His answer when it came was slow and soft and womanly, but, in her ears at least, there was nothing wanting in it. She never dreamed that he was reviling himself for a blackguard even as he uttered it.
"My dear little girl, there is nothing whatever for you to be afraid of. You're a bit overstrung, aren't you? The man isn't living who could take you from me."
He patted her shoulder very kindly, soothing her with a patient, almost fatherly tenderness, and gradually her panic of fear passed. She leaned against him with a comforting sense of security.
"I can't think how it is I'm so foolish," she told him. "You are good to me, Blake. I feel so safe when I am with you."
His heart smote him, yet he bent and kissed her. "You're not quite strong yet, dear," he said. "It takes a long time to get over all that you had to bear last year."
"Yes," she agreed with a sigh. "And do you know I thought I was so much stronger than I am? I actually thought that I shouldn't mind—much—when he came. And yet I did mind—horribly. I—I—told him about our engagement, Blake."
"Yes, dear," said Blake.
"Yes, I told him. And he laughed and offered his congratulations. I don't think he cared," said Muriel, again with that curious, inexplicable sensation of pain at her heart.
"Why should he?" said Blake.
She looked at him with momentary irresolution. "You know, Blake, I never told you. But I was—I was—engaged to him for about a fortnight that dreadful time at Simla."