"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."
Dr. Jim got up quietly to lock the door. The grimness had passed from his face.