He laughed. "You won't let me be anything else, I a.s.sure you I would be amiability itself if you would permit. Well now, which is it to be? You say you don't want to marry anyone. That, we have seen, is only a figure of speech. But since the red-haired doctor is not wanting you and I am--"

"You are wrong!" she broke in, with sudden heat.

Some hidden fire within her had kindled into flame at his words; it burned with a fierce strength. For the first time she challenged him without any sense of fear.

He looked at her in unfeigned astonishment. "I beg your pardon?"

"You are wrong!" she said again, and it was as if some inner force inspired the words. She spoke without conscious volition of her own.

"Max Wyndham has asked me to marry him--and marry him I will!"

She never knew with what triumphant finality she spoke, but the effect of her words was instant and terrible. Even as they left her lips, she saw the dark blood rise in a wave to his forehead, swelling the veins there to purple cords. His eyes became suddenly bloodshot and glittered devilishly. His hands clenched, and she almost thought he was going to strike her.

With a desperate effort she faced him without a tremor, instinctively aware that courage alone could save her.

For fully thirty seconds he said no word, and as they slipped away she saw the dreadful wave of pa.s.sion gradually recede. But even then he continued to glare at her till with a quiet movement she took her hand from his arm and turned away.

Then, as she stood at the deck-rail, at last he spoke. "So that is your last word upon the subject?"

She answered him briefly, "Yes."

She kept her face turned seawards. She was suddenly and overwhelmingly conscious of bodily weakness. All her strength seemed to have gone into that one great effort, that at the moment had seemed no effort at all.

She felt as if she were going to faint, and gripped herself with all her quivering resolution, praying wildly that he might not notice.

He did not notice. For a few seconds more he stood behind her, while she waited, palpitating, for his next move. Then, very suddenly he turned and left her.

And Olga, instantly relaxing from a tension too terrible to be born, covered her face with her hands and shuddered over and over again in sick disgust.

It was many minutes before she recovered, minutes during which her mind seemed to be almost too stunned for thought. Very gradually at length she began to remember the words she had last uttered, the weapon she had used; and numbly she wondered at herself.

No, she had scarcely acted on her own initiative. Her action had been prompted by some force of which till that moment she had had no knowledge, a force great enough to lift her above her own natural impulses, great enough to help her in her sore strait, and to make all other things seem of small importance.

What would Max have said to that emphatic declaration of hers? But surely it was Max, and none other, who had inspired it.

Surely--surely--ah, what was this that was happening to her? What magic was at work? She suddenly lifted her face to the dazzling summer sky. A brief giddiness possessed her--and pa.s.sed. She was as one over whom a mighty wave had dashed. She came up from it, breathless, trembling, yet with a throbbing ecstasy at her heart such as she had never known before. For the impossible had happened to her. She realized it now.

She--Olga Ratcliffe, the ordinary, the colourless, the prosaic--was caught in the grip of the Unknown Power, that Immortal Wonder which for lack of a better name men call Romance. And she knew it, she exulted in it, she stretched out her woman's hands to grasp it, as a babe will seek to grasp the sunshine, possessing and possessed.

In that moment she acknowledged that the bitter struggle through which she had just come had been indeed worth while. It had exhausted her, terrified her; but it had shown her her heart in such a fashion as to leave no room for doubt or misunderstanding. Even yet she quivered with the rapture of the revelation. It thrilled her through and through. For she knew that Max Wyndham reigned there in complete and undisputed possession. No other man had entered before him, or would ever enter after....

Slowly, reluctantly, she came back from her Elysium. She descended to earth and faced again the difficulties of the way.

She opened her eyes upon the yacht still running seawards, and decided that they must turn. She wondered if Hunt-Goring had regained his self-control, if he were ashamed of himself, if possibly he might bring himself to apologize, and what she should say to him if he did. Her heart felt very full. She knew she could not be very severe with him if he were really repentant.

Then she remembered Violet,--her friend....

CHAPTER XX

THE SEARCH

For the third time Nick looked at his watch. It was nearly one. He jumped to his feet with a grimace.

"What on earth are those girls up to?"

Rapidly he locked drawer after drawer of his writing-table, gathered up a sheaf of papers, and turned to go.

The library at Redlands overlooked a wide lawn that led through shrubberies to the edge of the cliff, up the face of which had been cut a winding path. He paused a moment considering this. Would they return from the sh.o.r.e by that way? If so, he would miss them if he went in search of them by the drive.

Impatiently he turned back towards the window, and in that moment he caught sight of a flying figure crossing the lawn,--Olga, with a white, strained face, hatless, dishevelled, gasping.

Nick's one arm fought with the heavy window and flung it up. In another second he had leaped out to meet her. She ran to him, stumbled ere she reached him, fell against him, helpless, sobbing, exhausted.

He held her up. "What is it? Violet? Is she drowned?" he questioned rapidly.

"No--no!" She gasped the words as she lay against his shoulder.

"All right then! Take your time! Come and sit down!" said Nick.

He supported her to the low window-sill, and she sank down upon it, still clinging to him with agonized gasping, voiceless and utterly spent.

He stood beside her, strongly grasping her hand. "Keep quite quiet!" he said. "It's the quickest in the end."

She obeyed him, as was her custom, leaning her head against him till gradually her breath came back to her and speech became possible.

"Oh, Nick!" she whispered then. "That any man--could be--so vile!"

"What man?" said Nick sharply.

"Major Hunt-Goring."

He stooped swiftly and looked into her face. "What has he been doing?"

"I'll tell you!" she said. "I'll tell you!"

And then, arrested possibly by something in that flashing regard, she raised herself and looked straight up at him.

"I can only tell you everything," she said, "if you will promise me not to go and quarrel with him--in fact, not to go near him. Will you promise, Nick?"

"I will not," said Nick.

"You must!" she said. "You must!"

"I will not," he said again.

She held his hand imploringly. "Not if I ask you--not if I beg you--"

"Not in any case," he said. "Now tell me the truth as quickly as you can."