Of Nick she rigidly refused to think at all, though it was no easy matter to exclude him from her thoughts, for he always seemed to be clamouring for admittance.  But she could not help wondering if, when Blake had gone at last and she was free, she would be very greatly afraid.

She was sitting alone in her room that afternoon, watching the scudding rain-clouds, when Olga brought her two letters.

“Both from Brethaven,” she said, “but neither from Nick.  I wonder if he is at Redlands.  I hope he will come over here if he is.”

Muriel did not echo the hope.  She knew the handwriting upon both the envelopes, and she opened Daisy’s first.  It did not take long to read.  It simply contained a brief explanation of her presence at Brethaven, which was due to an engagement having fallen through, mentioned Blake as being on the point of departure, and wound up with the hope that Muriel would not in any way alter her plans for her benefit as she was only at the cottage for a few days to pack her possessions and she did not suppose that she would care to be with her while this was going on.

There was no reference to any future meeting, and Muriel gravely put the letter away in thoughtful silence.  She had no clue whatever to the slackening of their friendship, but she could not fail to note with pain how far asunder they had drifted.

She turned to Grange’s letter with a faint wonder as to why he should have troubled himself to write when he was so short a distance from her.

It contained but a few sentences; she read them with widening eyes.

“Fate or the devil has been too strong for me, and I am compelled to break my word to you.  I have no excuse to offer, except that my hand has been forced.  Perhaps in the end it will be better for you, but I would have stood by had it been possible.  And even now I would not desert you if I did not positively know that you were safe—­that the thing you feared has ceased to exist.

“Muriel, I have broken my oath, and I can hardly ask your forgiveness.  I only beg you to believe that it was not by my own choice.  I was fiendishly driven to it against my will.  I came to this place to say good-bye, but I shall leave to-morrow without seeing you unless you should wish otherwise.

    “B.  Grange.”

She reached the end of the letter and sat quite still, staring at the open page.

She was free, that was her first thought, free by no effort of her own.  The explanation she had dreaded had become unnecessary.  She would not even have to face the ordeal of a meeting.  She drew a long breath of relief.

And then swift as a poisoned arrow came another thought,—­a stabbing, intolerable suspicion.  Why had he thus set her free?  How had his hand been forced?  By what means had he been fiendishly driven?

She read the letter through again, and suddenly her heart began to throb thick and hard, so that she gasped for breath.  This was Nick’s doing.  She was as sure of it as if those brief, bitter sentences had definitely told her so.  Nick was the motive power that had compelled Grange to this action.  How he had done it, she could not even vaguely surmise.  But that he had in some malevolent fashion come between them she did not for an instant doubt.