The Way of an Eagle by Ethel M. Dell

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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.

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 assured 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.

"Is she to hold herself at his disposal on that account? I must say I
fail to see the obligation."

There was even a hint of scorn in Grange's tone. At sound of it, Daisy
turned round and laid her hand winningly upon his arm.

"Dear old boy," she said gently, "don't be angry. I'm not against
you."

He softened instantly. It was not in him to harbour resentment against
a woman. He took her hand, and heaved a deep sigh.

"No, Daisy," he said half sadly, "you mustn't be against me. I always
count on you."

Daisy laughed a little wistfully. "Always did, dear, didn't you? Well,
tell me some more. What made you propose all of a sudden like this?
Are you--very much in love?"

He looked at her. "Perhaps not quite as we used to understand the
term," he said, seeming to speak half-reluctantly.

"Oh, we were very extravagant and foolish," rejoined Daisy lightly.
"I didn't mean quite in that way, Blake. You at least are past the age
for such feathery nonsense, or should be. I was--aeons and aeons ago."

"Were you?" he said, and still he looked at her half in wonder, it
seemed, and half in regret.

Daisy nodded at him briskly. The colour had come back to her face.
"Yes, I have arrived at years of discretion," she assured him. "And I
quite agree with Solomon that childhood and youth are vanity. But now
let us talk about this. Is she in love with you, I wonder? I must be
remarkably blind not to have seen it. How in the world I shall ever
face Nick again, I can't imagine."

Grange frowned. "I'm getting a bit tired of Nick," he said moodily.
"He crops up everywhere."

Daisy's face flushed. "Don't you ever again say a word against him in
my hearing," she said. "For I won't bear it. He may not be handsome
like you; but for all that, he's about the finest man I know."

"Good heavens!" said Blake. "As much as that!"

She nodded vehemently. "Yes, quite as much. And he loves her, too,
loves her with his whole soul. Perhaps you never knew that they would
have been married long ago in Simla if Muriel hadn't overheard some
malicious gossip and thrown him over. How in the world she made him
let her go I never knew, but she did it, though I believe it nearly
broke his heart. He came to me afterwards and begged me to keep her
with me as long as I could, and take care of her."

"All this," broke in Grange, "is what you promised never to speak of?"

"Yes," she admitted recklessly. "But it is what you ought to
know--what you must know--before you go any further."

"It will make no difference to me," he observed. "It is quite obvious
that she never cared for him in the smallest degree. Why, my dear
girl, she hates the man!"

Daisy gave vent to a sigh of exasperation. "When you come to talk
about women's feelings, Blake, you make me tired. You will never be
anything but a great big booby in that respect as long as you live."

Grange became silent. He never argued with Daisy. She had always had
the upper hand. He watched her as she sat down again, her pretty face
in the glow of the fire; but though fully aware of the fact, she would
not look at him.

"She is a dear girl, and you are not half good enough for her," she
said, stooping a little to the blaze.

"I know that," he answered bluntly. "I wasn't good enough for you,
either, but you would have had me--once."

She made a dainty gesture with one shoulder. "That also was aeons ago.
Why disturb that poor old skeleton?"

He did not answer, but he continued to watch her steadily with eyes
that held an expression of dumb faithfulness--like the eyes of a dog.

Daisy was softly and meditatively poking the fire. "If you marry her,
Blake," she said, "you will have to be enormously good to her. She
isn't the sort of girl to be satisfied with anything but the best."

"I should do my utmost to make her happy," he answered.

She glanced up momentarily. "I wonder if you would succeed," she
murmured.

For a single instant their eyes met. Daisy's fell away at once, and
the firelight showed a swift deepening of colour on her face.

As for Blake, he stood quite stiff for a few seconds, then with an
abruptness of movement unusual with him, he knelt suddenly down beside
her.

"Daisy," he said, and his voice sounded strained, almost hoarse,
"you're not vexed about it? You don't mind my marrying? It isn't--you
know--it isn't--as if--"

He broke off, for Daisy had jerked upright as if at the piercing of a
nerve. She looked at him fully, with blazing eyes. "How can you be so
ridiculous, Blake?" she exclaimed, with sharp impatience. "That was
all over and done with long, long ago, and you know it. Besides, even
if it hadn't been, I'm not a dog in the manger. Surely you know that
too. Oh, go away, and don't be absurd!"

She put her hand against his shoulder, and gave him a small but
vehement push.

He stood up again immediately, but he did not look hurt, and the
expression of loyalty in his eyes never wavered.

There was a short pause before Daisy spoke again.

"Well," she said, with a brief sigh, "I suppose it's no good crying
over spilt milk, but I wish you had chosen any girl in the world but
Muriel, Blake; I do indeed. You will have to write to Sir Reginald
Bassett. He is her guardian, subject to his wife's management. Perhaps
she will approve of you. She hated Nick for some reason."

"I don't see how they can object," Grange said, in the moody tone he
always used when perplexed.

"No," said Daisy. "Nor did Nick. But Lady Bassett managed to put a
spoke in his wheel notwithstanding. Still, if Muriel wants to marry
you--or thinks she does--she will probably take her own way. And
possibly regret it afterwards."

"You think I shall not make her happy?" said Grange.

Daisy hesitated a little. "I think," she said slowly, "that you are
not the man for her. However,"--she rose with another shrug--"I may
be wrong. In any case you have gone too far for me to meddle. I can't
help either of you now. You must just do what you think best." She
held out her hand. "I must go up now. Baby is restless to-night, and
may want me. Good-night."

Blake stooped, and carried her hand softly and suddenly to his lips.
He seemed for an instant on the verge of saying something, but no
words came. There was a faint, half-mocking smile on Daisy's face
as she turned away. But she was silent also. It seemed that they
understood each other.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SLEEP CALLED DEATH

It was an unspeakable relief to Muriel that, in congratulating her
upon her engagement, Daisy made no reference to Nick. She did not know
that this forbearance had been dictated long before by Nick himself.

The days that followed her engagement had in them a sort of rapture
that she had never known before. She felt as a young wild creature
suddenly escaped from the iron jaws of a trap in which it had long
languished, and she rioted in the sense of liberty that was hers. Her
youth was coming back to her in leaps and bounds with the advancing
spring.

She missed nothing in Blake's courtship. His gentleness had always
attracted her, and the intimacy that had been growing up between them
made their intercourse always easy and pleasant. They never spoke of
Nick. But ever in Muriel's heart there lay the soothing knowledge that
she had nothing more to fear. Her terrible, single-handed contests
against overwhelming odds were over, and she was safe. She was
convinced that, whatever happened, Blake would take care of her. Was
he not the protector she would have chosen from the beginning, could
she but have had her way?

So, placidly and happily, the days drifted by, till March was nearly
gone; and then, sudden and staggering as a shell from a masked
battery, there fell the blow that was destined to end that peaceful
time.

Very late one night there came a nervous knocking at Muriel's door,
and springing up from her bed she came face to face with Daisy's
_ayah_. The woman was grey with fright, and babbling incoherently.
Something about "baba" and the "mem-sahib" Muriel caught and instantly
guessed that the baby had been taken ill. She flung a wrap round her,
and hastened to the nursery.

It was a small room opening out of Daisy's bedroom. The light was
turned on full, and here Daisy herself was walking up and down with
the baby in her arms.

Before Muriel was well in the room, she stopped and spoke. Her face
was ghastly pale, and she could not raise her voice above a whisper,
though she made repeated efforts. "Go to Blake!" she panted. "Go
quickly! Tell him to fetch Jim Ratcliffe. Quick! Quick!"

Muriel flew to do her bidding. In her anxiety she scarcely waited to
knock at Blake's door, but burst in upon him headlong. The room was in
total darkness, but he awoke instantly.

"Hullo! What is it? That you, Muriel?"

"Oh, Blake!" she gasped. "The child's ill. We want the doctor."

He was up in a moment. She heard him groping for matches, but he only
succeeded in knocking something over.

"Can't you find them?" she asked. "Wait! I'll get you a light."

She ran back to her own room and fetched a candle. Her hands were
shaking so that she could scarcely light it. Returning, she found
Grange putting on his clothes in the darkness. He was fully as
flurried as she.

As she set down the candle there arose a sudden awful sound in Daisy's
room.

Muriel stood still. "Oh, what is that?"

Grange paused in the act of dragging on his coat. "It's that damned
_ayah_," he said savagely.

And in a second Muriel understood. Daisy's _ayah_ was wailing for the
dead.

She put her hands over her ears. The dreadful cry seemed to pierce
right through to her very soul. Then she remembered Daisy, and turned
to go to her.

Out in the passage she met the white-faced English servants huddling
together and whispering. One of them was sobbing hysterically. She
passed them swiftly by.

Back in Daisy's room she found the _ayah_ crouched on the floor, and
rocking herself to and fro while she beat her breast and wailed. The
door that led into the nursery was closed.

Muriel advanced fiercely upon the woman. She almost felt as if
she could have choked her. She seized her by the shoulders without
ceremony. The _ayah_ ceased her wailing for a moment, then recommenced
in a lower key. Muriel pulled her to her feet, half-dragged, half-led
her to her own room, thrust her within, and locked the door upon her.
Then she returned to Daisy.

She found her sunk in a rocking-chair before the waning fire, softly
swaying to and fro with the baby on her breast. She looked at Muriel
entering, with a set, still face.

"Has Blake gone?" she asked, still in that dry, powerless whisper.

Muriel moved to her side, and knelt down. "He is just going," she
began to say, but the words froze on her lips.

She remained motionless for a long second, gazing at the tiny, waxen
face on Daisy's breast. And for that second her heart stood still; for
she knew that the baby was dead.

From the closed room across the passage came the muffled sound of the
_ayah's_ wailing. Daisy made a slight impatient movement.

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