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.
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