“What is the matter with Olga?” she asked.

“I don’t know.  I believe it is sunstroke.  We were motoring in the mid-day heat.  She didn’t seem to feel it at the time, but her head ached when we got in.  She is in a high fever now.  I’ve sent my man on in the motor to fetch Jim’s locum from Weir.  I should have brought the dogcart myself, to fetch you, but I couldn’t trust the horse in this.”

“You left her alone to come here?” Muriel questioned.

He nodded.  “I had no choice.  She wished it.  Besides, there were none but women-folk left.  She’s got one of them with her, the least imbecile of the lot, which isn’t saying much.  They’re all terrified of course at the storm—­all except Olga.  She is never afraid of anything.”

A frightful crash of thunder carried away his words.  Before it had rolled away, Muriel was at the door.  She made a rapid sign to him, and was gone.

Nick chafed up and down the room, waiting for her.  The storm continued with unabated violence, but he did not give it a thought.  He was counting the moments with feverish impatience.

Muriel’s absence scarcely lasted for five minutes, but when she came back all trace of fear had left her.  Her face showed quiet and matter-of-fact above the long waterproof in which she had wrapped herself.  Over her arm she carried a waterproof cloak.

She held it out to him.  “It’s one of Daisy’s, but you are to wear it.  I think you must be mad to have come out without anything.”

She put it round his shoulders; and he thanked her with a smothered laugh.

A terrific blast of wind and rain met them as they emerged from the cottage, nearly whirling Muriel off her feet.  She made an instinctive clutch at her companion and instantly her hand was caught fast in his.  He drew her arm close under his own, and she did not resist him.  There was something reassuring in his touch.

Later she wondered if they spoke at all during that terrible walk.  She could never recall a word on either side.  And yet, though in a measure frightened, she was not panic-stricken.

The storm was beginning to subside a little before they reached Redlands, though the rain still fell heavily.  In the intervals between the lightning it was pitch dark.  They had no lantern, but Nick was undismayed.  He walked as lightly and surely as a cat, and Muriel had no choice but to trust herself unreservedly to his guidance.  She marvelled afterwards at the complete trust with which that night he had managed to inspire her, but at the time she never questioned it.

Yet when the lights of Redlands shone at last through the gloom, she breathed a sigh of relief.  Instantly Nick spoke.

“Well done!”, he said briefly.  “You are your father’s daughter still.”

She knew that she flushed in the darkness, and was glad that he could not see her face.

“You must go and get dry, first of all,” he went on.  “I told them to light a fire somewhere.  And you are to have some coffee too.  Mind, I say it.”