would not desert you if I did not
positively know that you were safe--that the thing you feared
has ceased to exist.

"Muriel, I have broken my oath, and I can hardly ask your
forgiveness. I only beg you to believe that it was not by my
own choice. I was fiendishly driven to it against my will.
I came to this place to say good-bye, but I shall leave
to-morrow without seeing you unless you should wish otherwise.

"B. Grange."

She reached the end of the letter and sat quite still, staring at the
open page.

She was free, that was her first thought, free by no effort of her
own. The explanation she had dreaded had become unnecessary. She would
not even have to face the ordeal of a meeting. She drew a long breath
of relief.

And then swift as a poisoned arrow came another thought,--a stabbing,
intolerable suspicion. Why had he thus set her free? How had his hand
been forced? By what means had he been fiendishly driven?

She read the letter through again, and suddenly her heart began to
throb thick and hard, so that she gasped for breath. This was Nick's
doing. She was as sure of it as if those brief, bitter sentences had
definitely told her so. Nick was the motive power that had compelled
Grange to this action. How he had done it, she could not even vaguely
surmise. But that he had in some malevolent fashion come between them
she did not for an instant doubt.

And wherefore? She put her hand to her throat, feeling suffocated,
as the memory of that last interview with him on the shore raced
with every fiery detail through her brain. He had marked her down for
himself, long, long ago, and whatever Dr. Jim might say, he had never
abandoned the pursuit. He meant to capture her at last. She might
flee, but he was following, tireless, fleet, determined. Presently he
would swoop like an eagle upon his prey, and she would be utterly at
his mercy. He had beaten Grange, and there was no one left to help
her.

"Oh, Muriel,"--it was Olga's voice from the window--"come here, quick,
quick! I can see a hawk."

She started as one starts from a horrible dream, and looked round with
dazed eyes.

"It's hovering!" cried Olga excitedly. "It's hovering! There! Now it
has struck!"

"And something is dead," said Muriel, in a voiceless whisper.

The child turned round, saw something unusual in her friend's face,
and went impetuously to her.

"Muriel, darling, you look so strange. Is anything the m