In spite of Olga’s ecstatic welcome, Muriel took her place on the hockey-field that afternoon with a heavy heart.  Her long attendance upon Daisy had depressed her.  But gradually, as the play proceeded, she began to forget herself and her troubles.  The spring air exhilarated her, and when they returned to the field after a sharp shower her spirits had risen.  She became even childishly gay in the course of a hotly-contested battle, and the sadness gradually died out of her eyes.  She had grown less shy, less restrained, than of old.  Youth and health, and a dawning, unconscious beauty had sprung to life upon her face.  She was no longer the frightened, bereft child of Simla days.  She no longer hid a monstrous fear in her heart.  She had put it all away from her wisely, resolutely, as a tale that is told.

The wild wind had blown the hair all loose about her face by the time the last goal was won.  Hatless, flushed, and laughing, she drew back from the fray, Olga, elated by victory, clinging to her arm.  It was a moment of keen triumph, for the fight had been hard, and she enjoyed it to the full as she stood there with her face to the sudden, scudding rain.  The glow of exercise had braced every muscle.  Every pulse was beating with warm, vigorous life.

She laughed aloud in sheer exultation, a low, merry laugh, and turned with Olga to march in triumphant procession from the field.

In that instant from a gate a few yards away that led into the road there sounded the short, imperious note of a motor-horn, repeated many times in a succession of sharp blasts.  Every one stood to view the intruder with startled curiosity for perhaps five seconds.  Then there came a sudden squeal of rapture from Olga, and in a moment she had torn her arm free and was gone, darting like a swallow over the turf.

Muriel stood looking after her, but she was as one turned to stone.  She was no longer aware of the children grouped around her.  She no longer saw the fleeting sunshine, or felt the drift of rain in her face.  Something immense and suffocating had closed about her heart.  Her racing pulses had ceased to beat.

A figure familiar to her—­a man’s figure, unimposing in height, unremarkable in build, but straight, straight as his own sword-blade—­had bounded from the car and scaled the intervening gate with monkey-like agility.

He met the child’s wild rush with one arm extended; the other—­Muriel frowned sharply, peering with eyes half closed, then uttered a queer choked sound that had the semblance of a laugh—­in place of the other arm there was an empty sleeve.

Through the rush of the wind she heard his voice.

“Hullo, kiddie, hullo!  Hope I don’t intrude.  I’ve come over on purpose to pay my respects.”

Olga’s answer did not reach her.  She was hanging round her hero’s neck, and her head was down upon Nick’s shoulder.  It seemed to Muriel that she was crying, but if so, she received scant sympathy from the object of her solicitude.  His cracked, gay laugh rang out across the field.