_ PART IV CHAPTER XXXVII. THE PENALTY FOR SENTIMENT
It did not take Dr. Jim long to discover that some trouble or at the least some perplexity was weighing upon his young guest's mind. He also shrewdly remarked that it dated from the commencement of her visit at his house. No one else noticed it, but this was not surprising. There was always plenty to occupy the attention in the Ratcliffe household, and only Dr. Jim managed to keep a sharp eye upon every member thereof. Moreover, by a casual observer, there was little or nothing that was unusual to be detected in Muriel's manner. Quiet she certainly was, but she was by no means listless. Her laugh did not always ring quite true, that was all. And her eyes drooped a little wearily from time to time. There were other symptoms, very slight, wholly imperceptible to any but a trained eye, yet not one of which escaped Dr. Jim.
He made no comment, but throughout that first week of her stay he watched her unperceived, biding his time. During several motor rides on which she accompanied him he maintained this attitude while she sat all unsuspecting by his side. She had never detected any subtlety in this staunch friend of hers, and, unlike Daisy, she felt no fear of him. His blunt sincerity had never managed to wound her.
And so it was almost inevitable that she should give him his opportunity at last.
Late one evening she entered his consulting-room where he was busy writing.
"I want to talk to you," she said. "Is it very inconvenient?"
The doctor leaned back in his chair. "Sit down there," he said, pointing to one immediately facing him.
She laughed and obeyed, faintly blushing. "I'm not a patient, you know."
He drew his black brows together. "It's very late. Why don't you go to bed?"
"Because I want to talk to you."
"You can do that to-morrow," bluntly rejoined Dr. Jim. "You can't afford to sacrifice your sleep to chatter."
"I am not sacrificing any sleep," Muriel told him rather wearily. "I never sleep before morning."
He laid down his pen and gave her one of his hard looks. "Then you are a very silly girl," he said curtly at length.
"It isn't my fault," she protested.
He shrugged his shoulders. "You all say that. It's the most ordinary lie I know."
Muriel smiled. "I know you are longing to give me something nasty. You may if you like. I'll take it, whatever it is."
Dr. Jim was silent for a space. He continued to regard her steadily, with a scrutiny that spared her nothing. She sat quite still under it. He had never disconcerted her yet. But when he leaned suddenly forward and took her wrist between his fingers, she made a slight, instinctive effort to frustrate him.
"Be still," he ordered. "What makes you so absurdly nervous? Want of sleep, eh?"
Her lips trembled a little. "Don't probe too deep, doctor," she pleaded. "I am not very happy just now."
"Why don't you tell me what is the matter?" he asked gruffly.
She did not answer, and he continued frowning over her pulse.
"What do you want to talk to me about?" he asked at last.
She looked up with an effort. "Oh, nothing much. Only a letter from a Mrs. Langdale who lives in town. She is going to India in November, and says she will take charge of me if I care to go with her. She has invited me to go and stay with her beforehand."
"Well?" said Jim, as she paused.
"I don't want to go," she said. "Do you think I ought? She is Lady Bassett's sister."
"I think it would probably do you good, if that's what you mean," he returned. "But I don't suppose that consideration has much weight with you. Why don't you want to go?"
"I don't like strangers, and I hate Lady Bassett," Muriel answered, with absolute simplicity. "Then there is Daisy. I don't know what her plans are. I always thought we should go East together."
"There's no sense in waiting for Daisy's plans to develop," declared Jim. "She is as changeable as the wind. Possibly Nick will be able to make up her mind for her. I fancy he means to try."
"Nick! You don't mean he will travel with Daisy?" There was almost a tragic note in Muriel's voice. She looked up quickly into the shrewd eyes that watched her.
"Why shouldn't he?" said Jim.
"I don't know. I never thought of it." Muriel leaned back again, a faint frown of perplexity between her eyes. "Perhaps," she said slowly at length, "I had better go to Mrs. Langdale."
"I should in your place," said Jim. "That handsome soldier of yours won't want to be kept waiting, eh?"
"Oh, he wouldn't mind." The weariness was apparent again in her voice, and with it a tinge of bitterness. "He never minds anything," she said.
Jim grunted disapproval. "And you? Are you equally indifferent?"
Her pale face flushed vividly. She was silent a moment; then suddenly she sat up and met his look fully.
"You'll think me contemptible, I know," she said, a great quiver in her voice. "I can't help it; you must. Dr. Jim, I'll tell you the truth. I--I don't want to go to India. I don't want to be married--at all."
She ended with a swift rush of irrepressible tears. It was out at last, this trouble of hers that had been gradually growing behind the barrier of her reserve, and it seemed to burst over her in the telling in a great wave of adversity.
"I've done nothing but make mistakes," she sobbed "ever since Daddy died."
Dr. Jim got up quietly to lock the door. The grimness had passed from his face.
"My dear," he said gruffly, "we all of us make mistakes directly we begin to run alone."
He returned and sat down again close to her, waiting for her to recover herself. She slipped out a trembling hand to him, and he took it very kindly; but he said no more until she spoke.
"It's very difficult to know what to do."
"Is it? I should have said you were past that stage." His tone was uncompromising, but the warm grip of his hand made up for it. His directness did not dismay her. "If you are quite sure you don't care for the fellow, your duty is quite plain."
Muriel raised her head slowly. "Yes, but it isn't quite so simple as that, doctor. You see, it's not as if--as if--we either of us ever imagined we were--in love with each other."
Jim's eyebrows went up. "As bad as that?"
She leaned her chin on her hand. "I am sure there must be crowds of people who marry without ever being in love."
"Yes," said Jim curtly. "And kindle their own hell in doing it."
She started a little. "You think that?"
"I know it. I have seen it over and over again. Full half of the world's misery is due to it. But you won't do that, Muriel. I know you too well."
Muriel glanced up at him. "Do you know me? I don't think you would have expected me to accept him in the first place."
"Depends what you did it for," said Jim.
She fell suddenly silent, slowly twisting the ring on her finger. "He knew why," she said at last in a very low voice. "In fact--in fact he asked me for that reason."
"And the reason still exists?"
She bent her head. "Yes."
"A reason you are ashamed of?" pursued the doctor.
She did not answer, and he drew his great brows together in deep thought.
"You don't propose to take me any further into your confidence?" he asked at last.
She made a quick, impulsive movement. "You--you--I think you know."
"Will you let me tell you what I know?" he said.
She shrank perceptibly. "If--if you won't make it too hard for me."
"I can't answer for that," he returned. "It depends entirely upon yourself. My knowledge does not amount to anything very staggering in itself. It is only this--that I know a certain person who would cheerfully sacrifice all he has to make you happy, and that you have no more cause to fear persecution from that person than from the man in the moon."
He paused; but Muriel did not speak. She was still absently turning her engagement ring round and round.
"To verify this," he said, "I will tell you something which I am sure you don't know--which in fact puzzled me, too, considerably, for some time. He has already sacrificed more than most men would care to venture in a doubtful cause. It was no part of his plan to follow you to England. He set his face against it so strongly that he very nearly ended his mortal career for good and all in so doing. As it was, he suffered for his lunacy pretty heavily. You know what happened. He was forced to come in the end, and he paid the forfeit for his delay."
Again he paused, for Muriel had sprung upright with such tragedy in her eyes that he knew he had said enough. The next moment she was on her feet, quivering all over as one grievously wounded.
"Oh, do you know what you are saying?" she said, and in her voice there throbbed the cry of a woman's wrung heart. "Surely--surely he never did that--for me!"
He did not seem to notice her agitation. "It was a fairly big price to pay for a piece of foolish sentiment, eh?" he said. "Let us hope he will know better next time."
He looked up at her with a faintly cynical smile, but she was standing with her face averted. He saw only that her chin was quivering like a hurt child's.
"Come," he said at length. "I didn't tell you this to distress you, you know. Only to set your mind at rest, so that you might sleep easy."
She mastered herself with an effort, and turned towards him. "I know; yes, I know. You--you have been very kind. Good-night, doctor."
He rose and went with her to the door. "You are not going to lie awake over this?"
She shook her head. "Good-night," she said again.
He watched her down the passage, and then returned to his writing. He smiled to himself as he sat down, but this time wholly without cynicism.
"No, Nick, my boy," he said, as he drove his pen into the ink. "She won't lie awake for you. But she'll cry herself to sleep for your sake, you gibbering, one-armed ape. And the new love will be the old love before the week is out, or I am no weather prophet." _