And then came the consciousness of his arm about her, supporting her; and the voice that had quieted her wildest delirium was speaking in her ear.

“The goblins are all gone, dear,” she heard him say.  “Don’t be frightened.”

He led her gently to a sofa and made her sit down, bending over her and softly rubbing her cold cheek.

“Tell me when you’re better,” he said, “and we’ll talk this thing out.  But don’t be frightened anyway.  It’s all right.”

The tenderness of voice and touch, the sudden cessation of all tension, the swift putting to flight of her fear, all combined to produce in her a sense of relief so immense that the last shred of her self-control went from her utterly.  She laid her head down upon the cushions and burst into a storm of tears.

Nick’s hand continued to stroke and soothe, but he said no more while her paroxysm of weeping lasted.  He who was usually so ready of speech, so quick to console, found for once no words wherewith to comfort her.

Only when her distress had somewhat spent itself, he bent a little lower and dried her tears with his own handkerchief, his lips twitching as he did it, his eyes flickering so rapidly that it was impossible to read their expression.

“There!” he said at last.  “There’s nothing to cry about.  Finish what you were saying when I interrupted you.  I think you were in the middle of throwing me over, weren’t you?  At least, you had got through that part of it, and were just going to tell me why.”

His tone was reassuringly flippant.

Looking up at him, she saw the old kindly, quizzical look on his face.  He met her eyes, nodding shrewdly.

“Let’s have it,” he said, “straight from the shoulder.  You’re tired of me, eh?”

She drew back from him, but with no gesture of shrinking.  “I’m tired of everything—­everything,” she said, a little passionate quiver in her voice.  “I wish—­I wish with all my heart, you had left me to die.”

“Is that the grievance?” said Nick.  He sat down on the head of the sofa, and drove his fist into the cushion.  “If I could explain things to you, I would.  But you’re such a chicken, aren’t you, dear, and about as easily scared?  Since when have you harboured this grudge against me?”

The gentle banter of his tone did not deceive her into imagining that she could trifle with him, nor was she addicted to trifling.  She made answer with a certain warmth of indignation that seemed to have kindled on its own initiative and wholly without her volition.

“I haven’t, I don’t.  I’m not so absurd.  It isn’t that at all.”

“You’re not tired of me?” queried Nick.

“No.”

“If I were to die to-morrow for instance—­and there’s no telling, you know, Muriel,—­you’d be a little sorry?”

Again, though scarcely aware of it, she resented the question.  “Why do you ask me that?  Of course I should be sorry.”