is sole reason for trusting you
to me. I had his full approval."

He paused, for her fingers had closed suddenly within his own. She
was looking at him no longer. Her memory had flashed back to that last
terrible night of her father's life. Again she heard him telling her
of the one man to whom he had entrusted her, who would make it his
sole business to save her, who would protect her life with his own,
heard his speculative question as to whether she knew whom he meant,
recalled her own quick reply, and his answer--and his answer.

With a sudden sense of suffocation, she freed her hand and rose. Once
more her old aversion to this man swept over her in a nauseating wave.
Once more there rose before her eyes the dread vision which for many,
many nights had haunted her persistently, depriving her of all
rest, all peace of mind--the vision of a man in his death-struggle,
fighting, agonising, under those merciless fingers.

It was more than she could bear. She covered her eyes, striving to
shut out the sight that tortured her weary brain. "Oh, I don't know if
I can!" she almost wailed. "I don't know if I can!"

Nick did not move. And yet it seemed to her in those moments of
reawakened horror as if by some magnetic force he still held her fast.
She strove against it with all her frenzied strength, but it eluded
her, baffled her--conquered her.

When he spoke at length, she turned and listened, lacking the
motive-power to resist.

"There is nothing to frighten you anyhow," he said, and the tone in
which he said it was infinitely comforting, infinitely reassuring. "I
only want to take care of you; for you're a lonely little soul, not
old enough, or wise enough to look after yourself. And I'll be awfully
good to you, Muriel, if you'll have me."

Something in those last words--a hint of pleading, of coaxing
even--found its way to her heart, as it were, against her will.
Moreover, what he said was true. She was lonely: miserably,
unspeakably lonely. All her world was in ashes around her, and there
were times when its desolation positively appalled her.

But still she stood irresolute. Could she, dared she, take this step?
What if that phantom of horror pursued her relentlessly to the day of
her death? Would she not come in time to shrink with positive loathing
from this man whose offer of help she now felt so strangely tempted in
her utter friendlessness to accept?

It was impossible to answer these tormenting questio