And he, holding her fast against his breast, found no consolation, no word of any sort wherewith to soothe her.  He only rocked her gently, pressing her head to his shoulder, while his face, bent above her, quivered all over as the face of a man in torture.

Muriel spoke at last, breaking her stricken silence with a strangely effortless composure.  “Tell me more,” she said.

She stirred in his arms as if to free herself from some oppression, and finally drew herself away from him, though not as if she wished to escape his touch.  She still seemed to be hardly aware of him.  He was the medium of her information, that was all.  Nick dropped back into his former attitude, his hands clasped firmly round his knees, his eyes, keen as a bird’s and extremely bright, gazing across the ravine.  His lips still quivered a little, but his voice was perfectly even and quiet.

“It happened very soon after the firing began.  It must have been directly after he left you.  He was hit in the breast, just over the heart.  We couldn’t do anything for him.  He knew himself that it was mortal.  In fact, I think he had almost expected it.  We took him into the guardroom and made him as easy as possible.  He lost consciousness before he died.  He was lying unconscious when I came to you.”

Muriel made a sharp movement.  “And you never told me,” she said, in a dry whisper.

“I thought it best,” he answered with great gentleness.  “You could not have gone to him.  He didn’t wish it.”

“Why not?” she demanded, and suddenly her voice rang harsh again.  “Why could I not have gone to him?  Why didn’t he wish it?”

Nick hesitated for a single instant.  Then, “It was for your own sake,” he said, not looking at her.

“You mean he suffered?”

“While he remained conscious—­yes.”  Nick spoke reluctantly.  “It didn’t last long,” he said.

She scarcely seemed to hear him.  “And so you tricked me,” she said; “you tricked me while my father was lying dying.  I was not to see him—­either then or after—­for my own sake!  And do you think”—­her voice rising—­“do you think that you were in any way justified in treating me so?  Do you think it was merciful to blind me and to take from me all I should ever have of comfort to look back upon?  Do you think I couldn’t have borne it all ten thousand times easier if I could have seen and known the very worst?  It was my right—­it was my right!  How dared you take it from me?  I will never forgive you—­never!”

She was on her feet as the passionate protest burst from her, but she swayed as she stood and flung out her arms with a groping gesture.

“I could have borne it,” she cried again wildly, piteously.  “I could have borne anything—­anything—­if I had only known!”

She broke into a sudden, terrible sobbing, and threw herself down headlong upon the earth, clutching at the moss with shaking, convulsive fingers, and crying between her sobs for “Daddy!  Daddy!” as though her agony could pierce the dividing barrier and bring him back to her.  Nick made no further attempt to help her.  He sat gazing stonily out before him in a sphinx-like stillness that never varied while the storm of her anguish spent itself at his side.