a pleasant topic to Olga, and she always
sought to avoid any allusion to it. After the fashion of children, she
lived in the present, and enjoyed it to the full: bathing with
Muriel every morning, and spending the remainder of the day in Nick's
society. The friendship between these two was based upon complete
understanding. They had been comrades as long as Olga could remember.
Given Nick, it was very seldom that she desired any one besides.

Muriel had ceased to marvel over this strange fact. She had come to
realise that Nick was, and always must be, an enigma to her. In
the middle of July, when the heat was so intense as to be almost
intolerable, Daisy received a pressing invitation to visit an old
friend, and to go yachting on the Broads. She refused it at first
point-blank; but Muriel, hearing of the matter before the letter was
sent, interfered, and practically insisted upon a change of decision.

"It is the very thing for you," she declared. "Brethaven has done
its best for you. But you want a dose of more bracing air to make you
quite strong again. It's absurd of you to dream of throwing away such
an opportunity. I simply won't let you do it."

"But how can I possibly leave you all alone?" Daisy protested. "If the
Ratcliffes were at home, I might think of it, but--"

"That settles it," Muriel announced with determination. "I never heard
such nonsense in my life. What do you think could possibly happen
to me here? You know perfectly well that a couple of weeks of my own
society would do me no harm whatever."

So insistent was she, that finally she gained her point, and Daisy,
albeit somewhat reluctantly, departed for Norfolk, leaving her to her
own devices.

The heat was so great in those first days of solitude that Muriel was
not particularly energetic. Apart from her early swim with Olga, and
an undeniably languid stroll in the evening, she scarcely left the
precincts of the cottage: No visitors came to her. There were none but
fisher-folk in the little village. And so her sole company consisted
of Daisy's _ayah_ and the elderly English cook.

But she did not suffer from loneliness. She had books and work in
plenty, and it was even something of a relief, though she never owned
it, to be apart from Daisy for a little. They never disagreed, but
always at the back of her mind there lay the consciousness of a gulf
between them.

She was at first somewhat anxious lest Nick should feel called upon
to enterta