They waited to let the car go first, Olga proudly grasping the wheel; then, trotting briskly, followed in its wake.

Muriel had an uneasy feeling that Blake wanted to apologise, and she determined that he should not have the opportunity.  Each time that he gave any sign of wishing to draw nearer to her, she touched her horse’s flank.  Something in the nature of a revelation had come to her during that brief halt by the roadside.  For the first time she had caught a glimpse, plain and unvarnished, of the actual man that inhabited the giant’s frame, and it had given her an odd, disturbing suspicion that the strength upon which she leaned was in simple fact scarcely equal to her own.

The way to Redlands lay through leafy woodlands through which here and there the summer sea gleamed blue.  Turning in at the open gates, Muriel uttered an exclamation of delight.  She seemed to have suddenly entered fairyland.  The house, long, low, rambling, roofed with thatch, stood at the end of a winding drive that was bordered on both sides by a blaze of rhododendron flowers.  Down below her on the left was a miniature glen from which arose the tinkle of running water.  On her right the trees grew thickly, completely shutting out the road.

“Oh, Blake!” she exclaimed.  “What a perfect paradise!”

“Like it?” said Nick; and with a start she saw him coolly step out from a shadowy path behind them and close the great iron gate.

Impulsively she pulled up and slipped to the ground.  “Take my horse, Blake,” she said.  “I must run down to that stream.”

He obeyed her, not very willingly, and Nick with a chuckle turned and plunged after her down the narrow path.  “Go straight ahead!” he called back.  “Olga is waiting for you at the house.”

He came up with Muriel on the edge of the fairy stream.  Her face was flushed and her eyes nervous, but she met him bravely.  She had known in her heart that he would follow.  As he stopped beside her, she turned with a little desperate laugh and held out her hand.

“Is it peace?” she said rather breathlessly.

She felt his fingers, tense as wire, close about her own.  “Seems like it,” he said.  “What are you afraid of?  Me?”

She could not meet his look.  But the necessity for some species of understanding pressed upon her.  She wanted unspeakably to conciliate him.

“I want to be friends with you, Nick,” she said, “if you will let me.”

“What for?” said Nick sharply.

She was silent.  She could not tell him that her sure defence had crumbled at a touch.  Somehow she was convinced that he knew it already.

“You never wanted such a thing before,” he said.  “You certainly weren’t hankering after it the last time we met.”

Her cheeks burned at the memory.  Again she felt ashamed.  With a great effort she forced herself to speak with a certain frankness.

“I am afraid,” she said—­“I have thought since—­that I was rather heartless that day.  The fact was, I was taken by surprise.  But I am sorry now, Nick.  I am very sorry.”