r seen the devil leap
out in naked fury upon her hero's face.

They waited to let the car go first, Olga proudly grasping the wheel;
then, trotting briskly, followed in its wake.

Muriel had an uneasy feeling that Blake wanted to apologise, and she
determined that he should not have the opportunity. Each time that
he gave any sign of wishing to draw nearer to her, she touched her
horse's flank. Something in the nature of a revelation had come to
her during that brief halt by the roadside. For the first time she
had caught a glimpse, plain and unvarnished, of the actual man that
inhabited the giant's frame, and it had given her an odd, disturbing
suspicion that the strength upon which she leaned was in simple fact
scarcely equal to her own.

The way to Redlands lay through leafy woodlands through which here
and there the summer sea gleamed blue. Turning in at the open gates,
Muriel uttered an exclamation of delight. She seemed to have suddenly
entered fairyland. The house, long, low, rambling, roofed with thatch,
stood at the end of a winding drive that was bordered on both sides
by a blaze of rhododendron flowers. Down below her on the left was a
miniature glen from which arose the tinkle of running water. On her
right the trees grew thickly, completely shutting out the road.

"Oh, Blake!" she exclaimed. "What a perfect paradise!"

"Like it?" said Nick; and with a start she saw him coolly step out
from a shadowy path behind them and close the great iron gate.

Impulsively she pulled up and slipped to the ground. "Take my horse,
Blake," she said. "I must run down to that stream."

He obeyed her, not very willingly, and Nick with a chuckle turned and
plunged after her down the narrow path. "Go straight ahead!" he called
back. "Olga is waiting for you at the house."

He came up with Muriel on the edge of the fairy stream. Her face was
flushed and her eyes nervous, but she met him bravely. She had known
in her heart that he would follow. As he stopped beside her, she
turned with a little desperate laugh and held out her hand.

"Is it peace?" she said rather breathlessly.

She felt his fingers, tense as wire, close about her own. "Seems like
it," he said. "What are you afraid of? Me?"

She could not meet his look. But the necessity for some species of
understanding pressed upon her. She wanted unspeakably to conciliate
him.

"I want to be friends with you, Nick," she said, "if you will let me."

"What for?" s