The former had written briefly but very kindly to Grange, signifying his consent to his engagement to his ward, and congratulating him upon having won her.  To Muriel he sent a fatherly message, telling her of his pleasure at hearing of her happiness, and adding that he hoped she would return to them in the following autumn to enable him to give her away.

Grange put his arm round his young fiancee as he read this passage aloud, but she only stood motionless within it, not yielding to his touch.  It even seemed to him that she stiffened slightly.  He looked at her questioningly and saw that she was very pale.

“What is it?” he asked gently.  “Will that be too soon for you?”

She met his eyes frankly, but with unmistakable distress.  “I—­I didn’t think it would be quite so soon, Blake,” she faltered.  “I don’t want to be married at present.  Can’t we go on as we are for a little?  Shall you mind?”

Blake’s face wore a puzzled look, but it was wholly free from resentment.  He answered her immediately and reassuringly.

“Of course not, dear.  It shall be just when you like.  Why should you be hurried?”

She gave him a smile of relief and gratitude, and he stooped and kissed her forehead with a soothing tenderness that he might have bestowed upon a child.

It was with some reluctance that she opened Lady Bassett’s letter in his presence, but she felt that she owed him this small mark of confidence.

There was a strong aroma of attar of roses as she drew it from the envelope, and she glanced at Grange with an expression of disgust.

“What is the matter?” he asked.  “Nothing wrong, I hope?”

“It’s only the scent,” she explained, concealing a faint sense of irritation.

He smiled.  “Don’t you like it?  I thought all women did.”

“My dear Blake!” she said, and shuddered.

The next minute she threw a sharp look over her shoulder, suddenly assailed by an uncanny feeling that Nick was standing grimacing at her elbow.  She saw his features so clearly for the moment with his own peculiarly hideous grimace upon them that she scarcely persuaded herself that her fancy had tricked her.  But there was nothing but the twilight of the garden all around her, and Blake’s huge bulk by her side, and she promptly dismissed the illusion, not without a sense of shame.

With a gesture of impatience she unfolded Lady Bassett’s letter.  It commenced “Dearest Muriel,” and proceeded at once in terms of flowing elegance to felicitate her upon her engagement to Blake Grange.

“In according our consent,” wrote Lady Bassett, “Sir Reginald and I have not the smallest scruple or hesitation.  Only, dearest, for Blake Grange’s sake as well as for your own, make quite sure this time that your mind is fully made up, and your choice final.”

When Muriel read this passage a deep note of resentment crept into her voice, and she lifted a flushed face.