There was more than persuasion in his voice.  It held authority.  But Muriel heard it without awe.  She had passed that stage.  The matter was too momentous to allow of weakness.  She had strung herself to the highest pitch of resistance as a hunted creature at bay.  She threw back her head, a look of obstinacy about her lips, her slight figure straightened to the rigidity of defiance.

“I will not be forced,” she said, in sharp, uneven tones.  “Mr. Ratcliffe, you may go on persuading and arguing till doomsday.  I will not leave my father.”

Ratcliffe stood up abruptly.  A curious glitter shone in his eyes, and the light eyebrows twitched a little.  She felt that he had suddenly ceased to do battle with her, yet that the victory was not hers.  And for a second she was horribly frightened, as though an iron trap had closed upon her and held her at his mercy.

He walked to the door without speaking and opened it.  She expected him to go, sat waiting breathlessly for his departure, but instead he stood motionless, looking into the dark passage.

She wondered with nerves on edge what he was waiting for.  Suddenly she heard a step without, a few murmured words, and Nick stood on one side.  Her father’s Sikh orderly passed him, carrying a tray on which was a glass full of some dark liquid.  He set it down on the table before her with a deep salaam.

“The General Sahib wishes Missy Sahib to have a good night,” he said.  “He cannot come to her himself, but he sends her this by his servant, and he bids her drink it and sleep.”

Muriel looked up at the man in surprise.  Her father had never done such a thing before, and the message astonished her not a little.  Then, remembering that he had shown some anxiety regarding her appearance that evening, she fancied she began to understand.  Yet it was strange, it was utterly unlike him, to desire her to take an opiate.  She looked at the glass with hesitation.

“Give him my love, Purdu,” she said finally to the waiting orderly.  “Tell him I will take it if I cannot sleep without.”

The man bowed himself again and withdrew.  To her disgust, however, Nick remained.  He was looking at her oddly.

“Miss Roscoe,” he said abruptly, “I beg you, don’t drink that stuff.  Your father must be mad to offer it to you.  Let me take the beastliness away.”

She faced him indignantly.  “My father knows what is good for me better than you do,” she said.

He shrugged his shoulders.  “I don’t profess to be a sage.  But any one will tell you that it is madness to take opium in this reckless fashion.  For Heaven’s sake, be reasonable.  Don’t take it.”

He came back to the table, but at his approach she laid her hand upon the glass.  She was quivering with angry excitement.

“I will not endure your interference any longer,” she declared, goaded to headlong, nervous fury by his persistence.  “My father’s wishes are enough for me.  He desires me to take it, and so I will.”