“Nick!  You don’t mean he will travel with Daisy?” There was almost a tragic note in Muriel’s voice.  She looked up quickly into the shrewd eyes that watched her.

“Why shouldn’t he?” said Jim.

“I don’t know.  I never thought of it.”  Muriel leaned back again, a faint frown of perplexity between her eyes.  “Perhaps,” she said slowly at length, “I had better go to Mrs. Langdale.”

“I should in your place,” said Jim.  “That handsome soldier of yours won’t want to be kept waiting, eh?”

“Oh, he wouldn’t mind.”  The weariness was apparent again in her voice, and with it a tinge of bitterness.  “He never minds anything,” she said.

Jim grunted disapproval.  “And you?  Are you equally indifferent?”

Her pale face flushed vividly.  She was silent a moment; then suddenly she sat up and met his look fully.

“You’ll think me contemptible, I know,” she said, a great quiver in her voice.  “I can’t help it; you must.  Dr. Jim, I’ll tell you the truth.  I—­I don’t want to go to India.  I don’t want to be married—­at all.”

She ended with a swift rush of irrepressible tears.  It was out at last, this trouble of hers that had been gradually growing behind the barrier of her reserve, and it seemed to burst over her in the telling in a great wave of adversity.

“I’ve done nothing but make mistakes,” she sobbed “ever since Daddy died.”

Dr. Jim got up quietly to lock the door.  The grimness had passed from his face.

“My dear,” he said gruffly, “we all of us make mistakes directly we begin to run alone.”

He returned and sat down again close to her, waiting for her to recover herself.  She slipped out a trembling hand to him, and he took it very kindly; but he said no more until she spoke.

“It’s very difficult to know what to do.”

“Is it?  I should have said you were past that stage.”  His tone was uncompromising, but the warm grip of his hand made up for it.  His directness did not dismay her.  “If you are quite sure you don’t care for the fellow, your duty is quite plain.”

Muriel raised her head slowly.  “Yes, but it isn’t quite so simple as that, doctor.  You see, it’s not as if—­as if—­we either of us ever imagined we were—­in love with each other.”

Jim’s eyebrows went up.  “As bad as that?”

She leaned her chin on her hand.  “I am sure there must be crowds of people who marry without ever being in love.”

“Yes,” said Jim curtly.  “And kindle their own hell in doing it.”

She started a little.  “You think that?”

“I know it.  I have seen it over and over again.  Full half of the world’s misery is due to it.  But you won’t do that, Muriel.  I know you too well.”

Muriel glanced up at him.  “Do you know me?  I don’t think you would have expected me to accept him in the first place.”

“Depends what you did it for,” said Jim.