custom anyway. I have warned my husband fairly that if he
goes into mourning for me, I'll never speak to him hereafter again.
He is coming up to see us next week, and to discuss our fate with the
doctor. Have you ever met Will?"

"Once," said Muriel. "It was at a dance at Poonah early last summer."

"Ah! When I was at Mahableshwar. He is a good dancer, isn't he? He
does most things well, I think."

Daisy smiled tolerantly as she indicated the photograph of a boy
upon the mantelpiece. "He isn't sixteen," she said; "he is nearly
twenty-eight. Now come and see his son and the light of my eyes." She
linked her arm in Muriel's, and, still smiling, led her from the room.

CHAPTER XIV

THE POISON OF ADDERS

The week that followed that first visit of hers was a gradual renewal
of life to Muriel. She had come through the darkest part of her
trouble, and, thick though the shadows might still lie about her, she
had at last begun to see light ahead. She went again and yet again to
see Daisy, and each visit added to her tranquillity of mind. Daisy was
wonderfully brisk for an invalid, and her baby was an endless source
of interest. Even Lady Bassett could not cavil when her charge spoke
of going to nursery tea at Mrs. Musgrave's. She made no attempt to
check the ripening friendship, though Muriel was subtly aware that she
did not approve of it.

She also went every morning for a headlong gallop with Nick who, in
fact, would take no refusal in the matter. He came not at all to the
house except for these early visits, and she had a good many hours
to herself. But her health was steadily improving, and her loneliness
oppressed her less than formerly. She spent long mornings lying in the
hammock under the pines with only an occasional monkey far above her
to keep her company. It was her favourite haunt, and she grew to look
upon it as exclusively her own. There was a tiny rustic summer-house
near it, which no one ever occupied, so far as she knew. Moreover,
the hammock had been decorously slung behind it, so that even though
a visitor might conceivably penetrate as far as the arbour, it was
extremely unlikely that the hammock would come into the range of
discovery.

Even Lady Bassett had never sought her here, her time being generally
quite fully occupied with her countless social engagements. Muriel
often wondered that that garden on the mountainside in which she
revelled seemed to hold so slight an attraction for its