aused.

"I don't want to go," she said. "Do you think I ought? She is Lady
Bassett's sister."

"I think it would probably do you good, if that's what you mean," he
returned. "But I don't suppose that consideration has much weight with
you. Why don't you want to go?"

"I don't like strangers, and I hate Lady Bassett," Muriel answered,
with absolute simplicity. "Then there is Daisy. I don't know what her
plans are. I always thought we should go East together."

"There's no sense in waiting for Daisy's plans to develop," declared
Jim. "She is as changeable as the wind. Possibly Nick will be able to
make up her mind for her. I fancy he means to try."

"Nick! You don't mean he will travel with Daisy?" There was almost a
tragic note in Muriel's voice. She looked up quickly into the shrewd
eyes that watched her.

"Why shouldn't he?" said Jim.

"I don't know. I never thought of it." Muriel leaned back again, a
faint frown of perplexity between her eyes. "Perhaps," she said slowly
at length, "I had better go to Mrs. Langdale."

"I should in your place," said Jim. "That handsome soldier of yours
won't want to be kept waiting, eh?"

"Oh, he wouldn't mind." The weariness was apparent again in her voice,
and with it a tinge of bitterness. "He never minds anything," she
said.

Jim grunted disapproval. "And you? Are you equally indifferent?"

Her pale face flushed vividly. She was silent a moment; then suddenly
she sat up and met his look fully.

"You'll think me contemptible, I know," she said, a great quiver in
her voice. "I can't help it; you must. Dr. Jim, I'll tell you the
truth. I--I don't want to go to India. I don't want to be married--at
all."

She ended with a swift rush of irrepressible tears. It was out at
last, this trouble of hers that had been gradually growing behind the
barrier of her reserve, and it seemed to burst over her in the telling
in a great wave of adversity.

"I've done nothing but make mistakes," she sobbed "ever since Daddy
died."

Dr. Jim got up quietly to lock the door. The grimness had passed from
his face.

"My dear," he said gruffly, "we all of us make mistakes directly we
begin to run alone."

He returned and sat down again close to her, waiting for her to
recover herself. She slipped out a trembling hand to him, and he took
it very kindly; but he said no more until she spoke.

"It's very difficult to know what to do."

"Is it? I should have said you were past that stage."