in the mountains--he told me that I belonged to him--that he would not let me go, and--and--I have never been able to forget it."
Her voice sank, and it seemed to Grange that she was crying in the darkness. Her utter forlornness pierced him to the heart. He leaned towards her, trying ineffectually to see her face.
"My dear little girl," he said gently, "don't be so distressed. He deserves to be kicked for frightening you like this."
"It's my own fault," she whispered back. "If I were stronger, or if Daddy were with me--it would be different. But I am all alone. There is no one to help me. I used to think it didn't matter what happened to me, but I am beginning to feel it does."
"Of course it does," Grange said. His hand felt along the rail for hers, and, finding them, held them closely. Her weakness gave him confidence. "Poor child!" he murmured softly. "Poor little girl! You do want some one to take care of you."
Muriel mastered herself with an effort. It was not often now that she gave way so completely.
"It's only now and then," she said. "It's better than it used to be. Only somehow I got frightened when I heard that Nick was coming. I daresay--when I begin to get used to the idea--I shan't mind it quite so much. Never mind about my silly worries any more. No doubt I shall get wiser as I grow older."
She tried to laugh with the words, but somehow no laugh came. Grange's great hand closed very tightly upon hers, and she looked up in surprise.
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 compassed 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 assurance. "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. _