Both listened intently.  Footsteps were approaching the door.  Daisy sprang to open it.

But it was only the evening post, and she came back holding a letter with a very unwonted expression of disappointment.

“From Will,” she said.  “I forgot it was mail night.  I don’t suppose there is anything very exciting in it.”

She pushed the flimsy envelope into the front of her dress and fell again to listening.

“Can he have missed the train?  Surely it’s getting very late.  A fog on the line perhaps.  No!  What’s that?  Ah!  It really is this time.  That’s the horn, and, yes, Jim Ratcliffe’s voice.”

In a moment she had the door open again, and was out upon the step crying welcome to her guest.

Muriel crouched a little lower over the fire.  Her hands were fast gripped together.  It was more of an ordeal than she had thought it possibly could be.

An icy blast blew in through the open door, and she heard Dr. Ratcliffe’s voice, sharp and curt, ordering Daisy back into the house.  Then came another voice, slow and soft as a woman’s, and for an instant Muriel covered her face, overwhelmed by bitter memory.

When she looked up they were entering the hall together, Daisy, radiant, eager, full of breathless questioning; Blake, upright, soldierly, magnificent, wearing the shy, pleased smile that she so well remembered.

He did not at once see her, and she stood hesitating, till Daisy, who was clinging to her cousin’s arm, turned swiftly round and called her.

“Muriel, dear, where are you?  Why are you hiding yourself?  See, Blake!  Here is Muriel Roscoe!  You knew we were living together?”

He saw her then, and came across to her, with both hands outstretched.

“Forgive me, Miss Roscoe,” he said, with his pleasant smile.  “You know how glad I am to meet you again.”

He looked down at her with eyes full of frank and friendly sympathy, and the grasp of his hands was such that she felt it for long after.  It warmed her through and through, but she could not speak just then, and with ready understanding he turned back to Daisy.

“Dr. Ratcliffe told me you had sent him to fetch me from the station,” he said.  “I am immensely grateful to you and to him.”

Daisy was greeting the doctor with much animation and a hint of mischief.

“I knew you would come,” she laughed.  “You never trust me to take care of myself, do you?”

He brushed some flakes of snow from her dress.  “Events prove me to be justified,” he remarked dryly.  “Since Will has put you in my care, I labour under a twofold responsibility.  What possessed you to go out in that murderous north-easter?”