alked to the end of the room, stood for a second, and came slowly
back.

Will was looking at him oddly, almost as if he had never seen him
before.

"Do you know," he said, smiling faintly, "I always thought you were a
rotter."

"Most people do," said Nick. "I believe it's my physiognomy that's
at fault. What can any one expect from a fellow with a face like an
Egyptian mummy? Why, I've been mistaken for the devil himself before
now." He spoke with a semi-whimsical ruefulness, and, having spoken,
he went to the window and stood there with his face to the darkness.

"Hear that jackal, Will?" he suddenly said. "The brute is hungry. You
bet, he won't go empty away."

"Jackals never do," said Will, with his weary sigh.

Nick turned round. "It shows what faithless fools we are," he said.

In the silence that followed, there came again to them, clear through
the stillness, and haunting in its persistence, the crying of the
beast that sought its meat from God.

CHAPTER XXV

A SCENTED LETTER

There is no exhaustion more complete or more compelling than the
exhaustion of grief, and it is the most restless temperaments that
usually suffer from it the most keenly. It is those who have watched
constantly, tirelessly, selflessly, for weeks or even months, for whom
the final breakdown is the most utter and the most heartrending.

To Daisy, lying silent in her darkened room, the sudden ending of the
prolonged strain, the cessation of the anxiety that had become a part
of her very being, was more intolerable than the sense of desolation
itself. It lay upon her like a physical, crushing weight, this absence
of care, numbing all her faculties. She felt that the worst had
happened to her, the ultimate blow had fallen, and she cared for
nought besides.

In those first days of her grief she saw none but Muriel and the
doctor. Jim Ratcliffe was more uneasy about her than he would
admit. He knew as no one else knew what the strain had been upon the
over-sensitive nerves, and how terribly the shock had wrenched them.
He also knew that her heart was still in a very unsatisfactory state,
and for many hours he dreaded collapse.

He was inclined to be uneasy upon Muriel's account as well, at first,
but she took him completely by surprise. Without a question, without a
word, simply as a matter of course, she assumed the position of
nurse and constant companion to her friend. Her resolution and steady
self-control astonished