en him the V.C., don't you? Captain Grange, why
hasn't he got the V.C.?"

Grange couldn't say, really. He advised her to ask the man himself.
He was observing Muriel with some uneasiness, and when she at length
abruptly waved her whip and rode sharply on as though her horse
were beyond her control, he struck spurs into his own and started in
pursuit.

Muriel passed her own gate at a canter, but hearing Grange behind her
she soon reined in, and they trotted some distance side by side in
silence.

But Grange was still uneasy. The girl's rigid profile had that stony,
aloof look that he had noted upon his arrival weeks before, and that
he had come to associate with her escape from Wara.

Nevertheless, when she presently addressed him it was in her ordinary
tone and upon a subject indifferent to them both. She had received a
shock, he knew, but she plainly did not wish him to remark it.

They rode quite soberly back again, and separated at the door.

CHAPTER XXI

A HARBOUR OF REFUGE

To Daisy the news that Grange imparted was more pleasing than
startling. "I knew he would come before long if he were a wise man,"
she said.

But when her cousin wanted to know what she meant, she would not tell
him.

"No, I can't, Blake," was her answer. "I once promised Muriel never to
speak of it. She is very sensitive on the subject."

Grange did not press for an explanation. It was not his way. He left
her moodily, a frown of deep dissatisfaction upon his handsome face.
Daisy did not spend much thought upon him. Her interests at that
time were almost wholly centred upon her boy who was so backward and
delicate that she was continually anxious about him. She was, in fact,
so preoccupied that she hardly noticed at dinner that Muriel scarcely
spoke and ate next to nothing.

Grange remarked both facts, and his moodiness increased. When
Daisy went up to the nursery, he at once followed Muriel into the
drawing-room. She was standing by the window when he entered, a slim,
straight figure in unrelieved black; but though she must have heard
him, she neither spoke nor turned her head.

Grange closed the door and came softly forward. There was an unwonted
air of resolution about him that made him look almost grim. He reached
her side and stood there silently. The wind had fallen, and the sky
was starry.

After a brief silence Muriel dropped the blind and looked at him.
There was something of interrogation in her glance.