if Blake fails to appreciate this masterpiece of mine, I shall
feel inclined to turn him out-of-doors, and leave him to spend the
night on the step."

Muriel, curled up in the old-fashioned window-seat, looked round with
her low laugh. "It's snowing hard," she remarked.

Daisy did not heed her. "Come and look at it," she said.

The masterpiece in question consisted of an enormous red scroll
bearing in white letters the words: "Welcome to the Brave."

"It never before occurred to me that Blake was brave," observed Daisy.
"He is so shy and soft and retiring. I can't somehow feel as if I am
going to entertain a lion. He ought to be here by this time. Let's go
and hang my work of art in the hall."

She slipped her hand through Muriel's arm, and glanced at her sharply
when she felt it tremble.

"It will be good to see him again, won't it?" she said.

"Yes," Muriel agreed, but there was a little tremor in her voice as
well.

Very vividly were the circumstances under which she had last seen this
man in her mind that night. Eight months that were like as many years
stretched between that tragic time and the present, but the old wild
horror had still the power to make her blood turn cold, the old wound
had not lost its ache. These things had made a woman of her before
her time, but yet she was not as other women. It seemed that she was
destined all her life to live apart, and only to look on at the joys
of others. They did not attract her, and she had no heart for gaiety.
Yet she was not cold, or Daisy had not found in her so congenial a
companion. But even Daisy seldom penetrated behind the deep reserve
that had grown over the girl's sad young heart. They were close
friends, but their friendship lay mainly in what they left unsaid.
For all her quick warmth, Daisy too had her inner shrine--a place so
secret that she herself never entered it save as it were by stealth.

But something of Muriel's mood she understood on that bitter night
in January on which they awaited the coming of Blake Grange, and her
close hand-pressure conveyed as much as they passed out together into
the little hall that glowed so snugly in the firelight.

"He is sure to be frozen, poor boy," she said. "I hope Jim Ratcliffe
won't forget to send the motor to the station as he promised."

"I am quite sure he never forgets anything," Muriel declared, with
reassuring confidence.

Daisy laughed lightly. "Yes, he's very dependable, deliciously solid