She turned from him and stared out of the window. They were alone in the room, and he put his hand upon her shoulder, as she nodded her head in silence.
Suddenly he observed that her eyes were full of tears, and at this his heart seemed for a moment to stop beating.
“Muriel,” he whispered, but his voice failed him.
She looked round at him, and smiled; and that which was destined to happen happened all in a moment. His arms enfolded her, and, bending down, he kissed her with the passion of revelation—fervently, exultantly, joyously.
[CHAPTER XVIII—MAN AND WOMAN]
On the following morning Daniel received a message from Lord Blair asking him to come into the study, and he presumed that the question of his relationship to Muriel was to be discussed, for in his present state of upheaval he could hardly imagine that there was anything else in the world to talk about. He was deeply troubled in his mind, for he felt that this fever of love which had kept him awake half the night, and which hourly was growing more intense, was a menace to his happiness and to hers. A thousand times he had told himself that their two lives were incompatible, and yet their unity was now to him the vital object of his existence. Nothing else seemed to matter.
Lord Blair received him with a whimsical smile, and waved him to a chair as though formally introducing him to it. “Sit down, my dear Daniel,” he said. “I want to know if you can throw any light upon this extraordinary letter which was delivered here this morning, by hand.”
He held up a large pink envelope inscribed in green ink, and handed it across the table; and, while Daniel examined it, he sat watching him benevolently, the tips of his thin fingers pressed together.
The document was written in English, and the wandering handwriting was not unlike that of a child. The address upon the envelope was arresting in its simplicity. “His Excel. The Lord’s Deputy,” it read.
“Frank Lestrange opened it,” said Lord Blair; “for he presumed that the ‘Lord’ referred to was myself and not the Almighty, and that the ‘Deputy’ indicated a secretary. But the letter itself was an enigma to him, and the enclosure a mystery.”