The Way of an Eagle - Ethel May Dell (i read books TXT) 📗

baby, and a ringlet of baby hair!
Her face quivered as she looked at them. They had been her dearest treasures. Passionately 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 passed.
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 shore 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?"
"No, dear," said Olga. "I never somehow thought you would, and I didn't want you to either."
"Why not?" Muriel looked up in some surprise. "I thought you liked him."
"Oh, yes, of course I do," said Olga. "But he isn't half the man Nick is, even though he is a V.C. Oh, Muriel, I wish,--I do wish--you would marry Nick. Perhaps you will now."
But at that Muriel cried out sharply and sprang to her feet, almost thrusting Olga from her.
"No, never!" she exclaimed, "Never,--never,--never!" Then, seeing Olga's hurt face, "Oh, forgive me, dear! I didn't mean to be unkind. But please don't ever dream of such a thing again. It--it's impossible--quite. Ah, there is the gong for tea. Let us go down."
They went down hand in hand. But Olga was very quiet for the rest of the evening; and she did not cling to Muriel as usual when she said good-night.


CHAPTER XLII
THE HARDEST FIGHT OF ALL

It was growing late on that same evening when to Daisy, packing in her room with feverish haste, a message was brought that Captain Ratcliffe was waiting, and desired to see her.
Her first impulse was to excuse herself from the interview, for she and Nick had never stood upon ceremony; but a very brief consideration decided her to see him. Since he had come at an unusual hour, it seemed probable that he had some special object in view, and if that were so, she would find it hard to turn him from his purpose. But she resolved to make the interview as brief as possible. She had no place for Nick in her life just then.
She entered the little parlour with a certain impetuosity, that was not wholly spontaneous. "My dear Nick," she said, as she did so, "I can give you exactly five minutes, not one second more, for I am frightfully busy packing up my things to leave to-morrow."
He came swiftly to meet her, so swiftly that she was for the moment deceived, and fancied that he was about to greet her with his customary bantering gallantry. But he did not lift her fingers to his lips after his usual gay fashion. He only held her proffered hand very tightly for several seconds without verbal greeting of any sort.
Suddenly he began to speak, and as he did so she seemed to see a hundred wrinkles spring into being on his yellow face. "I have something to say to you, Mrs. Musgrave," he said. "And it's something so particularly beastly that I funk saying it. We have always been such pals, you and I, and that makes it all the harder."
He broke off, his shrewd glance flashing over her, keen and elusive as a rapier. Daisy faced him quite fully and fearlessly. The possibility of a conflict in this quarter had occurred to her before. She would not shirk it, but she was determined that it should be as brief as possible.
"Being pals doesn't entitle you to go trespassing, Nick," she said.
"I know that," said Nick, speaking very rapidly. "None better. But I am not thinking of you only, though I hate to make you angry. Mrs. Musgrave--Daisy--I want to ask you, and you can't refuse to answer. What are you doing? What are you going to do?"
"I don't know what you mean," she said, speaking coldly. "And anyhow I can't stop to listen to you. I haven't time. I think you had better go."
"You must listen," Nick said. She caught the grim note of determination in his voice, and was aware of the whole force of his personality flung suddenly against her. "Daisy," he said, "you are to look upon me as Will's representative. I am the nearest friend he has. Have you thought of him at all lately, stewing in those hellish Plains for your sake? He's such a faithful chap, you know. Can't you go back to him soon? Isn't it--forgive me--isn't it a bit shabby to play this sort of game when there's a fellow like that waiting for you and fretting his very heart out because you don't go?"
He stopped--his lips twitching with the vigour of his appeal. And Daisy realised that he would have to be told the simple truth. He would not be satisfied with less.
Very pale but quite calm, she braced herself to tell him. "I am afraid you are pleading a lost cause," she said, her words quiet and very distinct. "I am never going back to him."
"Never!" Nick moved sharply drawing close to her. "Never?" he said again; then with abrupt vehemence, "Daisy, you don't mean that! You didn't say it!"
She drew back slightly from him, but her answer was perfectly steady, rigidly determined. "I have said it, Nick. And I meant it. You had better go. You will do no good by staying to argue. I know all that you can possibly say, and it makes no difference to me.