THE LION'S SKIN
The news of Nick's return spread like wildfire through the doctor's
house, and the whole establishment assembled to greet him. Jim himself
came striding out into the rain to shake his hand and escort him in.
His "Hullo, you scapegrace!" had in it little of sentiment, but there
was nothing wanting in his welcome in the opinion of the recipient
thereof.
Nick's rejoinder of "Hullo, you old buffer!" was equally free from any
gloss of eloquence, but he hooked his hand in the doctor's arm as he
made it, and kept it there.
Jim gave him one straight, keen look that took in every detail, but he
made no verbal comment of any sort. His heavy brows drew together for
an instant, that was all.
It was an exceedingly clamorous home-coming. The children, having
arrived in the motor, swarmed all about the returned hero, who was
more than equal to the occasion, and obviously enjoyed his boisterous
reception to the uttermost. There never had been any shyness about
Nick.
Muriel, standing watching in the background with a queer,
unaccountable pain at her heart, assured herself that the news of
her engagement had meant nothing to him whatever. He had managed
to deceive her as usual. She realised it with burning cheeks, and
ardently wished that she had borne herself more proudly. Well, she was
not wanted here. Even Olga, her faithful and loving admirer, had eyes
only for Nick just then. As for Dr. Jim, he had not even noticed her.
Quietly she stole away from the merry, chattering group. The hall-door
stood open, and she saw that it was raining heavily; but she did not
hesitate. With a haste that was urged from within by something that
was passionate, she ran out hatless into the storm.
The cracked, careless laugh she knew so well pursued her as she went,
and once she fancied that some one called her by name. But she did
not slacken speed to listen. She only dashed on a little faster than
before.
Drenched and breathless, she reached home at length, to be met upon
the threshold by Blake. In her exhaustion she almost fell into his
arms.
"Hullo!" he said, steadying her. "You shouldn't run like that. I never
dreamed you would come back in this, or I would have come across with
an umbrella to fetch you."
She sank into a chair in the hall, speechless and gasping, her hair
hanging about her neck in wildest disorder.
Blake stood beside her. He was wearing his worried, moody look.
"You shouldn't," he said again. "It's horribly bad for you."
"Ah, I'm better," she gasped back. "I had to run--all the way--because
of the rain."
"But why didn't you wait?" said Blake. "What were they thinking of to
let you come in this down-pour?"
"They couldn't help it." Muriel raised herself with a great sobbing
sigh. "It was nobody's fault but my own. I wanted to get away. Oh,
Blake, do you know--Nick is here?"
Blake started. "What? Already? Do you mean he is actually in the
place?"
She nodded. "He came up in a motor while we were playing. I suppose he
is staying at Redlands, but I don't know. And--and--Blake, he has
lost his left arm. It makes him look so queer." She gave a sudden,
uncontrollable shudder. The old dumb horror looked out of her eyes.
"I thought I shouldn't mind," she said, under her breath. "Perhaps--if
you had been there--it would have been different. As it was--as it
was--" She broke off, rising impetuously to her feet, and laying
trembling hands upon his arms. "Oh, Blake," she whispered, like a
scared child. "I feel so helpless. But you promised--you promised--you
would never let me go."
Yes, he had promised her that. He had sworn it, and, sick at heart,
he remembered that in her eyes at least he was a man of honour. It
had been in his mind to tell her the simple truth, just so far as he
himself was concerned, and thereafter to place himself at her
disposal to act exactly as she should desire. But suddenly this was an
impossibility to him. He realised it with desperate self-loathing.
She trusted him. She looked to him for protection. She leaned upon
his strength. She needed him. He could not--it almost seemed as if in
common chivalry he could not--reveal to her the contemptible weakness
which lay like a withering blight upon his whole nature. To own
himself the slave of a married woman, and that woman her closest
friend, would be to throw her utterly upon her own resources at a
time when she most needed the support and guidance of a helping
hand. Moreover, the episode was over; so at least both he and Daisy
resolutely persuaded themselves. There had been a lapse--a vain and
futile lapse--into the long-cherished idyll of their romance. It
must never recur. It never should recur. It must be covered over
and forgotten as speedily as might be. They had come to their senses
again. They were ready, not only to thrust away the evil that had
dominated them, but to ignore it utterly as though it had never been.
So, rapidly, the man reasoned with himself with the girl's hands
clasping his arm in earnest entreaty, and her eyes of innocence raised
to his.
His answer when it came was slow and soft and womanly, but, in her
ears at least, there was nothing wanting in it. She never dreamed that
he was reviling himself for a blackguard even as he uttered it.
"My dear little girl, there is nothing whatever for you to be afraid
of. You're a bit overstrung, aren't you? The man isn't living who
could take you from me."
He patted her shoulder very kindly, soothing her with a patient,
almost fatherly tenderness, and gradually her panic of fear passed.
She leaned against him with a comforting sense of security.
"I can't think how it is I'm so foolish," she told him. "You are good
to me, Blake. I feel so safe when I am with you."
His heart smote him, yet he bent and kissed her. "You're not quite
strong yet, dear," he said. "It takes a long time to get over all that
you had to bear last year."
"Yes," she agreed with a sigh. "And do you know I thought I was
so much stronger than I am? I actually thought that I shouldn't
mind--much--when he came. And yet I did mind--horribly. I--I--told him
about our engagement, Blake."
"Yes, dear," said Blake.
"Yes, I told him. And he laughed and offered his congratulations.
I don't think he cared," said Muriel, again with that curious,
inexplicable sensation of pain at her heart.
"Why should he?" said Blake.
She looked at him with momentary irresolution. "You know, Blake, I
never told you. But I was--I was--engaged to him for about a fortnight
that dreadful time at Simla."
To her relief she marked no change in Blake's courteously attentive
face.
"You need not have told me that, dear," he said quietly.
"No, I know," she answered, pressing his arm. "It wouldn't make any
difference to you. You are too great. And it was always a little bit
against my will. But the breaking with him was terrible--terrible. He
was so angry. I almost thought he would have killed me."
"My dear," Blake said, "you shouldn't dwell on these things. They are
better forgotten."
"I know, I know," she answered. "But they are just the very hardest of
all things to forget. You must help me, Blake. Will you?"
"I will help you," he answered steadily.
And the resolution with which he spoke was an unspeakable comfort to
her. Once more there darted across her mind the wonder at her father's
choice for her. How was it--how was it--that he had passed over this
man and chosen Nick?
Blake's own explanation of the mystery seemed to her suddenly weak and
inadequate. She simply could not bring herself to believe that in a
supreme moment he could be found wanting. It was unthinkable that the
giant frame and mighty sinews could belong to a personality that was
lacking in a corresponding greatness.
So she clung to her illusion, finding comfort therein, wholly blind to
those failings in her protector which to the woman who had loved him
from her earliest girlhood were as obvious and well-nigh as precious
as his virtues.