[Illustration: She had recoiled into the narrow hall, driven by anuncontrollable revulsion. ]

THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE

BY E. W. HORNUNG

ILLUSTRATED BY HARVEY T. DUNN

1906

TO MY FRIENDEDWARD SHORTT

CONTENTS

Chapter

I. The End of Their Life

II. The Case for the Crown

III. Name and Nature

IV. The Man in the Train

V. The Man in the Street

VI. A Peripatetic Providence

VII. A Morning Call

VIII. The Dove and the Serpent

IX. A Change of Scene

X. A Slight Discrepancy

XI. Another New Friend

XII. Episode of the Invisible Visitor

XIII. The Australian Room

XIV. Battle Royal

XV. A Chance Encounter

XVI. A Match for Mrs. Venables

XVII. Friends in Need

XVIII. "They Which Were Bidden"

XIX. Rachel's Champion

XX. More Haste

XXI. Worse Speed

XXII. The Darkest Hour

XXIII. Dawn

XXIV. One Who Was Not Bidden

XXV. A Point to Langholm

XXVI. A Cardinal Point

XXVII. The Whole Truth

XXVIII. In the Matter of a Motive

ILLUSTRATIONS

She had recoiled into the narrow hall, driven by an uncontrollablerevulsion. 

"I will!" she answered through her teeth--and she swept past him out ofthe room. 

"I'll tell you who I thought it was at first, " said he, heartily. 

The Shadow of the Rope

CHAPTER I

THE END OF THEIR LIFE

"It is finished, " said the woman, speaking very quietly to herself. "Notanother day, nor a night, if I can be ready before morning!"

She stood alone in her own room, with none to mark the white-hot pallorof the oval face, the scornful curve of quivering nostrils, the drylustre of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy step wentblustering down two flights of stairs, and double doors slammed upon theground floor. 

It was a little London house, with five floors from basement to attic, and a couple of rooms upon each, like most little houses in London; butthis one had latterly been the scene of an equally undistinguished dramaof real life, upon which the curtain was even now descending. Although athird was whispered by the world, the persons of this drama were reallyonly two. 

Rachel Minchin, before the disastrous step which gave her that surname, was a young Australian lady whose apparent attractions were onlyequalled by her absolute poverty; that is to say, she had been born atHeidelberg, near Melbourne, of English parents more gentle thanpractical, who soon left her to fight the world and the devil with noother armory than a good face, a fine nature, and the pride of anyheiress. It is true that Rachel also had a voice; but there was neverenough of it to augur an income. At twenty, therefore, she was already agoverness in the wilds, where women are as scarce as water, but wherethe man for Rachel did not breathe. A few years later she earned a berthto England as companion to a lady; and her fate awaited her on board. 

Mr. Minchin had reached his prime in the underworld, of which he alsowas a native, without touching affluence, until his fortieth year. Nevertheless, he was a travelled man, and no mere nomad of the bush. Asa mining expert he had seen much life in South Africa as well as inWestern Australia, but at last he was to see more in Europe as agentleman of means. A wife had no place in his European scheme; ahusband was the last thing Rachel wanted; but a long sea voyage, anuncongenial employ, and the persistent chivalry of a handsome, entertaining, self-confident man of the world, formed a combination asfatal to her inexperience as that of so much poverty, pride, and beautyproved to Alexander Minchin. They were married without ceremony on thevery day that they arrived in England, where they had not an actualfriend between them, nor a relative to whom either was personally known. In the beginning this mattered nothing; they had to see Europe and enjoythemselves; that they could do unaided; and the bride did it only themore thoroughly, in a sort of desperation, as she realized that thebenefits of her marriage were to be wholly material after all. 

In the larger life of cities, Alexander Minchin was no longer the idleand good-humored cavalier to whom Rachel had learned to look forunfailing consideration at sea. The illustrative incidents may beomitted; but here he gambled, there he drank; and in his cups everyvirtue dissolved. Rachel's pride did not mend matters; she was a thoughttoo ready with her resentment; of this, however, she was herself aware, and would forgive the more freely because there was often some obviousfault on her side before all was said. Quarrels of infinite bitternesswere thus patched up, and the end indefinitely delayed. 

In the meantime, tired of travelling, and impoverished by the husband'sfollies, the hapless couple returned to London, where a pure fluke withsome mining shares introduced Minchin to finer gambling than he hadfound abroad. The man was bitten. There was a fortune waiting forspecial knowledge and a little ready cash; and Alexander Minchin settleddown to make it, taking for the nonce a furnished house in a modestneighborhood. And here it was that the quarrelling continued to itsculmination in the scene just ended. 

"Not another day, " said Rachel, "nor a night--if I can be ready beforemorning!"

Being still a woman with some strength of purpose, Mrs. Minchin did notstop at idle words. The interval between the slamming of doors below andanother noise at the top of the house was not one of many minutes. Theother noise was made by Rachel and her empty trunk upon the loftiest andthe narrowest flight of stairs; one of the maids opened their door aninch. 

"I am sorry if I disturbed you, " their mistress said. "These stairs areso very narrow. No, thank you, I can manage quite well. " And they heardher about until they slept. 

It was no light task to which Rachel had set her hand; she was goingback to Australia by the first boat, and her packing must be done thatnight. Her resolve only hardened as her spirit cooled. The sooner herdeparture, the less his opposition; let her delay, and the callousnessof the passing brute might give place to the tyranny of the normal man. But she was going, whether or no; not another day--though she woulddoubtless see its dawn. It was the month of September. And she was notgoing to fly empty-handed, nor fly at all; she was going deliberatelyaway, with a trunk containing all that she should want upon the voyage. The selection was not too easily made. In his better moods the creaturehad been lavish enough; and more than once did Rachel snatch from draweror wardrobe that which remained some moments in her hand, while theincidents of purchase and the first joys of possession, to one who hadpossessed so little in her life, came back to her with a certainpoignancy. 

But her resolve remained unshaken. It might hurt her to take hispersonal gifts, but that was all she had ever had from him; he had nevergranted her a set allowance; for every penny she must needs ask and lookgrateful. It would be no fault of hers if she had to strip her fingersfor passage-money. Yet the exigency troubled her; it touched her honor, to say nothing of her pride; and, after an unforeseen fit ofirresolution, Rachel suddenly determined to tell her husband of herdifficulty, making direct appeal to the capricious generosity which hadbeen recalled to her mind as an undeniably redeeming point. It was truethat he had given her hearty leave to go to the uttermost ends of theearth, and highly probable that he would bid her work her own way. Shefelt an impulse to put it to him, however, and at once. 

She looked at her watch--it at least had been her mother's--and thefinal day was already an hour old. But Alexander Minchin was a latesitter, as his young wife knew to her cost, and to-night he had told herwhere he meant to sleep, but she had not heard him come up. The roomwould have been the back drawing-room in the majority of such houses, and Rachel peeped in on her way down. It was empty; moreover, the bedwas not made, nor the curtains drawn. Rachel repaired the firstomission, then hesitated, finally creeping upstairs again for cleansheets. And as she made his bed, not out of any lingering love for him, but from a sense of duty and some consideration for his comfort, therewas yet something touching in her instinctive care, that breathed thewife she could have been. 

He did not hear her, though the stairs creaked the smallness of thehour--or if he heard he made no sign. This discouraged Rachel as shestole down the lower flight; she would have preferred the angriest sign. But there were few internal sounds which penetrated to the little studyat the back of the dining-room, for the permanent tenant was the widowof an eminent professor lately deceased, and that student had protectedhis quiet with double doors. The outer one, in dark red baize, made analarming noise as Rachel pulled it open; but, though she waited, nosound came from within; nor was Minchin disturbed by the final entry ofhis wife, whose first glance convinced her of the cause. In theprofessor's armchair sat his unworthy successor, chin on waistcoat, anewspaper across his knees, an empty decanter at one elbow. Somethingremained in the glass beside the bottle; he had tumbled off before theend. There were even signs of deliberate preparations for slumber, forthe shade was tilted over the electric light by which he had beenreading, as a hat is tilted over the eyes. 

Rachel had a touch of pity at seeing him in a chair for the night; butthe testimony of the decanter forbade remorse. She had filled it herselfin the evening against her husband's return from an absence ofmysterious length. Now she understood that mystery, and her facedarkened as she recalled the inconceivable insult which his explanationhad embraced. No, indeed; not another minute that she could help! And hewould sleep there till all hours of the morning; he had done it before;the longer the better, this time. 

She had recoiled into the narrow hall, driven by an uncontrollablerevulsion; and there she stood, pale and quivering with a disgust thatonly deepened as she looked her last upon the shaded face and theinanimate frame in the chair. Rachel could not account for the intensityof her feeling; it bordered upon nausea, and for a time prevented herfrom retracing the single step which at length enabled her to shut bothdoors as quietly as she had opened them, after switching off the lightfrom force of habit. There was another light still glowing in the hall, and, again from habit, Rachel put it out also before setting foot uponthe stairs. A moment later she was standing terror-stricken in the dark. 

It was no sound from the study, but the tiniest of metallic rattles fromthe flap of the letter-box in the front door. The wind might have doneit, for the flap had lost its spring; and, though the noise was notrepeated, to the wind Rachel put it down, as she mounted the stairs atlast in a flutter that caused her both shame and apprehension. Her nervewas going, and she needed it so! It should not go; it should not; and asif to steady it, she opened the landing window, and spent some minutesgazing out into the cool and starry night. Not that she could see veryfar. The backs of houses hid half the stars in front and on either hand, making, with the back of this house and its fellows, a kind of squareturned inside out. Miserable little gardens glimmered through anirregular network of grimy walls, with here and there a fair tree inautumnal tatters; but Rachel looked neither at these nor at the starsthat lit them dimly. In a single window of those right opposite a singlelamp had burnt all night. It was the only earthly light that Rachelcould see, the only one of earth or heaven upon which she looked; andshe discovered it with thanksgiving, and tore her eyes away from it witha prayer. 

In time the trunk was packed, and incontinently carried downstairs, byan effort which left Rachel racked in every muscle and swaying giddily. But she could not have made much noise, for still there was no sign fromthe study. She scarcely paused to breathe. A latchkey closed the doorbehind her very softly; she was in the crisp, clean air at last. 

But it was no hour for finding cabs; it was the hour of the scavengerand no other being; and Rachel walked into broad sunlight before shespied a solitary hansom. It was then she did the strangest thing;instead of driving straight back for her trunk, when near the house shegave the cabman other directions, subsequently stopping him at one witha card in the window. 

A woman answered the bell with surprising celerity, and a face firststartled and then incensed at the sight of Mrs. Minchin. 

"So you never came!" cried the woman, bitterly. 

"I was prevented, " Rachel replied coldly. "Well?"

And the monosyllable was a whisper. 

"He is still alive, " said the woman at the door. 

"Is that all?" asked Rachel, a catch in her voice. 

"It is all I'll say till the doctor has been. "

"But he has got through the night, " sighed Rachel, thankfully. "I couldsee the light in his room from hour to hour, even though I could notcome. Did you sit up with him all night long?"

"Every minute of the night, " said the other, with undisguised severityin her fixed red eyes. "I never left him, and I never closed a lid. "

"I am so sorry!" cried Rachel, too sorry even for renewed indignation atthe cause. "But I couldn't help it, " she continued, "I really could not. We--I am going abroad--very suddenly. Poor Mr. Severino! I do wish therewas anything I could do! But you must get a professional nurse. And whenhe does recover--for something assures me that he will--you can tellhim--"

Rachel hesitated, the red eyes reading hers. 

"Tell him I hope he will recover altogether, " she said at length; "mind, altogether! I have gone away for good, tell Mr. Severino; but, as Iwasn't able to do so after all, I would rather you didn't mention that Iever thought of nursing him, or that I called last thing to ask how hewas. "

And that was her farewell message to the very young man with whom ahole-and-corner scandal had coupled Rachel Minchin's name; it was to bea final utterance in yet another respect, and one of no slight orprivate significance, as the sequel will show. Within a minute or two ofits delivery, Rachel was on her own doorstep for the last time, deftlyand gently turning the latchkey, while the birds sang to frenzy in aneighboring garden, and the early sun glanced fierily from the brassknocker and letter-box. Another moment and the door had been flung wideopen by a police officer, who seemed to fill the narrow hall, with acomrade behind him and both servants on the stairs. And with littlefurther warning Mrs. Minchin was shown her husband, seated much as shehad left him in the professor's chair, but with his feet raised stifflyupon another, and the hand of death over every inch of him in the broadnorth light that filled the room. 

The young widow stood gazing upon her dead, and four pairs of eyes gazedyet more closely at her. But there was little to gather from thestrained profile with the white cheek and the unyielding lips. Not a cryhad left them; she had but crossed the threshold, and stopped thatinstant in the middle of the worn carpet, the sharpest of silhouettesagainst a background of grim tomes. There was no swaying of the lissomefigure, no snatching for support, no question spoken or unspoken. Inmoments of acute surprise the most surprising feature is often the wayin which we ourselves receive the shock; a sudden and completedetachment, not the least common of immediate results, makes ussometimes even conscious of our failure to feel as we would or should;and it was so with Rachel Minchin in the first moments of her tragicfreedom. So God had sundered whom God had joined together! And this wasthe man whom she had married for love; and she could look upon his clayunmoved! Her mind leapt to a minor consideration, that still made hershudder, as eight eyes noted from the door; he must have been dead whenshe came down and found him seated in shadow; she had misjudged thedead, if not the living. The pose of the head was unaltered, the chinupon the chest, the mouth closed in death as naturally as in sleep. Nowonder his wife had been deceived. And yet there was somethingunfamiliar, something negligent and noble, and all unlike the livingman; so that Rachel could already marvel that she had not at oncedetected this dignity and this distinction, only too foreign to herhusband as she had learnt to know him best, but unattainable in thenoblest save by death. And her eyes had risen to the slice of sky in theupper half of the window, and at last the tears were rising in her eyes, when they filled instead with sudden horror and enlightenment. 

There was a jagged hole in the pane above the hasp; an upset of ink onthe desk beneath the window; and the ink was drying with the dead man'sblood, in which she now perceived him to be soaked, while the newspaperon the floor beside him was crisp as toast from that which it had hiddenwhen she saw him last. 

"Murdered!" whispered Rachel, breaking her long silence with a gasp. "The work of thieves!"

The policemen exchanged a rapid glance. 

"Looks like it, " said the one who had opened the door, "I admit. "

There was a superfluous dryness in his tone; but Rachel no more noticedthis than the further craning of heads in the doorway. 

"But can you doubt it?" she cried, pointing from the broken window tothe spilled ink. "Did you think that he had shot himself?"

And her horror heightened at a thought more terrible to her than all therest. But the constable shook his head. 

"We should have found the pistol--which we can't, " said he. "But shot heis, and through the heart. "

"Then who could it be but thieves?"

"That's what we all want to know, " said the officer; and still Rachelhad no time to think about his tone; for now she was bending over thebody, her white hands clenched, and agony enough in her white face. 

"Look! look!" she cried, beckoning to them all. "He was wearing hiswatch last night; that I can swear; and it has gone!"

"You are sure he was wearing it?" asked the same constable, approaching. 

"Absolutely certain. "

"Well, if that's so, " said he, "and it can't be found, it will be apoint in your favor. "

Rachel sprang upright, her wet eyes wide with pure astonishment. 

"In my favor?" she cried. "Will you have the goodness to explainyourself?"

The constables were standing on either side of her now. 

"Well, " replied the spokesman of the pair, "I don't like the way thatwindow's broken, for one thing, and if you look at it you'll see what Imean. The broken glass is all outside on the sill. But that's not all, ma'am; and, as you have a cab, we might do worse than drive to thestation before more people are about. "

CHAPTER II

THE CASE FOR THE CROWN

It was years since there had been a promise of such sensation at the OldBailey, and never, perhaps, was competition keener for the very fewseats available in that antique theatre of justice. Nor, indeed, couldthe most enterprising of modern managers, with the star of all thestages at his beck for the shortest of seasons, have done more to spreadthe lady's fame, or to excite a passionate curiosity in the public mind, than was done for Rachel Minchin by her official enemies of theMetropolitan Police. 

Whether these gentry had their case even more complete than theypretended, when the prisoner was finally committed for trial, or whetherthe last discoveries were really made in the ensuing fortnight, is nowof small account--though the point provided more than one excuse foracrimony on the part of defending counsel during the hearing of thecase. It is certain, however, that shortly after the committal it becameknown that much new evidence was to be forthcoming at the trial; thatthe case against the prisoner would be found even blacker than before;and that the witnesses were so many in number, and their testimony soentirely circumstantial, that the proceedings were expected to occupy aweek. 

Sure enough, the case was accorded first place in the November Sessions, with a fair start on a Monday morning toward the latter end of themonth. In the purlieus of the mean, historic court, it was a morning notto be forgotten, and only to be compared with those which followedthroughout the week. The prisoner's sex, her youth, her high bearing, and the peculiar isolation of her position, without a friend to stand byher in her need, all appealed to the popular imagination, and produced afascination which was only intensified by the equally general feelingthat no one else could have committed the crime. From the judgedownward, all connected with the case were pestered for days beforehandwith more or less unwarrantable applications for admission. And when thetime came, the successful suppliant had to elbow every yard of his wayfrom Newgate Street or Ludgate Hill; to pass three separate barriersheld by a suspicious constabulary; to obtain the good offices of theUnder Sheriff, through those of his liveried lackeys; and finally tooccupy the least space, on the narrowest of seats, in a varnished stallfilled with curiously familiar faces, within a few feet of the heavilyveiled prisoner in the dock, and not many more from the red-robed judgeupon the bench. 

The first to take all this trouble on the Monday morning, and the lastto escape from the foul air (shot by biting draughts) when the courtadjourned, was a white-headed gentleman of striking appearance andstamina to match; for, undeterred by the experience, he was in likemanner first and last upon each subsequent day. Behind him came and wentthe well-known faces, the authors and the actors with asemi-professional interest in the case; but they were not well known tothe gentleman with the white head. He heard no more than he could helpof their constant whisperings, and, if he knew not at whom he more thanonce had occasion to turn and frown, he certainly did not look the manto care. He had a well-preserved reddish face, with a small mouth ofextraordinary strength, a canine jaw, and singularly noble forehead; buthis most obvious distinction was his full head of snowy hair. The onlyhair upon his face, a pair of bushy eyebrows, was so much darker as tosuggest a dye; but the eyes themselves were black as midnight, with aglint of midnight stars, and of such a subtle inscrutability that acertain sweetness of expression came only as the last surprise in a facefull of contrast and contradiction. 

No one in court had ever seen this man before; no one but the UnderSheriff learnt his name during the week; but by the third day hisidentity was a subject of discussion, both by the professional studentsof the human countenance, who sat behind him (balked of their study bythe prisoner's veil), and among the various functionaries who hadalready found him as free with a sovereign as most gentlemen are with apiece of silver. So every day he was ushered with ceremony to the sameplace, at the inner end of the lowest row; there he would sit watchingthe prisoner, a trifle nearer her than those beside or behind him; andonly once was his attentive serenity broken for an instant by a changeof expression due to any development of the case. 

It was not when the prisoner pleaded clearly through her veil, in thefirst breathless minutes of all; it was not a little later, when theurbane counsel for the prosecution, wagging his pince-nez at the jury, thrilled every other hearer with a mellifluous forecast of the newevidence to be laid before them. The missing watch and chain had beenfound; they would presently be produced, and the jury would have anopportunity of examining them, together with a plan of the chimney ofthe room in which the murder had been committed; for it was there thatthey had been discovered upon a second search instituted since theproceedings before the magistrates. The effect of this announcement maybe conceived; it was the sensation of the opening day. The whole case ofthe prosecution rested on the assumption that there had been, on thepart of some inmate of the house, who alone (it was held) could havecommitted the murder, a deliberate attempt to give it the appearance ofthe work of thieves. Thus far this theory rested on the bare facts thatthe glass of the broken window had been found outside, instead ofwithin; that no other mark of foot or hand had been made or left by thesupposititious burglars; whereas a brace of revolvers had beendiscovered in the dead man's bureau, both loaded with such bullets asthe one which had caused his death, while one of them had clearly beendischarged since the last cleaning. The discovery of the missing watchand chain, in the very chimney of the same room, was a piece of idealevidence of the confirmatory kind. But it was not the point that made animpression on the man with the white hair; it did not increase hisattention, for that would have been impossible; he was perhaps the onespectator who was not, if only for the moment, perceptibly thrilled. 

Thrilling also was the earlier evidence, furnished by maid-servants andpolice constables in pairs; but here there was no surprise. The maidswere examined not only as to what they had seen and heard on the nightof the murder--and they seemed to have heard everything except the fatalshot--but upon the previous relations of their master and mistress--ofwhich they showed an equally extensive knowledge. The constables wereperforce confined to their own discoveries and observations when themaids had called them in. But all four witnesses spoke to the prisoner'sbehavior when shown the dead body of her husband, and there was theutmost unanimity in their several tales. The prisoner had exhibitedlittle or no surprise; it was several minutes before she had uttered asyllable; and then her first words had been to point out that burglarsalone could have committed the murder. 

In cross-examination the senior counsel for the defence thus earlyshowed his hand; and it was not a strong one to those who knew the game. A Queen's Counsel, like the leader for the Crown, this was analtogether different type of lawyer; a younger man, with a more engagingmanner; a more brilliant man, who sought with doubtful wisdom to blindthe jury with his brilliance. His method was no innovation at the OldBailey; it was to hold up every witness in turn to the derision andcontempt of the jury and the court. So both the maids were reduced totears, and each policeman cleverly insulted as such. But the testimonyof all four remained unshaken; and the judge himself soothed the youngwomen's feelings with a fatherly word, while wigs were shaken in thewell of the court. That was no road to the soft side of a decent, conscientious, hard-headed jury, of much the same class as thesewitnesses themselves; even the actors and authors had a sound opinion onthe point, without waiting to hear one from the professional gentlemenin the well. But the man in front with the very white hair--the man whowas always watching the prisoner at the bar--there was about as muchexpression of opinion upon his firm, bare face as might be seen throughthe sable thickness of her widow's veil. 

It was the same next day, when, for some five hours out of a possiblefive and a half, the attention of the court was concentrated upon apoint of obviously secondary significance. It was suggested by thedefence that the watch and chain found up the study chimney were notthose worn by the deceased at the time he met his death. The contentionwas supported by photographs of Alexander Minchin wearing a watch-chainthat might or might not be of another pattern altogether; expertopinions were divided on the point; and experts in chains as well as inphotography were eventually called by both sides. Interesting in thebeginning, the point was raised and raised again, and on subsequentdays, until all were weary of the sight of the huge photographicenlargements, which were handed about the court upon each occasion. Eventhe prisoner would droop in her chair when the "chain photograph" wasdemanded for the twentieth time by her own unflagging counsel; even thejudge became all but inattentive on the point, before it was finallydropped on an intimation from the jury that they had made up their mindsabout the chains; but no trace of boredom had crossed the keen, alertface of the unknown gentleman with the snowy hair. 

So the case was fought for Mrs. Minchin, tooth and nail indeed, yetperhaps with more asperity than conviction, and certainly at times uponpoints which were hardly worth the fighting. Yet, on the Fridayafternoon, when her counsel at last played his masterstroke, and, taking advantage of the then new Act, put the prisoner herself in thewitness-box, it was done with the air of a man who is throwing up hiscase. The truth could be seen at a glance at the clean-cut, handsome, but too expressive profile of the crushing cross-examiner of femalewitnesses and insolent foe to the police. As it had been possible topredict, from the mere look with which he had risen to his feet, thekind of cross-examination in store for each witness called by theprosecution, so it was obvious now that his own witness had come forwardfrom her own wilful perversity and in direct defiance of his advice. 

It was a dismal afternoon, and the witness-box at the Old Bailey is sosituated that evidence is given with the back to the light; thus, thoughher heavy veil was raised at last, and it could be seen that she wasvery pale, it was not yet that Rachel Minchin afforded a chance to thelightning artists of the half-penny press, or even to the students ofphysiognomy behind the man with the white hair. This listener did notlean forward an inch; the questions were answered in so clear a voice asto render it unnecessary. Yet it was one of these questions, put by herown counsel, which caused the white-headed man to clap a sudden hand tohis ear, and to incline that ear as though the answer could not comewithout some momentary hesitation or some change of tone. Rachel hadtold sadly but firmly of her final quarrel with her husband, incidentally, but without embarrassment, revealing its cause. A neighborwas dangerously ill, whom she had been going to nurse that night, whenher husband met her at the door and forbade her to do so. 

"Was this neighbor a young man?"

"Hardly more than a boy, " said Rachel, "and as friendless as ourselves. "

"Was your husband jealous of him?"

"I had no idea of it until that night. "

"Did you find it out then?"

"I did, indeed!"

"And where had your husband been spending the evening?"

"I had no idea of that either--until he told me he had been watching thehouse--and why!"

Though the man was dead, she could not rid her voice of its scorn; andpresently, with bowed head, she was repeating his last words to her. Acold thrill ran through the court. 

"And was that the last time you saw him alive?" inquired counsel, hisface lightening in ready apprehension of the thrill, and his assurancecoming back to him on the spot, as though it were he who had insistedon putting his client in the box. 

But to this there was no immediate answer; for it was here that thewhite-haired man raised his hand to his ear; and the event was exactlyas he seemed to have anticipated. 

"Was that the last time you saw your husband alive?" repeated Rachel'scounsel, in the winning accents and with the reassuring face that hecould assume without an effort at his will. 

"It was, " said Rachel, after yet another moment's thought. 

It was then that the white-headed man dropped his eyes for once; and foronce the thin, hard lines of his mouth relaxed in a smile that seemed toepitomize all the evil that was in his face, and to give it forth in onesudden sour quintessence. 

CHAPTER III

NAME AND NATURE

The prisoner's evidence concluded with a perfectly simple if somewhathesitating account of her own doings during the remainder of the nightof her husband's murder. That story has already been told in greaterdetail than could be extracted even by the urbane but deadlycross-examiner who led for the Crown. A change had come over the mannerin which Rachel was giving her evidence; it was as though her strengthand nerve were failing her together, and henceforth the words had to beput into her mouth. Curiously enough, the change in Mrs. Minchin'sdemeanor was almost coincident with the single and rather sinisterdisplay of feeling upon the part of the white-haired gentleman who hadfollowed every word of the case. On the whole, however, her story borethe stamp of truth; and a half-apologetic but none the less persistentcross-examination left it scarcely less convincing than before. 

There was one independent witness for the defence, in addition to theexperts in photography and chains. The landlady of the house at whichRachel called, in the early morning, on her way home with the cab, wasabout five minutes in the witness-box, but in those five minutes shesupplied the defence with one of its strongest arguments. It was atleast conceivable that a woman who had killed her husband might coollyproceed to pack her trunk, and thereafter fetch the cab which was toremove herself and her effects from the scene of the tragedy. But was itcredible that a woman of so much presence of mind, to whom every minutemight make the difference between life and death, would, having foundher cab, actually drive out of her way to inquire after a sick friend, or even a dying lover, before going home to pick up her luggage and toascertain whether her crime was still undetected? Suppose it were alover, and inquire one must: would one not still leave those inquiriesto the last? And having made them, last or first; and knowing the grimnecessity of flight; would one woman go out of her way to tell anotherthat she "had to go abroad very suddenly, and was going for good?"

"Inconceivable!" cried the prisoner's counsel, dealing with the point;and the word was much upon his lips during the course of a long and verystrenuous speech, in which the case for the Crown was flouted frombeginning to end, without, perhaps, enough of concentration on its moreobvious weaknesses, or of respect for its undoubted strength. For theprisoner's proceedings on the night of the murder, however, supposingshe had committed it, and still more on the morning after, it would havebeen difficult to find a better epithet; the only drawback was that thisone had seen service in the cause of almost every murderer who ever wentto the gallows--as counsel for the prosecution remarked in his reply, with deadly deference to his learned friend. 

"On the other hand, " he went on, wagging his eyeglasses with leisurelydeliberation, and picking his words with a care that enhanced theireffect, after the unbridled rhetoric of the defence--"on the other hand, gentlemen, if criminals never made mistakes, inconceivable or not as wemay choose to consider them--if they never made those mistakes, theywould never stand in that dock. "

It was late on the Saturday afternoon when the judge summed up; but apleasant surprise was in store for those who felt that his lordship mustspeak at greater length than either of the counsel between whom he wasto hold the scales. The address from the bench was much the shortest ofthe three. Less exhaustive than the conventional review of acomplicated case, it was a disquisition of conspicuous clearness andimpartiality. Only the salient points were laid before the jury, for thelast time, and in a nutshell, but with hardly a hint of the judge's ownopinion upon any one of them. The expression of that opinion wasreserved for a point of even greater import than the value of anyseparate piece of evidence. If, said the judge, the inferences andtheory of the prosecution were correct; if this unhappy woman, driven todesperation by her husband, and knowing where he kept his pistols, hadtaken his life with one of them, and afterwards manufactured the tracesof a supposititious burglary; then there was no circumstance connectedwith the crime which could by any possibility reduce it from murder tomanslaughter. The solemnity of this pronouncement was felt in thefarthest corner of the crowded court. So they were to find her guilty ofwilful murder, or not guilty at all! Every eye sped involuntarily to theslim black figure in the dock; and, under the gaze of all, the figuremade the least little bow--a movement so slight and so spontaneous as tosuggest unconsciousness, but all the more eloquent on that account. 

Yet to many in court, more especially to the theatrical folk behind theman with the white hair, the gesture was but one more subtle touch inan exhibition of consummate art and nerve. 

"If they do acquit her, " whispered one of these wiseacres to another, "she will make her fortune on the stage!"

Meanwhile the judge was dealing at the last with the prisoner's evidencein her own behalf, and that mercifully enough, though with lessreticence than had characterized the earlier portions of his address. Hedid not think it possible or even desirable to forget that this was theevidence of a woman upon trial for her life. It must not be discreditedon that account. But it was for the jury to bear in mind that the storywas one which admitted of no corroboration, save in unimportant details. More than that he would not say. It was for them to judge of that storyas they had heard it for themselves, on its own merits, but also inrelation to the other evidence. If the jury believed it, there was anend of the case. If they had any reasonable doubt at all, the prisonerwas entitled to the full benefit of that doubt, and they must acquither. If, on the other hand, the facts taken together before and afterthe murder brought the jury to the conclusion that it was none otherthan the prisoner who had committed the murder--though, of course, noone was present to see the act committed--they must, in duty to theiroaths, find her guilty. 

During the judge's address the short November day had turned fromafternoon to night, and a great change had come over the aspect of thedim and dingy court. Opaque globes turned into flaring suns;incandescent burners revealed unsuspected brackets; the place was warmedand lighted for the first time during the week. And the effect of thelight and warmth was on all the faces that rose as one while the judgesidled from the bench, and the jury filed out of their box, and theprisoner disappeared down the dock stairs for the last time in ignoranceof her fate. Next moment there was the buzz of talk that you expect in atheatre between the acts, rather than in a court of justice at thesolemn crisis of a solemn trial. It was like a class-room with themaster called away. Hats were put on again in the bulging galleries;hardly a tongue was still. On the bench a red-robed magnate and anotherin knee-breeches exchanged views upon the enlarged photographs which hadplayed so prominent a part in the case; in the well the barristers' wigsnodded or shook over their pink blotters and their quill pens; gentlemenof the Press sharpened their pencils and indulged in prophecy; and ontheir right, between the reporters and the bench, the privileged few, the literary and theatrical elect, discussed the situation with abnormalcallousness, masking emotion with a childlike cynicism of sentiment andphrase. 

And for once the stranger in their midst, the man with more outwarddistinction than any one of them, the unknown man with the snowy hair, could afford to listen to what they had to say. 

"No chance, my dear man. Not an earthly!"

"I'm not so sure of that. "

"Will you bet?"

"No, hang it! What a beast you are! But I thought the woman was speakingthe truth. "

"You heard what the judge said. Where's your corroboration? No, theyought never to have let her go into the box. I hear she insisted. But ithasn't saved anybody yet. "

"The new law? Then it shows her pluck!"

"But not necessarily her innocence, dear boy. "

Thus one shaven couple. Others had already exhausted the subject. 

"Yes, I finished it down at Westgate last week. "

"Satisfied?"

"In a way. It depends so much on the cast. "

"These actor-managers--what?"

"More or less. I must be off. Dining out. "

"What! Not going to wait for the end of the fourth act?"

"No, I'm late as it is. Ta-ta!"

The white-haired man was amused. He did not turn round, nor, if he had, would he have known the retreating gentleman for the most eminent ofliving playwrights; but he knew the reason for his sudden retreat. Ahush had fallen, and some one had whispered, "They're coming!" Thelight-hearted chatter had died away on the word; perhaps it was not solight-hearted after all. But the alarm was false, there was no sign ofthe jury, and the talk rose again, as the wind will in a storm. 

"We shall want a glass when this is over, " whispered one of the pair whohad argued about the case. 

"And we'll have it, too, old man!" rejoined his friend. 

The white-haired man was grimly interested. So this was the way mentalked while waiting to hear a fellow-creature sentenced to death! Itwas worth knowing. And this was what the newspaper men would call a lowbuzz--an expectant hush--this animated babble! Yet the air was chargedwith emotion, suppressed perhaps, but none the less distinguishable inevery voice. Within earshot a perspiring young pressman was informinghis friends that to come there comfortably you should commit the murderyourself, then they gave you the Royal Box; but his teeth could be heardchattering through the feeble felicity. The white-headed listener curleda contemptuous nostril. They could joke, and yet they could feel! Hehimself betrayed neither weakness, but sat waiting patiently and idlylistening, with the same grim jaw and the same inscrutable eye withwhich he had watched the prisoner and the jury alternately throughoutthe week. And when the latter at last returned, and then the former, itwas the same subtle stare that he again bent upon them both in turn. 

The jury had been absent but forty minutes after all; and theirexpedition seemed as ill an omen as their nervous and responsible faces. There was a moment's hush, another moment of prophetic murmurs, and thena stillness worthy of its subsequent description in every newspaper. Theprisoner was standing in the front of the dock, a female warder uponeither hand. The lightning pencil of the new journalist had its will ofher at last. For Mrs. Minchin had dispensed not only with the chairwhich she had occupied all the week, but also with the heavy veil whichshe had but partially lifted during her brief sojourn in thewitness-box, and never once in the dock. The veil was now flung backover the widow's bonnet, peaking and falling like a sable cowl, againstwhich the unearthly pallor of her face was whiter far then that of themerely dead, just as mere death was the least part of the fateconfronting her. Yet she had raised her veil to look it fairly in theface, and the packed assembly marvelled as it gazed. 

Was that the face that had been hidden from them all these days? It wasnot what they had pictured beneath the proud, defiant carriage of itsconcealing veil. Was that the face of a determined murderess?

Beautiful it was not as they saw it then, but the elements of beauty layunmistable beneath a white mist of horror and of pain, as a lovelylandscape is still lovely at its worst. The face was a thin but perfectoval, lengthened a little by depth of chin and height of forehead, asnow also by unnatural emaciation and distress. The mouth was at oncebloodless, sweet, and firm; the eyes of a warm and lustrous brown, brilliant, eloquent, brave--and hopeless!

Yes, she had no hope herself! It was plain enough at the first glimpseof the deadly white, uncovered face, in the cruel glare of gas. But itbecame plainer still as, with sad, unflinching eyes, she watched andlistened while, for the last time, the jurymen answered to their names. 

Now they were done. The foreman shifted nervously in his place. In theoverstain of the last dread pause, the crowded court felt hotter andlighter than ever. It seemed to unite the glare of a gin palace with thetemperature of a Turkish bath. 

"Gentlemen, are you greed upon your verdict?"

"We are. "

"Do you find the prisoner guilty or not guilty?"

"Not guilty. "

There was a simultaneous gasp from a hundred throats--a distinct cryfrom some. Then the Clerk of Arraigns was seen to be leaning forward, ahand to his ear, for the foreman's voice had broken with excitement. Andevery soul in court leaned forward too. 

But this time his feelings had a different effect upon the excitedforeman. 

"_Not_ guilty!" he almost bawled. 

Dead silence then, while the clock ticked thrice. 

"And that is the verdict of you all?"

"Of every one of us!"

The judge leant back in his place, his eyes upon the desk before him, without a movement or a gesture to strike the personal note which hadbeen suppressed with such admirable impartiality throughout the trial. But it was several moments before his eyes were lifted with his voice. 

"Let her be discharged, " was all he said even then; but he would seem tohave said it at once gruffly, angrily, thankfully, disgustedly, withemotion, and without any emotion at all. You read the papers, and youtake your choice. 

So Rachel Minchin was supported from the court before the round eyes ofa hundred or two of her fellow-creatures, in the pitiable state of onewho has been condemned to die, and not set free to live. It was asthough she still misunderstood a verdict which had filled most faceswith incredulity, but none with an astonishment to equal her own. Herwhite face had leaped alight, but not with gladness. The pent-up emotionof the week had broken forth in an agony of tears; and so they half led, half carried her from the court. She had entered it for the last timewith courage enough; but it was the wrong kind of courage; and, for theone supreme moment, sentence of life was harder to bear than sentence ofdeath. 

In a few minutes the court was empty--a singular little theatre of palevarnish and tawdry hangings, still rather snug and homely in the heatand light of its obsolete gas, and with as little to remind one of theplay as any other theatre when the curtain is down and the house empty. But there was clamor in the corridors, and hooting already in thestreet. Nor was the house really empty after all. One white-hairedgentleman had not left his place when an attendant returned to put outthe lights. The attendant pointed him out to a constable at the door;both watched him a few moments. Then the attendant stepped down andtouched him on the shoulder. 

The gentleman turned slowly without a start. "Ah, you're the man I wantto see, " said he. "Was that the Chief Warder in the dock?"

"Him with the beard, " said the attendant, nodding. 

"Well, give him this, and give it him quick. I'll wait up there till hecan see me. "

And he pressed his card into the attendant's palm, with a couple ofsovereigns underneath. 

"Wants to see the Chief Warder, " explained the attendant to theconstable at the door. 

"He's been here all the week, " mused the constable aloud. "I wonder whohe is?"

"Name of Steel, " whispered the other, consulting the card, as thegentleman advanced up the steps toward them, the gaslight gleaming inhis silver hair, and throwing his firm features into strong relief. 

"And not a bad name for him, " said the constable at the door. 

CHAPTER IV

THE MAN IN THE TRAIN

Rachel fought her weakness with closed eyes, and was complete mistressof herself when those about her thought that consciousness alone wasreturning. She recognized the chamber at a glance; it was the one inwhich generations of metropolitan malefactors, and a few innocentpersons like herself, had waited for the verdict of life or death. Forher it was life, life, life! And she wondered whether any other of thefew had ever come back to life with so little joy. 

The female warders were supporting her in a chair; the prison doctorstood over her with a medicine glass. 

"Drink this, " said he, kindly. 

"But I have been conscious all the time. "

"Never mind. You need it. "

And Rachel took the restorative without more words. 

It did its work. The color came back to her face. The blood ran hot inher veins. In a minute she was standing up without assistance. 

"And now, " said Rachel, "I shall not trespass further on your kindness, and I am sure that you will not wish to detain me. "

"We cannot, " said the doctor, with a broad smile and a bow; "you are asfree as air, and will perhaps allow me to be the first to congratulateyou. At the same time, my dear madam, and quite apart from yourcondition--which is wonderful to me after what you've been through--atthe same time, and even with your fortitude, I think it would beadvisable to--to wait a little while. "

The doctor raised his eyes, and all at once Rachel heard. Overheard--outside--in the world--there was the brutal hooting of athoughtless mob. 

"So that is for me!"

Rachel set her teeth. 

"On the contrary, " said the kindly doctor, "it may be for the witnesses;but crowds are fickle things; and I should strongly urge you not tocourt a demonstration of one sort or the other. You are best where youare for the time being, or at all events somewhere within the precincts. And meanwhile your solicitor is waiting to add his congratulations tomine. "

"Is he, indeed!" cried Rachel, in a voice as hard as her eye. 

"Why, to be sure, " rejoined the other, taken somewhat aback. "Theremust be many matters for discussion between you, and he at least seemsvery anxious to discuss them. In fact, I may say that he is onlyawaiting my permission for an immediate interview. "

"Then let him await mine!" exclaimed Rachel, in a vindictive voice forwhich she was apologizing in the next breath. "I owe you much, " sheadded, "if only for your kindness and sympathy during these few minutes. But to him I owe nothing that I cannot pay in cash. He tried to keep mefrom telling my own story in the box--they all did--but he was the worstof all. So I certainly do not owe him my life. He came to me and he saidwhat he liked; he may have forgotten what he said, but I never shall. "

"He would be the first to admit his error now. "

"Perhaps; but he believed me guilty to the very end; and I utterlyrefuse to see him to-night. "

"Then I shall tell him so. "

And the good doctor disappeared for the nonce, but was back in a coupleof minutes, full of the lawyer's expostulations. What did Mrs. Minchinintend to do? Where did she propose to go? There were a hundred mattersfor explanation and arrangement. Her solicitor said she had no friends, and seemed himself most anxious to act in that capacity. Rachel's lipscurled at the thought. 

"At least, " said she, "I have the friends who guaranteed his bill, ifthat has anything to say to his anxiety! But what I mean to do and whereI may go, are entirely my own affair. And as for the hundred matters hementions, he might have spoken of them during the week. Perhaps hethought it would be waste of breath, but I should have appreciated therisk. "

So her solicitor was beaten off, with all the spirit which was one ofRachel's qualities, but also with the rashness which was that quality'sdefect. The man was indeed no ornament to his profession, but apolice-court practitioner of the pushing order, who had secured the casefor notoriety and nothing else. Rachel's soul sickened when she thoughtof her interviews, and especially her most recent interviews, with onewhom she had never seen before her trouble, and whom she devoutly hopednever to see again. She did not perceive that the time had come when thelawyer might have been really useful to her. Yet his messages left hermore alive to the difficulties that lay before her as a free woman, andto the immediate necessity of acting for herself once more. 

After all there had been a silver lining to the cloud under which shehad lain so long. Others had acted for her. It had been a rest. But, conscious of her innocence, and serene in that consciousness, she hadprepared herself rather for another life than for a new lease of thisone; and, while seeking to steel her soul to the awful sequel of aconviction, in the other direction she had seldom looked beyond theconsummate incident of an acquittal. Life seems a royal road when it isdeath that stares one in the face; but already Rachel saw the hills andthe pitfalls; for indeed they began under her nose. 

She had no plans, nor a single soul to help her to make any. In all theworld she had no real friend. And yet, with the very independence towhich this isolation was largely due, she must pick and choose, andreject, in the hour when any friend would have been better than none!

In the first ten minutes of the new life which Rachel Minchin began withher acquittal, she had refused to see her own solicitor, and an unknowngentleman whose card was brought to her by the Chief Warder himself. With the card was a message which might have inspired confidence, andthe same might be said of the address. But it was enough for Rachel thatshe knew no one of the name. The Chief Warder, one of the kindliestmortals, displayed no little irritation under her repeated refusals; butit was the agent, and not the principal, who was so importunate; and themessage was not repeated once the former could be induced to bear Mrs. Minchin's answer. The Chief Warder did indeed return, but it was not tomake any further reference to the mysterious Mr. Steel who had craved aninterview with Mrs. Minchin. And now the good fellow was all smiles. 

"Feeling more yourself?" said he; and, when Rachel said she was, heasked her to listen now; and there was nothing to listen to. "Thecoast's as clear as the Criminal Court, " explained this pleasantofficial. "A closed cab did it, with an officer on the box; and I'llcall you another as soon as you like. "

Rachel rose at once. 

"It was kind of you to let me stay so long, " she said. "But I don'tthink I will take a cab, thank you, if there's an underground stationwithin reach, and you will kindly tell me the way. "

"There's Blackfriars Bridge within five minutes. But you will have morethan you can carry--"

"I have nothing worth taking away with me, " said Rachel, "except thethings I stand up in; but you may give what I leave to any poor womanwho cares to have them. And I hope you will accept this trifle foryourself, with my deep gratitude for all your kindness. "

Indeed, the man had been kind, and his kindness would have continued tothe last had the trial ended differently. Nevertheless, Rachel's triflewas a piece of gold, and one of her last. Nor was this pure generosity. There was an untold joy in being able to give again. It was the firstreal taste of freedom; and in another minute Rachel was free. 

Oh, but what a miracle to hear her feet on the now deserted pavement, tosee her breath in the raw November night, and the lights of Ludgate Hillbeyond! Rachel raised her veil to see them better. Who would look forher afoot so near the scene of her late ordeal? And what did it matterwho saw her and who knew her now? She was innocent; she could look thewhole world in the face once more. Oh, to rub shoulders with the worldagain!

A cab came tinkling up behind her, and Rachel half thought of hailingit, and driving through the lighted town after all; but the hansom wasoccupied, and the impulse passed. She put down her veil and turned intothe stream without catching a suspicious eye. Why should they suspecther? And again, what did it matter if they did?

"Trial an' verdic'! Trial an' verdic'! Acquittal o' Mrs. Minchin! Trialan' verdic'!"

Everybody was buying the damp, pink sheets. Rachel actually bought oneherself; and overheard the opinion of the man in the street without apang. So she might think herself lucky! But she did, she did; in thereaction that had come upon her with the first mouthful of raw air, inthe intoxication of treading the outer world again, she thought herselfthe luckiest woman in London, and revelled rather than otherwise in thevery considerations which had appalled her in the precincts of thecourt. How good, after all, to be independent as well as free! How greatto drift with the tide of innocent women and law-abiding men, once moreone of themselves, and not even a magnet for morbid curiosity! Thatwould come soon enough; the present was all the more to be enjoyed; andeven the vagueness of the immediate future, even the lack of definiteplans, had a glamor of their own in eyes that were yet to have theirfill of street lamps and shop windows and omnibuses and hansom cabs. 

The policeman under the bridge was a joy in himself; he refreshedRachel's memory as to the way, without giving her an unnecessary look;and he called her "madam" into the bargain! After all, it was not everypoliceman who had been on duty at the Old Bailey, nor one in manythousands of the population who had gained admission to the court. 

Yet if Rachel had relieved the tedium of her trial by using her eyes alittle more; if, for example, she had condescended to look twice at thehandful of mere spectators beyond the reporters on her right, she couldscarcely have failed to recognize the good-looking, elderly man who wasat her heels when she took her ticket at Blackfriars Bridge. His whitehair was covered by his hat, but the face itself was not one to beforgotten, with its fresh color, its small, grim mouth, and the deep-setglitter beneath the bushy eyebrows. Rachel, however, neither recognizednor looked again. 

In a few minutes she had a better chance, when, having entered an emptycompartment in the first class, she was joined by this gentleman as thetrain began to move. 

Rachel hid herself behind the newspaper which she had bought, not thatshe had looked twice at her companion, but because at such closequarters, and in the comparatively fierce light of the first-classcompartment, she was terribly afraid that he might look once too oftenat her. But this fear passed from her in the matchless fascination ofreading and re-reading five words in the stop-press column:--"MINCHINCASE--Verdict, Not guilty. "

Not guilty! Not guilty! And to see it in print! Her eyes filled at thesight, and she dried them to gloat again. There were columns and columnsabout the case, embellished with not unskilful sketches of counseladdressing the jury, and of the judge in the act of summing up. ButRachel had listened to every word from all three; and the professionalreport was less full and less accurate than the one which she carried inher brain and would carry to her grave. Not that the speeches matterednow. It was no speech that had saved her; it was her own story, from herown lips, that the lawyers would have closed! Rachel forgave them now;she was almost grateful to them for having left it to her to saveherself in spite of them all: so should her perfect innocence beimpressed upon the whole country as on those twelve fair minds. And oncemore she pored upon the hurriedly added and ill-printed line which gavetheir verdict to the world, while the train stopped and started, only tostop and start again. 

"And what do you think of it, madam?"

The voice came from the opposite corner of the compartment, and Rachelknew it for that of the gentleman who had jumped in at the last momentat Blackfriars Bridge. It was Charing Cross that they were leaving now, and the door had not opened at that station or the last. Rachel satbreathless behind her evening paper. Not to answer might be to fastensuspicion upon her widow's weeds; and, for all her right to look mankindin the face, she shrank instinctively from immediate recognition. Thenin a clap came the temptation to discuss her own case with the owner ofa voice at once confident and courtly, and subtly reminiscent of hernative colony, where it is no affront for stranger to speak to strangerwithout introduction or excuse. 

Rachel's hesitation lasted perhaps a couple of seconds, and then herpaper lay across her lap. 

"Of what?" she asked, with some presence of mind, for she had never aninstant's doubt that the question referred to the topic of the hour. 

"We were reading the same paper, " replied the questioner, with perfectcourtesy; "it only struck me that we might both be reading the samething, and feeling equally amazed at the verdict. "

"You mean in the Minchin case, " said Rachel steadily, and without theleast interrogation in her tone. "Yes, I was reading it, as I supposeeverybody is. But I disagree with you about the verdict. "

The young widow's manner was as downright as her words. There was asudden raising of the bushy eyebrows in the opposite corner, a briefopening of the black eyes underneath. 

"Pardon me, " said the gentleman, breaking into a smile; "I was not awarethat I had expressed an opinion on that point. "

"I understood you were amazed, " said Rachel, dryly. 

"And are not you?" cried the other point-blank. "Do you mean to tell methat you were prepared for an acquittal?"

"I was prepared for anything, " replied Rachel, returning a peculiarlypenetrating stare with one at least as steady, and yet holding herbreath for very fear lest this stranger had found her out, until hisnext words allayed the suspicion. 

"Madam, have you followed the case?"

"Indeed I have, " sighed honest Rachel. 

"And as a woman you believe this woman innocent?"

"I do. "

It was hard enough to say no more than that; but Rachel was very freshfrom her great lesson in self-control. 

"It is easy to see that you do not, " she merely permitted herself toadd. 

"On the contrary, " said he, with great precision; "on the contrary, mydear madam, I believe this poor lady to be as innocent as yourself. "

Again their eyes were locked; again Rachel drew the only inference fromso pointed a pronouncement, and yet again was the impression shaken byher companion's next words. 

"But I really have no right to an opinion, " said he; "since, unlike you, I cannot claim to have read the case. Nor is that the interesting thingnow. " The stations had come and gone, until now they were at Victoria. The speaker looked out of the window, until they were off again, and offby themselves as before. "The interesting thing, to me, is not what thispoor lady has or has not done, but what on earth she is going to donow!"

He looked at her again, and now Rachel was sure. But there was akindness in his look that did away both with resentment and regret. 

"They say she has literally no friends in England, " he went on, withunconcealed concern. "That is incredible; and yet, if there be any truthin it, what a terrible position! I fear that everybody will not shareyour conviction, and, I may add, my own. If one can judge thus early bywhat one has heard and seen for oneself, this verdict is a personaldisappointment to the always bloodthirsty man in the street. Then, Godhelp the poor lady if he spots her! I only hope she will not give him achance. "

And now Rachel not only knew that he knew, but that he wished to appriseher of his knowledge without confessing it in so many words. So he wouldspare her that embarrassment, and would help her if he could, this utterstranger! Yet she saw it in his face, she heard it in his voice; andbecoming gradually alive to his will to help her, as she instinctivelywas to his power, she had herself the will to consult one whose goodintention and better tact were alike obvious. Mystery there was in hermeeting with this man; something told her that it was no accident on hisside; she began to wonder whether she had not seen him before; and whileshe wondered he came and sat opposite to her, and went on speaking in alower voice, his dark eyes fixed on hers. 

"If Mrs. Minchin wants a friend--and to-night I think she must--if evershe did or will! Well, if she does, I for one would be her friend--ifshe would trust me!"

The last words were the lowest of all; and in the tone of them there wasa timbre which thrilled Rachel as the dark eyes fascinated her. Shebegan to feel a strange repugnance--and yet more strange attraction. Butto the latter her independence gave instant battle--a battle the easierto fight since the next station was Rachel's destination. 

"Do you think she would trust me?" he almost whispered leaning towardsher. "As a woman--don't you think she might?"

As Rachel hesitated the carriages began to groan beneath the brake; andher hesitation was at an end. So also was her limited capacity forpretence. She sat more upright in her corner, her shoulders fell inangles, and beneath the veil, which she had raised to read her paper, her eyes carried the war of interrogation into the enemy's country. 

"I seem to have seen you before, " said Rachel, cool of tongue but hot atheart. 

"I think it very possible that you have. "

"Were you at the trial?"

"From first to last!"

The pause that followed was really broken by the lights of Sloane Squarestation. 

"You know me, " said Rachel, hurriedly; "I have seen that for some time. May I ask if you are Mr. Steel?"

"I am. "

"The Mr. Steel who sent me his card after the trial?"

Steel bowed. 

"As a perfect stranger?"

"As a perfect stranger who had watched you for a whole long week incourt. "

Rachel ignored the relative clause. 

"And because I would not see you, Mr. Steel, you have followed me, andforced yourself upon me!"

The train stopped, and Rachel rose. 

"You will gather my motives when you recall our conversation, " observedSteel; and he opened the door for her. But Rachel turned to him beforealighting. 

"Mr. Steel, " said she, "I am quite sure that you mean kindly and well, and that I above all women should feel supremely grateful; but I cannothelp thinking that you are unjust to the man in the street!"

"Better give him a trial, " said Steel, coldly enough in his turn. 

"I should prefer to, " rejoined Rachel, getting out; and there was nolittle sting in the intonation of the verb; but Mr. Steel was leftsmiling and nodding very confidently to himself. 

CHAPTER V

THE MAN IN THE STREET

Rachel's perturbation was only the greater from her success inconcealing, or at least suppressing it, during the actual process ofthis singular interview. You may hold your breath without moving amuscle, but the muscles will make up for it when their turn comes, andit was so with Rachel and her nerves; they rose upon her even on theplatform, and she climbed the many stairs in a tremor from head to foot. And at the top, in the open night, and at all the many corners of asquare that is nothing of the kind, from hoarse throat and on flutteringplacard, it was "Trial and Verdict, " or "Sensational Verdict at the OldBailey, " here as at the other end of the town. 

But now all Rachel's thoughts were of this mysterious Mr. Steel; of hisinexplicable behavior towards her, and of her own attitude towards him. Yet, when all was said, or when all that had been said could beremembered, would his behavior be found so very inexplicable? Rachel wasnot devoid of a proper vanity, albeit that night she had probably lessthan most women with a tithe of her personal attractions; and yet uponreflection she could conceive but one explanation of such conduct in anelderly man. 

"There is no fool like an old fool, " quoted Rachel to herself; and itwas remarkable that until this moment she had never thought of Mr. Steelas either elderly or old. His eyes were young; his voice was young; shecould hear him and see him still, so the strong impression was not allon one side. No more, it would seem, was the fascination. Rachel, indeed, owned to no such feeling, even in her inmost heart. But she didbegin to blame herself, alike for her reception of advances which mightwell have been dictated by mere eccentric benevolence, and for herreadiness now to put another construction upon them. And all this timeshe was threading the streets of Chelsea at a pace suggestive of adestination and a purpose, while in her mind she did nothing but lookback. 

Impulsive by nature, Rachel had also the courage of each impulse whileit lasted; on the other hand, if quick to act, she was only too ready toregret. Like many another whose self-reliance is largely on the surface, an achievement of the will and not the gift of a temperament, sheusually paid for a display of spirit with the most dispiritingreaction; and this was precisely the case in point. Rachel was ashamedalike of her rudeness and her vanity; the latter she traced to itssource. It was inspired by vague memories of other women who had beenthrough the same ordeal as herself. One had been handed a bouquet in thedock; another had been overwhelmed by proposals of marriage. Rachelherself had received letters of which the first line was enough. Butthere had been no letter from Mr. Steel. Ah! but he had attended hertrial; she remembered him now, his continual presence had impresseditself very subtly upon her mind, without the definite memory of asingle glance; and after the trial he sent her his card, he dogged herin the train! What was she to think? There was the voice in which he hadoffered her his aid; there was the look in his eyes; there was thedelicate indirectness of that offer. 

A year or two ago, with all her independence, Rachel would not have beenso ready to repel one whose advances, however unwarrantable inthemselves, were yet marked by so many evidences of sympathy andconsideration. She had not always been suspicious and repellent; and shesighed to think how sadly she must have changed, even before thenightmare of the last few weeks. 

But a more poignant reminder of her married life was now in store forRachel Minchin. She had come to Chelsea because it was the only portionof the town in which she had the semblance of a friend; but there didlive in Tite Street a young couple with whom the Minchins had at onetime been on friendly terms. That was in the day of plenty andextravagance; and the acquaintance, formed at an hotel in the Trossachs, had not ripened in town as the two wives could have wished. It was Mrs. Carrington, however, who had found the Minchins their furnished house, while her husband certainly interested himself in Rachel's defence. Carrington was a barrister, who never himself touched criminal work, buthe had spoken to a friend who did, to wit the brilliant terror of femalewitnesses, and caustic critic of the police, to whom Rachel owed solittle. But to Carrington himself she owed much--more indeed than shecared to calculate--for he was not a man whom she liked. She wished tothank him for his kindness, to give certain undertakings and to ask hisadvice, but it was Mrs. Carrington whom she really hoped to see. Therewas a good heart, or Rachel was much mistaken. They would have seen moreof each other if Mrs. Carrington had had her way. Rachel remembered heron the occasion of the solitary visit she had received at Holloway--forMrs. Carrington had been the visitor. 

"Don't tell Jim, " she had said, "when you get off and come to see us. "

And she had kissed her captive sister in a way that made poor Rachelsometimes think she had a friend in England after all; but that wasbefore her committal; and thereafter from that quarter not a word. Itwas not Mrs. Carrington whom Rachel blamed, however, and those lastwords of hers implied an invitation which had never been withdrawn. Butinvitation or no invitation, friend or no friend, Mrs. Carrington shewould have to see. And even he would be different now that he knew shewas innocent; and if it was easy to see what he had believed of herbefore, well, so much the more credit to him for what he had done. 

So Rachel had decided before quitting the precincts of the Old Bailey;but her subsequent experiences in street and train so absorbed her thatshe was full of the interview that was over when she ought to have beenpreparing for the one still before her. And, in her absence of mind, theforce of habit had taken advantage of her; instead of going on to TiteStreet, she turned too soon, and turned again, and was now appalled tofind herself in the very street in which her husband had met his death. 

The little street was as quiet as ever; Rachel stood quite still, andfor the moment she was the only person in it. She stole up to the house. The blinds were down, and it was in darkness, otherwise all was as sheremembered it only too well. Her breath came quickly. It was a strangetrick her feet had played her, bringing her here against her will! Yetshe had thought of coming as a last resort. The furnished house shouldbe hers for some months yet; it had been taken for six months from July, and this was only the end of November. At the worst--if no one wouldtake her in--

She shuddered at the unfinished thought; and yet there was something init that appealed to Rachel. To go back there, if only for the shortesttime--to show her face openly where it was known--not to slink and hideas though she were really guilty! That might give her back herself-respect; that might make others respect her too. But could she doit, even if she would? Could she bring herself to set foot inside thathouse again?

Rachel felt tremulously in her pocket; there had been more keys thanone, and that which had been in her possession when she was arrestedwas in it still. Nobody had asked her for it; she had kept it for this;dare she use it after all? The street was still empty; it is thequietest little street in Chelsea. There would never be a better chance. 

Rachel crept up the steps. If she should be seen!

She was not; but a footstep rang somewhere in the night, and on that thekey was fitted and the door opened without another moment's hesitation. Rachel entered, the door shut noisily behind her, and then her own steprang in turn upon the floor. It was bare boards; and as Rachel felt herway to the electric switches, beyond the dining-room door, her fingersmissed the pictures on the walls. This prepared her for what she foundwhen the white light sprang out above her head. The house had beendismantled; not a stick in the rooms, not so much as a stair-rod on thestairs, nor a blind to the window at their head. 

The furniture removed while the use of it belonged legally to her! Hadthey made so sure of her conviction as all that? Rachel's blood camestraight from zero to the boil; this was monstrous, this was illegal andwicked. The house was hers for other two months; and there were thingsof hers in it, she had left everything behind her. If they had beenremoved, then this outrage was little short of felony, and she wouldinvoke the law from whose clutches she herself had escaped. Rachel hadexpected to be terrified in the house; she was filled insted with angerand indignation. 

It was as she expected; not a trunk had been left; and the removal hadtaken place that very week. This would account for the electric lightbeing still intact. Rachel discovered it by picking up a crumplednewspaper, which seemed to have contained bread and cheese; it didcontain a report of the first day of the trial. They might have waitedtill her trial was over; they should suffer for their impatience, it wastheir turn. So angry was Rachel that her own room wounded her with nomemories of the past. It was an empty room, and nothing more; and onlyon her return to the lower floor did that last dread night come back toher in all its horror and all its pitifulness. 

The double doors of the late professor! Rachel forgot her grudge againsthis widow; she pulled the outer door, and pushed the inner one, just asshe had done in the small hours of that fatal morning, but this time allwas darkness within. She had to put on the electric light for herself. The necessity she could not have explained, but it existed in her mind;she must see the room again. And the first thing she saw was that thewindow was broken still. 

Rachel looked at it more closely than she had done on the morning whenshe had given her incriminating opinion to the police, and the longershe looked the less reason did she see to alter that opinion. The brokenglass might have been placed upon the sill in order to promote the verytheory which had been so gullibly adopted by the police, and the watchand chain hidden in the chimney for the same purpose. They might havehanged the man who kept them; and surely this was not the first thiefwho had slunk away empty-handed after the committal of a crimeinfinitely greater than the one contemplated. 

Rachel had never wavered in these ideas, but neither had she dwelt onthem to any extent, and now they came one instant only to go the next. Her husband was dead--that was once more the paramount thought--and shehis widow had been acquitted on a charge of murdering him. But for themoment she was thinking only of him, and her eyes hung over the spotwhere she had seen him sitting dead--once without dreaming it--and soonthey filled. Perhaps she was remembering all that had been good in him, perhaps all that had been evil in herself; her lips quivered, and hereyes filled. But it was hard to pity one who was at rest, hard for herwith the world to face afresh that night, without a single friend. TheCarringtons? Well, she would see; and now she had a very definite pointupon which to consult Mr. Carrington. That helped her, and she went, quietly and unseen as she had come. 

There was still a light in the ground-floor windows of the Tite Streethouse, strong lights and voices; it was the dining-room, for theMinchins had dined there once; and the voices did not include a feminineone that Rachel could perceive. If there were people dining with them, the ladies must have gone upstairs, and Mrs. Carrington was the woman tosee Rachel for five minutes, and the one woman in England to whom shecould turn. It was an opportunity not to miss--she had not the courageto let it pass--and yet it required almost as much to ring the bell. Andeven as she rang--but not until that moment--did Rachel recognize andadmit to herself the motive which had brought her to that door. It wasnot to obtain the advice of a clever man; it was the sympathy of anotherwoman that she needed that night more than anything else in all theworld. 

She was shown at once into the study behind the dining-room, andimmediately the voices in the latter ceased. This was ominous; it wasfor Mrs. Carrington that Rachel had asked; and the omen was instantlyfulfilled. It was Mr. Carrington who came into the room, dark, dapper, and duskily flushed with his own hospitality, but without the genialfront which Rachel had liked best in him. His voice also, when he hadcarefully shut the door behind him, was unnaturally stiff. 

"I congratulate you, " he said, with a bow but nothing more; and Rachelsaw there and then how it was to be; for with her at least this man hadnever been stiff before, having indeed offended her with his familiarityat the time when her husband and he were best friends. 

"I owe it very largely to you, " faltered Rachel. "How can I thank you?"

Carrington said it was not necessary. 

"Then I only hope, " said Rachel, on one of her impulses, "that you don'tdisagree with the verdict?"

"I didn't read the case, " replied Carrington glibly, and with neithermore nor less of the contemptuous superiority with which he would havereferred to any other Old Bailey trial; but the man himself was quick tosee the brutality of such a statement, and quicker yet to tone it down. 

"It wasn't necessary, " he added, with a touch of the early manner whichshe had never liked; "you see, I knew you. "

The insincerity was so obvious that Rachel could scarcely bring herselfto confess that she had come to ask his advice. "What was the point?" hesaid to that, so crisply that the only point which Rachel could think ofwas the fresh, raw grievance of the empty house. 

"Didn't your solicitor tell you?" asked Carrington. "He came to me aboutit; but I suppose--"

Rachel knew well what he supposed. 

"He should have told you to-night, " added Carrington, "at any rate. Therent was only paid for half the term--quite right--the usual way. Thepermanent tenant wanted to be done with the house altogether, and thatentitled her to take her things out. No, I'm afraid you have nogrievance there, Mrs. Minchin. "

"And pray, " demanded Rachel, "where are my things?"

"Ah, your solicitor will tell you that--when you give him the chance! Hevery properly would not care to bother you about trifles until the caseagainst you was satisfactorily disposed of. By the way, I hope you don'tmind my cigar? We were smoking in the next room. "

"I have taken you from your guests, " said Rachel, miserably. "I know Iought not to have come at such an hour. "

Carrington did not contradict her. 

"But there seemed so much to speak about, " she went desperately on. "There are the money matters and--and--"

"If you will come to my chambers, " said Carrington, "I shall bedelighted to go into things with you, and to advise you to the best ofmy ability. If you could manage to come at half-past nine on Mondaymorning, I would be there early and could give you twenty minutes. "

He wrote down the address, and, handing it to Rachel, rang the bell. This drove her to despair; evidently it never occurred to him that shewas faint with weariness and hunger, that she had nowhere to go for thenight, and not the price of a decent meal, much less a bed, in herpurse. And even now her pride prevented her from telling the truth; butit would not silence her supreme desire. 

"Oh!" she cried; "oh, may I not speak to your wife?"

"Not to-night, if you don't mind, " replied Carrington, with his bow andsmile. "We can't both desert our guests. "

"Only for a minute!" pleaded Rachel. "I wouldn't keep her more!"

"Not to-night, " he repeated, with a broader smile, a clearerenunciation, and a decision so obviously irrevocable that Rachel said nomore. But she would not see the hand that he could afford to hold out toher now; and as for going near his chambers, never, never, though shestarved!

"No, I wouldn't have kept her, " she sobbed in the street; "but she wouldhave kept me! I know her! I know her! She would have had pity on me, inspite of him; but now I can never go near either of them again!"

Then where was she to go? God knew! No respectable hotel would take herin without luggage or a deposit. What was she to do?

But while she wondered her feet were carrying her once more in the olddirection, and as she walked an idea came. She was very near the fatallittle street at the time. She turned about, and then to the left. In afew moments she was timorously knocking at the door of a house with acard in the window. 

"It's you!" cried the woman who came, almost shutting the door inRachel's face, leaving just space enough for her own. 

"You have a room to let, " said Rachel, steadily. 

"But not to you, " said the woman, quickly; and Rachel was notsurprised, the other was so pale, so strangely agitated. 

"But why?" she asked. "I have been acquitted--thanks partly to your ownevidence--and yet you of all women will not take me in! Do you mean totell me that you actually think I did it still?"

Rachel fully expected an affirmative. She was prepared for that opinionnow from all the world; but for once a surprise was in store for her. The pale woman shifted her eyes, then raised them doggedly, and the lookin them brought a sudden glow to Rachel's heart. 

"No, I don't think that, and never did, " said the one independentwitness for the defence. "But others do, and I am too near where ithappened; it might empty my house and keep it empty. "

Rachel seized her hand. 

"Never mind, never mind, " she whispered. "It is better, ten thousandtimes, that you should believe in me, that any woman should! Thank you, and God bless you, for that!"

She was turning away, when she faced about upon the steps, gazing pastthe woman who believed in her, along the passage beyond, an unspokenquestion beneath the tears in her eyes. 

"He is not here, " said the landlady, quickly. 

"But he did get over it?"

"So we hope; but he was at death's door that morning, and for days andweeks. Now he's abroad again--I'm sure I don't know where. "

Rachel said good-night, and this time the door not only shut before shehad time to change her mind again, but she heard the bolts shot as shereached the pavement. The fact did not strike her. She was thinking fora moment of the innocent young foreigner who had brought matters to acrisis between her husband and herself. On the whole she was glad thathe was not in England--yet there would have been one friend. 

And now her own case was really desperate; it was late at night; she wasfamished and worn out in body and mind, nor could she see the slightestprospect of a lodging for the night. 

And that she would have had in the condemned cell, with food and warmthand rest, and the blessed certainty of a speedy issue out of all herafflictions. 

It was a bitter irony, after all, this acquittal!

There was but one place for her now. She would perish there of cold andhorror; but she might buy something to eat, and take it with her; and atleast she could rest, and would be alone, in the empty house, the houseof misery and murder, that was yet the one shelter that she knew of inall London. 

She crept to the King's road, and returned with a few sandwiches, walking better in her eagerness to break a fast which she had only feltsince excitement had given place to despair. But now it was making herfaint and ill. And she hurried, weary though she was. 

But in the little street itself she stood aghast. A crowd filled it; thecrowd stood before the empty house of sorrow and of crime; and in amoment Rachel saw the cause. 

It was her own fault. She had left the light burning in the upper room, the bedroom on the second floor. 

Rachel joined the skirts of the crowd--drawn by an irresistiblefascination--and listened to what was being said. All eyes were upon thelighted window of the bedroom--watching for herself, as she soondiscovered--and this made her doubly safe where she stood behind thepress. 

"She's up there, I tell yer, " said one. 

"Not her! It's a ghost. "

"Her 'usband's ghost, then. "

"But vere's a chap 'ere wot sore 'er fice to fice in the next street;an' followed 'er and 'eard the door go; an' w'en 'e come back wiv 'ispals, vere was vat light. "

"Let's 'ave 'er aht of it. "

"Yuss, she ain't no right there. "

"No; the condemned cell's the plice for 'er!"

"Give us a stone afore the copper comes!"

And Rachel saw the first stone flung, and heard the first glass break;and within a very few minutes there was not a whole pane left in thefront of the house; but that was all the damage which Rachel herself sawdone. 

A hand touched her lightly on the shoulder. 

"Do you still pin your faith to the man in the street?" said a voice. 

And, though she had heard it for the first time that very evening, itwas a voice that Rachel seemed to have known all her life. 

CHAPTER VI

A PERIPATETIC PROVIDENCE

"Do you still pin your faith to the man in the street?"

It was Mr. Steel who stood at Rachel's elbow, repeating his questionword for word; but he did not repeat it in the same tone. There was anearnest note in the lowered voice, an unspoken appeal to her to admitthe truth and be done with proud pretence. And indeed the pride had goneout of Rachel at sight of him; a delicious sense of safety filled herheart instead. She was as one drowning, and here was a strong swimmercome to her rescue in the nick of time. What did it matter who or whathe was? She felt that he was strong to save. Yet, as the nearly drowneddo struggle with their saviours, so Rachel must fence instinctively withhers. 

"I never did pin my faith to him, " said she. 

"Yet see the risk that you are running! If he turns round--if any one ofthem turns round and recognizes you--listen to that!"

It was only the second window, but a third and a fourth followed likeshots from the same revolver. Rachel winced. 

"For God's sake, come away!" he whispered, sternly. 

And Rachel did come a few yards before a flicker of her spirit called ahalt. 

"Why should I run away?" she demanded, in sudden tears of mortificationand of weakness combined. "I am innocent--so why should I?"

"Because they don't like innocent people; and there appear to be nopolice in these parts; and if you fall into their hands--well, it wouldbe better for you if you had been found guilty and were safe and soundin Newgate now!"

That was exactly what Rachel had felt herself; she took a few stepsmore, but still with reluctance and irresolution; and once round thenearest corner, and out of that hateful street for ever, she turned toher companion in unconcealed despair. 

"But what am I to do?" she cried. "But where am I to turn?"

"Mrs. Minchin, " said Steel, "can you not really trust me yet?"

He stood before her under a street lamp, handsome still, upright for allhis years, strong as fate itself, and surely kinder than any fate whichRachel Minchin had yet met with in the course of her short butcheckered life. And yet--and yet--she trusted and distrusted him too!

"I can and I cannot, " she sighed; and even with the words one reasonoccurred to her. "You have followed me, you see, after all!"

"I admit it, " he replied, "and without a particle of shame. My dearlady, I was not going to lose sight of you to-night!"

"And why not?"

"Because I foresaw what might happen, and may happen still! Nay, madam, it will, if you continue to let your pride sit upon your common sense. Do you hear them now? That means the police, and when they're dispersedthey'll come this way to King's Road. Any moment they may be upon us. And there's a hansom dropped from heaven!"

He raised his umbrella, the bell tinkled, the two red eyes dilated andwidened in the night, then with a clatter the horse was pulled up besidethe curb, and Steel spread his hand before the muddy wheel. 

"Be sensible, " he whispered, "and jump in! In a hansom you can see whereyou are going; in a hansom you can speak to the driver or attract theattention of any decent person on the sidewalk. Ah! you will trust meso far at last--I thank you from my heart!"

"Where to, sir?" asked the cabman through the roof. 

And Rachel listened with languid curiosity; but that was all. She hadput herself in this man's hands; resistance was at an end, and areckless indifference to her fate the new attitude of a soul as utterlyovertaxed and exhausted as its tired tenement of clay. 

"Brook Street, " said Steel, after a moment's pause--"and double-quickfor a double fare. We shall be there in a quarter of an hour, " he addedreassuringly as the trap-door slammed, "and you will find everythingready for you, beginning with something to eat. I, at all events, anticipated the verdict; if you don't believe me, you will when we getthere, for they have been ready for you all day. Do you know Claridge'sHotel, by the way?"

"Only by name, " said Rachel, wearily. 

"I'm glad to hear it, " pursued Mr. Steel, "for I think you will bepleased. It is not like the ordinary run of hotels. Your rooms are yourcastle--regular self-contained flat--and you needn't see another soul ifyou don't like. I am staying in the hotel myself, for example, but youshall not set eyes on me for a week unless you wish to. "

"But I don't understand, " began Rachel, roused a little from her apathy. She was not suffered to proceed. 

"Nor are you to attempt to do so, " said her companion, "until to-morrowmorning. If you feel equal to it then, I shall crave an audience, andyou shall hear what I have got to say. But first, let me beg of you, anadequate supper and a good night's rest!"

"One thing is certain, " said Rachel, half to herself: "they can't knowwho I am, or they never would have taken me in. And no luggage!"

"That they are prepared for, " returned Steel; "and in your rooms youwill find a maid who is also prepared and equipped for your emergency. As to their not knowing who you are at the hotel, there you are right;they do not know; it would have been inexpedient to tell them. "

"Then at least, " said Rachel, "I ought to know who I am supposed to be. "

And she smiled, for interest and curiosity were awakened within her, with the momentary effect of stimulants; but Mr. Steel sat silent at herside. The cab was tinkling up Park Lane. The great park on the left, thegreat houses on the right, the darkness on the one hand, the lights onthe other, had all the fascination of sharp contrasts--that veryfascination which was Mr. Steel's. Rachel already discovered it in hisface, and divined it in his character, without admitting to herself thatthere was any fascination at all. Yet otherwise she would have droppedrather than have done what she was doing now. The man had cast a spellupon her; and for the present she did feel safe in his hands. But withthat unmistakable sense of immediate security there mingled a subtlerpremonition of ultimate danger, to which Rachel had felt alive from thefirst. And this was the keenest stimulus of all. 

What was his intention, and what his object? To draw back was to findout neither; and to say the truth, even if she had not been friendlessand forlorn, Rachel would have been very sorry to draw back now. 

The raw air in her face had greatly revived her; the sights and lightsof the town were still new and dear to her; she had come back to theworld with a vengeance, to a world of incident and interest, with anadventure ready waiting to take her out of her past self!

But it was only her companion's silence which enabled Rachel to realizeher strange fortune at this stage, and she had to put her questionpoint-blank before she obtained any answer at all. 

"If you insist upon hearing all the little details to-night, " saidSteele, with a good-humored shrug, "well, I suppose you must hear them;but I hope you will not insist. I have had to make provisions which youmay very possibly resent, but I thought it would be time enough for usto quarrel about them in the morning. To-night you need rest andsustenance, but no excitement; of that God knows you have had enough! Noone will come near you but the maid of whom I spoke; no questions willbe put to you; everything is arranged. But to-morrow, if you feel equalto it, you shall hear all about me, and form your own cool judgment ofmy behavior towards you. Meanwhile won't you trust me--implicitly--untilthen?"

"I do, " said Rachel, "and I will--until to-morrow. "

"Then there are one or two things that I can promise you, " said Steel, with the heartiness of a man who has gained his point. "You will not becompromised in any sort or kind of way; your self-respect shall notsuffer; nothing shall vex or trouble you, if I can help it, while youremain at this hotel. And this I guarantee--whether you like it ornot--unless you tell them, not a single soul in the place shall have thefaintest inkling as to who you are. Now, only keep your why andwherefore till to-morrow, " he concluded cheerily, "and I can promise youalmost every satisfaction. But here we are at the hotel. "

He thrust his umbrella outside, pointing to a portico and courtyard onthe right; and in another moment Rachel was receiving the bows ofpowdered footmen in crimson plush, while Steel, hat in hand, his whitehair gleaming in the electric light, led the way to the lift. 

Rachel's recollection of that night was ever afterwards disjointed andinvolved as that of any dream; but there were certain features that shenever forgot. There was the beautiful suite of rooms, filled withflowers that must have cost a small fortune at that time of year, and inone of them a table tastefully laid. Rachel remembered the dazzle ofsilver and the glare of napery, the hot plates, the sparkling wine, thehot-house fruit, and the deep embarrassment of sitting down to all thisin solitary state. Mr. Steel had but peeped in to see that all was inaccordance with his orders; thereafter not even a waiter was allowed toenter, but only Rachel's attendant, to whose charge she had beencommitted; a gentle and assiduous creature, quiet of foot and quick ofhand, who spoke seldom but in a soothing voice, and with the delicateand pretty accent of the French-Swiss. 

Rachel used to wonder whether she had shocked this mannerly young womanby eating very ravenously; she remembered a nervous desire to be donewith that solitary repast, and to get to bed. Yet when she was there, inthe sweetest and whitest of fine linen, with a hot bottle at her feet, and a fire burning so brightly in the room that the brass bedsteadseemed here and there red-hot, then the sound sleep that she sorelyneeded seemed further off than ever, for always she dreamt she was inprison and condemned to die, till at length she feared to close hereyes. But nothing had been forgotten; and Rachel's last memory of thateventful day, and not less eventful night, was of a mild, foreign facebending over her with a medicine-glass and a gentle word. 

And the same good face and the same soft voice were waiting for her whenshe awoke after many hours; the fire still burned brightly, also theelectric-light, though the blind was up and the window filled with adull November sky. It was a delicious awakening, recollection was soslow to come. Rachel might have been ill for days. She experienced thepeace that is left by illness of sufficient gravity. But all she ailedwas a slight headache, quickly removed by an inimitable cup of tea, thatfortified her against the perplexing memories which now came swarming toher mind. This morning, however, enlightenment was due, and meanwhileRachel received a hint, though a puzzling one, from the Swiss maid, asto the new identity which had been thrust upon her for the time being inlieu of her own. 

"It was very sad for madame to lose all her things, " cooed the girl, asshe busied herself about the room. 

"It was irritating, " Rachel owned, beginning to wonder how much theother knew. 

"But it was better than losing your life, madame!" the girl added with asmile. 

And now Rachel lay silent. Could this amiable young woman know all? Inone way Rachel rather hoped it was the case; it would be something tohave received so much kindness and attention, even though bought andpaid for, from one of her own sex who knew all there was to know, andyet did not shrink from her. But the young woman's next words dismissedthis idea. 

"When so many poor people were drowned!" said she. And the mystificationincreased. 

Presently there was a knock at the outer door, which the maid answered, returning with Mr. Steele's card. 

"Is he there?" asked Rachel, hastily. 

"No, madame, but one of the servants is waiting for an answer. I thinkthere is something written on the back, madame. "

Rachel read the harmless request on the back of the card; nothing couldhave been better calculated to turn away suspicion of one sort oranother, and there was obvious design in the absence of an envelope. ButRachel was not yet in the secret, and she was determined not to wait anhour longer than she need. 

"What is the time, please?"

"I will see, madame. "

The girl glided out and in. 

"Well?"

"A quarter to ten, madame. "

"Then order my breakfast for a quarter past, and let Mr. Steele be toldthat I shall be delighted to see him at eleven o'clock. "

CHAPTER VII

A MORNING CALL

"The way to conceal one's identity, " observed Mrs. Steel, "is to assumeanother as distinctive as one's own. "

This oracular utterance was confidentially delivered from the leathernchair at the writing-table, in an inner recess of Rachel's sumptuoussitting-room. The chair had been wheeled aloof from the table, on whichwere Steel's hat and gloves, and such a sheaf of book-stall literatureas suggested his immediate departure upon no short journey, unless, indeed, the magazines and the Sunday newspapers turned out to be anotheroffering to Mrs. Minchin, like the nosegay of hothouse flowers which shestill held in her hand. Rachel herself had inadvertently taken the veryeasy-chair which was a further feature of the recess; in its cushioneddepths she already felt at a needless disadvantage, with Mr. Steelbending over her, his strong face bearing down, as it were, upon hers, and his black eyes riddling her with penetrating glances. But to haverisen now would have been to show him what she felt. So she trifled withhis flowers without looking up, though her eyebrows rose a little ontheir own account. 

"I know what you are thinking, " resumed Steel; "that you had no desireto assume any new identity, or for a single moment to conceal your own, and that I have taken a great deal upon myself. That I most freelyadmit. And I think you will forgive me when you see the papers!"

"Is there so much about me, then?" asked Rachel, with a sigh ofapprehension. 

"A leading article in every one of them. But they will keep. Indeed, Iwould much rather you never saw them at all. "

"Was that why you brought them in, Mr. Steel?"

The question was irresistible, its satire unconcealed; but Steel'sdisregard of it steered admirably clear of contempt. 

"That was why I bought them, certainly, " he admitted. "But I broughtthem with me for quite a different purpose, for which one would indeedhave been enough. I was saying, however, that the best way to sink one'sidentity is to assume another, provided that the second be asdistinctive as the first. We will leave for a moment the question of myofficiousness in the matter, and we'll suppose, for the sake ofargument, that I was authorized by you to do what in fact I have done. All last week the papers were literally full of your trial, but onSaturday there was a second sensation as well, and this morning it ishard to say which is first and which second; they both occupy so manycolumns. You may not know it, but the Cape liner due on Saturday waslost with scores of lives, off Finisterre, on Friday morning last. "

Rachel failed to see the connection, and yet she felt vaguely that therewas one, if she could but recall it; meanwhile she said nothing, butlistened with as much attention as a mental search would permit. 

"I heard of it first, " continued Steel, "late on Friday afternoon, as Icame away from the Old Bailey. Now, it was on Friday afternoon, if yourecollect, that you gave evidence yourself in your own defence. When youleft the witness-box, Mrs. Minchin, and even before you left it, I knewthat you were saved!"

Rachel remembered the Swiss maid's remark about the loss of her clothesand the number of persons who had fared so much worse and lost theirlives. But Steel's last words dismissed every thought but that of theirown import. And in an instant she was trembling upright in theeasy-chair. 

"You believed me!" she whispered. "You believed me at the time!"

And for nothing had he earned such gratitude yet; her moist eyes saw theold-fashioned courtesy of his bow in answer, but not the subtlety of thesmile that bore it company in the depths of the dark eyes: it was asmile that did not extend to the short, tight mouth. 

"What is more to the point, my dear lady, " he went on in words, "thejury believed you, and I saw that they did. You made a tremendousimpression upon them. The lawyer against you was too humane to try veryhard to remove it, and the judge too just--though your own man did hisbest. But I saw at once that it would never be removed. It was betweenyou and the jury--human being to human beings--and no third legal partyintervening. That was where you scored; you went straight as a die tothose twelve simple hearts. And I saw what you had done--what thelawyers between them could not undo--and took immediate measures. "

Rachel looked up with parted lips, only to shut them firmly without aword. 

"And who was I to take measures on your behalf?" queried Steel, puttingthe question for her. "What right or excuse had I to mix myself up inyour affairs? I will tell you, for this morning is not last night, andat least you have one good night's rest between you and the past. Mydear Mrs. Minchin, I had absolutely no right at all; but I had theexcuse which every man has who sees a woman left to stand alone againstthe world, and who thrusts himself, no matter how officiously, into thebreach beside her. And then for a week I had seen you all day and everyday, upon your trial!"

At last there something with a ring of definite insincerity, somethingthat Rachel could take up; and she gazed upon her self-appointedchampion with candid eyes. 

"Do you mean to say that you never saw me before--my trouble, Mr. Steel?"

"Never in my life, my dear lady. "

"Then you knew something about me or mine!"

"What one read in the newspapers--neither more nor less--upon my mostsolemn word--if that will satisfy you. "

And it did; for if there had been palpable insincerity in his previousprotestations, there was sincerity of a still more obvious order in Mr. Steel's downright assurances on these two points. He had never everseen her before. He knew nothing whatever about her up to the period ofnotoriety; he had no special and no previous knowledge of his own. Itmight not be true, of course; but there was that in the deep-set eyeswhich convinced Rachel once and for all. There was a sudden light inthem, a light as candid as that which happened to be shining in her own, but a not too kindly one, rather a glint of genuine resentment. It washis smooth protestations that Rachel distrusted and disliked. If shecould ruffle him, she might get at the real man; and with her questionsshe appeared to have done so already. 

"I am more than satisfied, in one way, " replied Rachel, "and less inanother. I rather wish you had known something about me; it would havemade it more natural for you to come to my assistance. But never mind. What were these immediate measures?"

"I took these rooms; I had spoken of taking them earlier in the week. "

"For me?"

"Yes, on the chance of your getting off. "

"But you did not say they were for me!"

"No; and I was vague in what I had said until then. I had a daughter--awidow--whom I rather expected to arrive from abroad towards the end ofthe week. But I was quite vague. "

"Because you thought I had no chance!"

"I had not heard your evidence. The very afternoon I did hear it, andhad no longer any doubt about the issue in my own mind, I also heard ofthis wreck. The very thing! I waited till next morning for the list ofthe saved; luckily there were plenty of them; and I picked out the nameof a married woman travelling alone, and therefore very possibly awidow, from the number. Then I went to the manager. The daughter whom Iexpected had been wrecked, but she was saved, and would arrive thatnight. As a matter of fact, the survivors were picked up by a passingNorth German Lloyd, and they did reach London on Saturday night. Meanwhile I had impressed it upon the manager to keep the matter asquiet as possible, for many excellent reasons, which I need not go intonow. "

"But the reason for so elaborate a pretence?"

And the keen, dark face was searched with a scrutiny worthy of itself. Steel set his mouth in another visible resolution to tell the truth. 

"I thought you might not be sorry to cease being Mrs. Minchin--the Mrs. Minchin who had become so cruelly notorious through no fault of herown--if only for a day or two, or a single night. That was most easilyto be effected by your arriving here minus possessions, and plus a verydefinite story of your own. "

"You made very sure of me!" said Rachel, dryly. 

"I trusted to my own powers of persuasion, and it was said you had nofriends. I will confess, " added Steel, "that I hoped the report wastrue. "

"Did it follow that I could have no pride?"

"By no means; on the contrary, I knew that you were full of pride; itis, if I may venture to say so, one of your most salientcharacteristics. Nothing was more noticeable at your trial; nothingfiner have I ever seen! But, " added Steel, suppressing a burst ofenthusiasm that gained by the suppression, "but, madam, I hoped andprayed that you would have the sense to put your pride in the secondplace for once. "

"Well, " said Rachel, "and so far I have done so, Heaven knows!"

"And that is something, " rejoined Steel, impressively. "Even if it endsat this--even if you won't hear me out--it is something that you havehad one night and one morning free from insult, discomfort, andannoyance. "

Rachel felt half frightened and half indignant. Steel was standing up, looking very earnestly down upon her. And something that she had dimlydivined in the very beginning--only to chide herself for the merethought--that thing was in his face and in his voice. Rachel made adesperate attempt to change the subject, but, as will be seen, anunlucky one. 

"So I am supposed to be your daughter!" she exclaimed nervously. "May Iask my new name?"

"If you like; but I am going to suggest to you a still newer name, Mrs. Minchin. "

Rachel tried to laugh, though his quietly determined and serious facemade it more than difficult. 

"Do you mean that I am not to be your daughter any longer, Mr. Steel?"

"Not if I can help it. But it will depend upon yourself. "

"And what do you want to make me now?"

"My wife!"

CHAPTER VIII

THE DOVE AND THE SERPENT

Rachel was bereft of speech; and yet a certain sense of relief underlaythe natural embarrassment caused by a proposal so premature and soabrupt. Nor was the deeper emotion very difficult to analyze. Here atlast was a logical explanation of the whole behavior of this man; it wasthe first that had occurred to her, and, after all, it was the onlypossible one. 

"I want you to be my wife, " repeated Mr. Steel, with enough of respectin his tone, yet none the less with the air of a man who is accustomedto obtain what he wants. 

And Rachel, looking at the wiry, well-knit, upright figure, and at thefresh, elderly, but virile face, with its sombre eyes and its snowyhair, thought once again of the ancient saw which she had quoted toherself the night before, only to dismiss it finally from her mind. Thisman was no fool, nor was he old. He might be eccentric, but he waseminently sane; he might be elderly, in the arbitrary matter of mereyears; but an old man he was not, and never would be with those eyes. 

She tried to tell him it was absurd, but before the word could come shesaw that it was the last one to apply; he was so confident, so quiet, sosure of himself, if not of Rachel. At last she told him she could notthink of it, he had seen nothing of her, and could not possibly care forher, even supposing that she cared for him. 

"By 'caring, '" said he, "do you mean being 'in love, ' as they say, andall that?"

"Naturally, " said Rachel, with great ease and irony, but with a newmisgiving every moment. 

"And have I said I was in love with you?" inquired Mr. Steel, with asmile as indulgent as his tone. "It might, perhaps, be no more than thetruth; but have I had the insolence to tell you so?"

"It is a greater insult if you are not, " returned Rachel, speaking hotlyand quickly, but with lowered eyes. 

"What! To offer to marry a person whom one does not--as yet--pretend tolove?"

Rachel vouchsafed no reply. 

"Whom one only--but tremendously--admires?"

Rachel felt bound to answer him, for at least there was no insult inhis tone. She raised her candid eyes, a sweet brown blush upon her face. 

"Yes, " she said, "I think there is absolutely no excuse for a proposalof marriage, if it is not founded upon love and nothing else!"

"Or its pretence and nothing else, " amended Steel, with a bow and asmile of some severity. "That is a hard saying, " he went on, resuminghis chair, and wheeling it even nearer to Rachel's than it had beenbefore; "moreover, " he added, "since I have already insulted you, let metell you that it is an exceedingly commonplace saying, into the bargain. It depends, you must admit, upon the commonplace conception of marriage;and before we go any further I should like to give you my ownconception, not of the institution, but of the particular marriage whichI have in view. "

So he had it in view! It was not an inspiration, but already quite aprospect! Rachel made an acid little note of this; but there was noacidity in her permission to him to proceed; her turn was coming last. 

"The marriage that I propose to you, " continued Steel, "is simply themost convenient form of friendship of which I can think. I want to beyour friend; indeed, that much I mean to be, if necessary, in spite ofyou. I was interested in your case, so I came up to hear your trial. Iwas more interested in your trial, but most interested of all inyourself. There, indeed, the word is too weak; but I will not vex yourspirit with a stronger. My attraction you know; my determination youknow; even the low wiles to which your pride reduced me, even my dodgingand dogging, have been quite openly admitted to you on the firstreasonable opportunity. All this business of the shipwrecked daughterwas of course a crude device enough; but I had very little time tothink, and my first care was that you should not be recognized here orelsewhere in my society. That was essential, if there was the slightestchance of your even listening to my proposition, as indeed you are doingnow. Last night I told you nothing, because that's always easier thantelling only a little; moreover, you were so distraught that you wouldpossibly have gone right away without benefiting even to the slightextent of the comfortable night's rest you so badly needed; but thismorning I am prepared to put it to the touch. And let me begin bysaying, that if circumstances would permit me to continue the paternalimposture, that would be quite enough for me; unluckily, I am known inmy own country as an old bachelor; so that I cannot suddenly produce awidowed daughter, without considerable unpleasantness for us both. WhatI can do, however, " and Steel bent further forward, with eyes that heldRachel's in their spell; "what I can do, and will, is to go back with alady who shall be my wife in name, my daughter in effect. We should, Itrust, be the best of friends; but I will give you my word, and not onlymy word but my bond, that we never need be anything more. "

He had spoken rapidly; the pause that followed lasted longer than thislengthy speech. And through it all they sat with eyes still locked, until he spoke again. 

"You believe, at least, in the bona fides of my offer?"

And Rachel, still looking in his eyes, murmured that she did. 

"You will bear in mind how essentially it differs from the ordinaryoffer of the kind; also, that I have never for a moment pretended to bein love with you?"

"I will. "

Steel had risen as if to go; the keen scrutiny was withdrawn, a distinctspell as distinctly broken; and yet he lingered, with a smile. 

"That, " said he, "was a poor compliment to pay twice over! But it ishuman to err, and in my anxiety not to do so on the side of sentiment Iown myself in danger of flying to the other extreme. Well, you knowwhich is the common extreme in such cases; and at all events we shallavoid the usual pitfall. I am going to give you a few minutes to thinkit over; then, if you care to go into it further, I shall be most happy;if not, the matter is at an end. "

A few minutes! Rachel felt very angry, without knowing that she was mostangry with herself for not feeling angrier still. She had heard quiteenough; it were weakness to listen to another word; and yet--and yet--

"Don't go, " said Rachel, with some petulance; "that is quiteunnecessary. Anything more extraordinary--but I owe you too much alreadyto be your critic. Still, I do think I am entitled to go a littlefurther into the matter, as you said, without committing myself. "

"To be sure you are. "

But this time he remained standing; and for once he kept those mesmericeyes to himself. Obviously, Rachel was to have a chance. 

"You spoke of your own country, " she began. "Do you live abroad?"

There was the least suspicion of eagerness in the question. Rachelherself was unaware of it; not so Mr. Steel, and he sighed. 

"A mere figure, " he said; "what I meant was my own country-side. "

"And where is that?"

"In the north, " he replied vaguely. "Did you look twice at my card?Well, here is another, if you will do me that honor now. The initialsJ. B. Stand for no very interesting names--John Buchanan. A certaininterest in the Buchanan, perhaps; it comes out in the flesh, I fancy, though not on the tongue. As for the address, Normanthorpe House is therather historic old seat of the family of that name; but they have somany vastly superior and more modern places, and the last fifty yearshave so ruined the surroundings, that I was able to induce the Duke totake a price for it a year or two ago. He had hardly slept a night therein his life, and I got it lock-stock-and-barrel for a song. TheNorthborough which, you will observe, it is 'near'--a good four miles, as a matter of fact--is the well-known centre of the Delvertoniron-trade. But you may very well have spent a year in this countrywithout having heard of it; they would be shocked at Northborough, butnowhere else. "

Rachel had dropped the card into her lap; she was looking straight atMr. John Buchanan Steel himself. 

"You are very rich, " she said gravely. 

"I am nothing of the kind, " he protested. "The Duke is rich, if youlike, but I had to scrape together to pay him what would replenish hisracing-stud, or stand him in a new yacht. "

But Rachel was not deceived. 

"I might have known you were very rich, " she murmured, as much toherself as to him; and there was a strange finality in her tone, asthough all was over between them; a still more strange regret, involuntary, unconscious, and yet distinct. 

"Granting your hypothesis, for the sake of argument, " he went on, withhis simplest smile; "is it as difficult as ever for the poor rich man toget to heaven?"

Rachel spent some moments in serious thought. He was wonderfully honestwith her; of his central motive alone was she uncertain, unconvinced. Inall else she felt instinctively that he was telling her the truth, telling her even more than he need. His generous candor was a challengeto her own. 

"It may be very small of me, " she said at length, "but--somehow--if youhad been comparatively poor--I should have been less--ashamed!"

And candor begot candor, as it generally will. 

"Upon my word, " he cried, "you make me sigh for the suburbs and sixhundred a year! But you shall know the worst. I meant you to know itwhen I came in; then I changed my mind; but in for a penny, in for thelot!"

He caught up the magazine which he had brought in with the sheaf ofnewspapers, and he handed it to Rachel, open at an article quiteexcellently illustrated for an English magazine. 

"There, " he cried, "there's a long screed about the wretched place, before it came into my hands. But it's no use pretending it isn't quitethe place it was. I took over the whole thing--every stick outside andin--and I've put in new drainage and the electric light. "

His tone of regret was intentionally ludicrous. Had Rachel beenlistening, she would once more have suspected a pose. But already shewas deep in the article in the two-year-old magazine, or rather in itsnot inartistic illustrations. 

"The House from the Tennis Lawn, " "In the Kitchen Garden, " "TheDrawing-room Door, " "A Drawing-room Chimney-piece, " "A Corner of theChinese Room, " "A Portion of the Grand Staircase"--of such were thetitles underneath the process pictures. And (in all but theirproduction) each of these was more beautiful than the last. 

"That, " observed Steel, "happens to be the very article from which Ifirst got wind of the place, when I was looking about for one. Andnow, " he added, "I suppose I have cut my own throat! Like the devil, Ihave taken you up to a high place-"

It was no word from Rachel that cut him short, but his own taste, withwhich she at least had very little fault to find. And Rachel wascritical enough; but her experience was still unripe, and she liked hisview of his possessions, without perceiving how it disarmed her own. 

Presently she looked up. 

"Now I see how much I should have to gain. But what would you gain?"

The question was no sooner asked than Rachel foresaw the pretty speechwhich was its obvious answer. Mr. Steel, however, refrained from makingit. 

"I am an oldish man, " he said, "and--yes, there is no use in denyingthat I am comfortably off. I want a wife; or rather, my neighbors seembent upon finding me one; and, if the worst has to come to the worst, Iprefer to choose for myself. Matrimony, however, is about the very laststate of life that I desire, and I take it to be the same with you. Therefore--to put the cart before the horse--you would suit me ideally. One's own life would be unaltered, but the Delverton mothers would ceasefrom troubling, and at the head of my establishment there would be alady of whom I should be most justly proud. And even in my own life Ishould, I hope, be the more than occasional gainer by her society; may Ialso add, by her sympathy, by her advice? Mrs. Minchin, " cried Steel, with sudden feeling, "the conditions shall be very rigid; my lawyershall see to that; nor shall I allow myself a loophole for any weaknessor nonsense whatsoever in the future. Old fellows like myself have madefools of themselves before to-day, but you shall be safeguarded from thebeginning. Let there be no talk or thought of love between us from firstto last! But as for admiration, I don't mind telling you that I admireyou as I never admired any woman in the world before; and I hope, inspite of that, we shall be friends. "

Still the indicative mood, still not for a moment the conditional!Rachel did not fail to make another note; but now there was nothingbitter even in her thoughts. She believed in this man, and in hispromises; moreover, she began to focus the one thing about him in whichshe disbelieved. It was his feeling towards her--nothing more andnothing else. There he was insincere; but it was a pardonableinsincerity, after all. 

Of his admiration she was convinced; it had been open and honest allalong; but there was something deeper than admiration. He could say whathe liked. The woman knew. And what could it be but love?

The woman knew; and though the tragedy of her life was so close behindher; nay, though mystery and suspicion encompassed her still, as theymight until her death, the woman thrilled. 

It was a thrill of excitement chiefly, but excitement was not the onlyelement. There was the personal factor, too; there was the fascinationwhich this man had for her, which he could exert at will, and which hewas undoubtedly exerting now. 

To escape from his eyes, to think but once more for herself, and byherself, Rachel rose at last, and looked from the window which lit thisrecess. 

It was the usual November day in London; no sun; a mist, but not a fog;cabmen in capes, horses sliding on the muddy street, well-dressed womenpicking their way home from church--shabby women hurrying inshawls--hurrying as Rachel herself had done the night before--as shemight again to-night. And whither? And whither, in all the world?

Rachel turned from the window with a shudder; she caught up the firstnewspaper of the sheaf upon the writing-table. Steel had moved into thebody of the room; she could not even see him through the alcove. So muchthe better; she would discover for herself what they said. 

Leading articles are easily found, and in a Sunday paper they are seldomlong. Rachel was soon through the first, her blood boiling; the secondshe could not finish for her tears; the third dried her eyes with thefires of fierce resentment. It was not so much what they said; it waswhat they were obviously afraid to say. It was their circumlocution, their innuendo, their mild surprise, their perfunctory congratulations, their assumption of chivalry and their lack of its essence, that woundedand stung the subject of these effusions. As she raised her flushed facefrom the last of them, Mr. Steel stood before her once more, theincarnation of all grave sympathy and consideration. 

"You must not think, " said he, "that my proposal admits of noalternative but the miserable one of making your own way in a suspiciousand uncharitable world. On the contrary, if I am not to be your nominaland legal husband, I still intend to be your actual friend. On the firstpoint you are to be consulted, but on the second not even you shallstand in my way. Nor in that event would I attempt to rob you of theindependence which you value so highly; on the other hand, I wouldpoint the way to an independence worth having. I am glad you have seenthose papers, though to-morrow they may be worse. Well, you may beshocked, but, if you won't have me, the worse the better, say I! Yourcase was most iniquitously commented upon before ever it came for trial;there is sure to be a fresh crop of iniquities now; but I shall be muchmistaken if you cannot mulct the more flagrant offenders in heavydamages for libel. "

Rachel shivered at the thought. She was done with her case for ever andfor ever. People could think her guilty if they liked, but that the caseshould breed other cases, and thus drag on and on, and, above all, thatshe should make money out of all that past horror, what an unbearableidea!

On second thoughts, Mr. Steel agreed. 

"Then you must let me send you back to Australia. " No, no, no; she couldnever show her face there again, or anywhere else where she was known. She must begin life afresh, that was evident. 

"It was evident to me, " said Steel, quietly, "though not more so thanthe injustice of it, from the very beginning. Hence the plans andproposals that I have put before you. "

Rachel regarded him wildly; the Sunday papers had driven her todesperation, as, perhaps, it was intended that they should. 

"Are you sure, " she cried, "that they would not know me--up north?"

"Not from Eve, " he answered airily. "I should see to that; and, besides, we should first travel, say until the summer. "

"If only I _could_ begin my life again!" said Rachel to herself, butaloud, in a way that made no secret of her last, most desperateinclination. 

"That is exactly what I wish you to do, " Steel rejoined quietly, evengently, his hand lying lightly but kindly upon her quivering shoulder. How strong his touch, how firm, how reassuring! It was her first contactwith his hand. 

"I wish it so much, " he went on, "that I would have your past lifeutterly buried, even between ourselves; nay, if it were possible, evenin your own mind also! I, for my part, would undertake never to ask youone solitary question about that life--on one small and only faircondition. Supposing we make a compact now?"

"Anything to bury my own past, " owned Rachel; "yes, I would doanything--anything!"

"Then you must help me to bury mine, too, " he said. "I was nevermarried, but a past I have. "

"I would do my best, " said Rachel, "if I married you. "

"You will do your best, " added Steel, correcting her; "and there is mycompact cut and dried. I ask you nothing; you ask me nothing; and thereis to be no question of love between us, first or last. But we help eachother to forget--from this day forth!"

Rachel could not speak; his eyes were upon her, black, inscrutable, arrestive of her very faculties, to say nothing of her will. She couldonly answer him when he had turned away and was moving towards the door. 

"Where are you going?" she cried. 

"To send to my solicitor, " replied Steel, "as I warned him that I might. It has all to be drawn up; and there is the question of a settlement;and other questions, perhaps, which you may like to put to him yourselfwithout delay. "

CHAPTER IX

A CHANGE OF SCENE

The Reverend Hugh Woodgate, Vicar of Marley-in-Delverton--a benefice forgenerations in the gift of the Dukes of Normanthorpe, but latterly inthat of one John Buchanan Steel--was writing his sermon on a Fridayafternoon just six months after the foregoing events. The month wastherefore May, and, at either end of the long, low room in which Mr. Woodgate sat at work, the windows were filled with a flutter of summercurtains against a brilliant background of waving greenery. But a fireburned in one of the two fireplaces in the old-fashioned funnel of aroom, for a treacherous east wind skimmed the sunlit earth outside, andwhistled and sang through one window as the birds did through the other. 

Mr. Woodgate was a tall, broad-shouldered, mild-eyed man, with a blot ofwhisker under each ear, and the cleanest of clerical collarsencompassing his throat. It was a kindly face that pored over theunpretentious periods, as they grew by degrees upon the blue-linedpaper, in the peculiar but not uncommon hand which is the hall-mark ofa certain sort of education upon a certain order of mind. The presentspecimen was perhaps more methodical than most; therein it wascharacteristic of the man. From May to September, Mr. Woodgate neverfailed to finish his sermon on the Friday, that on the Saturday he mightbe free to play cricket with his men and lads. He was a poor preacherand no cricketer at all; but in both branches he did his best, with thesimple zeal and the unconscious sincerity which redeemed not a few ofhis deficiencies. 

So intent was the vicar upon his task, so engrossed in the expression ofthat which had already been expressed many a million times, that he didnot hear wheels in his drive, on the side where the wind sang loudest;he heard nothing until the door opened, and a girl in her twenties, trim, slim, and brown with health, came hurriedly in. 

"I'm sorry to disturb you, dear, but who do you think is here?"

Hugh Woodgate turned round in his chair, and his honest ox-eyes filledwith open admiration of the wife who was so many years younger thanhimself, and who had seen in him Heaven knew what! He never could lookat her without that look first; and only now, after some years ofmarriage, was he beginning sometimes to do so without this thoughtnext. But he had not the gift of expression, even in the perpetualmatter of his devotion; and perhaps its perpetuity owed something tothat very want; at least there was none of the verbal evaporation whichcomes of too much lovers' talk. 

"Who is it?" he asked. 

"Mrs. Venables!"

Woodgate groaned. Was he obliged to appear? His jaw fell, and his wife'seyes sparkled. 

"Dear, I wouldn't even have let you know she was here--you shouldn'thave been interrupted for a single instant--if Mrs. Venables wasn'tclamoring to see you. And really I begin to clamor too; for she is fullof some mysterious news, which she won't tell me till you are there tohear it also. Be an angel, for five minutes!"

Woodgate wiped his pen in his deliberate way. 

"Probably one of the girls is engaged, " said he; "if so I hope it'sSybil. "

"No, Sybil is here too; she doesn't look a bit engaged, but ratherbored, as though she had heard the story several times already, whateverit may be. They have certainly paid several calls. Now you look quitenice, so in you come. "

Mrs. Venables, a stout but comely lady, with a bright brown eye, and aface full of character and ability, opened fire upon the vicar as soonas they had shaken hands, while her daughter looked wistfully at thenearest books. 

"He is married!" cried Mrs. Venables, beginning in the middle like amodern novelist. 

"Indeed?" returned the matter-of-fact clergyman, with equaldirectness--"and who is he?"

"Your neighbor and your patron--Mr. Steel!"

"Married?" repeated Mrs. Woodgate, with tremendous emphasis. "Mr. Steel?"

"This is news!" declared her husband, as though he had expected noneworthy of the name. And they both demanded further particulars, at whichMrs. Venables shook her expensive bonnet with great relish. 

"Do you know Mr. Steel so well--so much better than we do--and can youask for particulars about anything he ever does? His marriage, "continued Mrs. Venables, "like everything else about him, is 'wrop inmystery, ' as one of those vulgar creatures says in Dickens, but I reallyforget which. It was never announced in the _Times_; for that I canvouch myself. Was ever anything more like him, or less like anybodyelse? To disappear for six months, and then turn up with a wife!"

"But has he turned up?" cried the vicar's young wife, forgetting for amoment a certain preoccupation caused by the arrival of the tea-tray, and by a rapid resignation to the thickness of the bread and butter andthe distressing absence of such hot things as would have been inreadiness if Mrs. Venables had been expected for a single moment. Itshowed the youth of Morna Woodgate that she should harbor a wish tocompete with the wealthiest woman in the neighborhood, even in thematter of afternoon tea, and her breeding that no such thought waslegible in her clear-cut open-air face. 

"I have heard nothing about it, " said the vicar, in a tone indicative ofmuch honest doubt in the matter. 

"Nor is it the case, to my knowledge, " rejoined Mrs. Venables; "but fromall we hear it may become the case any moment. They were married inItaly last autumn--so he says--and are on their way home at thisminute. "

"If he says so, " observed the vicar, with mild humor, "it is probablytrue. He ought to know. "

"And who was she?" his young wife asked with immense interest, the cupshaving gone round, and the bread and butter been accepted in spite ofits proportions. 

"My dear Mrs. Woodgate, " said Mrs. Venables, cordially, "you may wellask! Who was she, indeed! It was the first question I asked my owninformant, who, by the way, was your friend, Mr. Langholm; but he knewno more than the man in the moon. "

"And who told Mr. Langholm, of all people?" pursued Morna Woodgate. "Itis not often that we get news of the real world from him!"

"Birds of a feather, " remarked her caller: "it was Mr. Steel himself whowrote to your other eccentric friend, and told him neither more nor lessthan I have told you. He was married in Italy last autumn; not even thetown--not even the month--let alone the lady's name--if, indeed--"

And Mrs. Venables concluded with a sufficiently eloquent hiatus. 

"I imagine she is a lady, " said the vicar to his tea. 

"You are so charitable, dear Mr. Woodgate!"

"I hope I am, " he said simply. "In this case I see no reason to beanything else. "

"What--when you know really nothing about Mr. Steel himself?"

And the bright brown eyes of Mrs. Venables grew smaller and harder asthey pinned Hugh Woodgate to his chair. 

"I beg your pardon, " said that downright person; "I know a great dealabout Mr. Steel. He has done an immense amount for the parish; thereare our new schoolrooms to speak for themselves. There are very few whowould do the half of what Mr. Steel has done for us during the shorttime he has been at Normanthorpe. "

"That may be, " said the lady, with the ample smile of consciouscondescension; "for he has certainly not omitted to let his light shinebefore men. But that is not telling us who or what he was before he camehere, or how he made his money. "

Then Hugh Woodgate gave the half boyish, half bashful laugh with whichhe was wont to preface his most candid sayings. 

"And I don't think it's any business of ours, " he said. 

Morna went a trifle browner than she naturally was; her husband said solittle that what he did say was often almost painfully to the point; andnow Mrs. Venables had turned from him to her, with a smile which theyoung wife disliked, for it called attention to the vicar's discourtesywhile it appealed to herself for prettier manners and better sense. Itwas a moment requiring some little tact, but Mrs. Woodgate was justequal to it. 

"Hugh, how rude of you!" she exclaimed, with only the suspicion of asmile. "You forget that it's your duty to be friendly with everybody;there's no such obligation on anybody else. "

"I should be friendly with Mr. Steel, " said Hugh, "duty or no duty, after what he has done for the parish. "

And his pleasant honest face and smile did away with the necessity for aset apology. 

"I must say, " added his wife to her visitor, "that it's the same withme, you know. "

There was a pause. 

"Then you intend to call upon her?" said Mrs. Venables, coming withdirectness to an obviously premeditated point. 

"I do--I must--it is so different with us, " said the vicar's young wife, with her pretty brown blush. 

"Certainly, " added the vicar himself, with dogmatic emphasis. 

Mrs. Venables did not look at him, but she looked the harder at Mornainstead. 

"Well, " said she, "I suppose you are right. In your position--yes--yourposition is quite different!" And the sudden, half accidental turn ofher sentence put Mrs. Venables on good terms with herself once more; andso she rose all smiles and velvet. "No, not even half a cup; but it wasreally quite delicious; and I hope you'll come and see me soon, and tellme all about her. At his age!" she whispered as she went. "Atsixty-five--if he's a day!"

A stranger would have imagined that this lady had quite decided not tocall upon the newcomer herself; even Mrs. Woodgate was uncertain of herneighbor's intention as the latter's wheels ground the Vicarage driveonce more, and she and her husband were left alone. 

"It will depend upon the county, " said she; "and Mrs. Venables is notthe county pure and simple, she's half Northborough still, and she'lltake her cue from the Invernesses and the Uniackes. But I do believeshe's been round the whole country-side, getting people to say theywon't call; as if it mattered to a man like Mr. Steel, or any woman heis likely to have chosen. Still, it is mysterious, isn't it? But whatbusiness of ours, as you say? Only, dear, you needn't have said it quiteso pointedly. Of course I'll call as soon as I can in decency; she maylet me be of use to her. Oh, bother Mrs. Venables! If she doesn't call, no doubt many others won't; you must remember that he has neverentertained as yet. Oh, what a dance they could give! And did you hearwhat she said about his age? He is sixty-five, now!"

The vicar laughed. It was his habit to let his young wife rattle on whenthey were alone, and even lay down the law for him to her heart'scontent; but, though fifteen years her senior, and never a vivaciousman himself, there was much in their life that he saw in the same lightas she did, though never quite so soon. 

"Sixty-five!" he suddenly repeated, with a fresh chuckle; "and lastyear, when Sybil was thought to be in the running--poor Sybil, how wellshe took it!--last year her mother told me she knew for a fact he wasnot a day more than five-and-forty! Poor Steel, too! He has done forthem both in that quarter, I am afraid. And now, " added Hugh, in hismatter-of-fact way, as though they had been discussing theology all thistime, "I must go back to my sermon if I am to get it done to-night. "

CHAPTER X

A SLIGHT DISCREPANCY

Mrs. Woodgate paid the promised call a few days later, walking brisklyby herself along the woodland path that made it no distance from MarleyVicarage to Normanthorpe House, and cutting a very attractive figureamong the shimmering lights and shadows of the trees. She was rathertall, and very straight, with the pale brown skin and the dark browneye, which, more especially when associated with hair as light as MornaWoodgate's, go to make up one of the most charming and distinctive typesof English womanhood. Morna, moreover, took a healthy interest in herown appearance, and had not only the good taste to dress well, but thegood sense not to dress too well. Her new coat and skirt had just comehome, and, fawn-colored like herself, they fitted and suited her toequal perfection. Morna thought that she might even go to church in thecoat and skirt, now and again during the summer, and she had a brownstraw hat with fine feathers of the lighter shade which she madepeculiarly her own; but this she had discarded as too grand for aninformal call, for Hugh had been summoned to a sick-bed at the lastmoment, and might be detained too late to follow. But the Steels hadbeen back two days, and Morna could not wait another hour. 

She was certainly consumed with curiosity; but that was not the onlyfeeling which Mrs. Woodgate entertained towards the lady who was to be anearer neighbor of her own sex and class than any she could count asyet. On the class question Morna had no misgivings; nevertheless, shewas prepared for a surprise. Both she and her husband had seen a gooddeal of Mr. Steel. Morna had perhaps seen the best of him, since she wasat once young and charming, and not even an unwilling and personallyinnocent candidate for his hand, like honest Sybil Venables. Yet Mornaherself was not more attracted than repelled by the inscrutablepersonality of this rich man dropped from the clouds, who had never aword to say about his former life, never an anecdote to tell, never anadventure to record, and of whom even Mrs. Venables had not the courageto ask questions. What sort of woman would such a man marry, and whatsort of woman would marry such a man? Morna asked herself the onequestion after the other, almost as often as she set her right foot infront of her left; but she was not merely inquisitive in the matter, shehad a secret and instinctive compassion for the woman who had done thisthing. 

"She will not have a soul to call her own, poor thing!" thought Morna, as indignantly as though the imaginary evil was one of the worst thatcould befall; for the vicar's wife had her little weaknesses, not by anymeans regarded as such by herself; and this was one of the last thingsthat could have been said about her, or that she would have cared tohear. 

The woodland path led at last into the long avenue, and there wasNormanthorpe House at the end of the vista; an Italian palacetransplanted into the north of England, radiantly white between thegreen trees and blue sky, with golden cupola burning in the sun; perhapsthe best specimen extant to mark a passing fashion in Georgianarchitecture, but as ill-suited to the Delverton district as anumbrella-tent to the North Pole. A cool grotto on a really hot day, thehouse was an ice-pit on any other; or so Mrs. Woodgate fancied, freshfrom the cosey Vicarage, and warm from her rapid walk, as she steppedinto another temperature, across polished marble that struck a chillthrough the soles of her natty brown shoes, and so into the loftydrawing-room with pilasters and elaborate architraves to the doors. Whata place for a sane man to build in bleak old Delverton, even beforethere was any Northborough to blacken and foul the north-east wind onits way from the sea! What a place for a sane man to buy; and yet, inits cool white smoothness, its glaring individuality, its alien air--howlike the buyer!

Though it was May, and warm enough for the month and place, Morna got upwhen the footman had left her, and thrust one brown shoe after the otheras near as she could to the wood fire that glimmered underneath thegreat, ornate, marble mantelpiece. Then she sat down again, and wonderedwhat to say; for Morna was at once above and below the conversationalaverage of her kind. Soon she was framing a self-conscious apology forpremature intrusion--Mrs. Steel was so long in coming. But at last therewas a rustle in the conservatory, and a slender figure in a big hatstood for an instant on the threshold. 

That was Morna's first impression of the new mistress of Normanthorpe, and it was never erased from her mind; a slender silhouette in anenormous hat, the light all behind her, the pilastered doorway for aframe, a gay background of hothouse flowers, and in the figure itself anervous hesitancy which struck an immediate chord of sympathy in Morna. She also was shy; the touch of imperfect nature was mutually discernibleand discerned; and the two were kin from the meeting of their hands. 

Morna began her apology, nevertheless; but Rachel cut it very short. "Mydear Mrs. Woodgate, I think it is so kind of you!" she exclaimed, herlow voice full of the frankest gratitude; and Morna was surprised at thetime; it was as though she were the rich man's wife, and Mrs. Steel thevicar's. 

They sat a little, talking of the time of year; and it was some minutesbefore Morna really saw her new neighbor's face, what with her great hatand the position of the chair which Mrs. Steel selected. And for thesefew minutes, after that first frank speech, the greater constraint wason the part of the hostess; then all at once she seemed to throw it off, rising impulsively, as though the great high room, with the Italiantiles and the garish gilt furniture, struck the same chill to her as toMorna before her. 

"Come round the garden, " said Rachel, quickly. "I am delighted with thegarden, and I think it's really warmer than the house. "

Delightful it certainly was, or rather they, for the Normanthorpegardens were never spoken of in the singular number by those familiarwith their fame; they had been reconstructed and enlarged by a dead dukewith a fad for botany, and kept up by successors who could not endurethe cold, uncomfortable house. It was said to have been a similar tastein Mr. Steel which had first attracted him to the place; but as he neverconfirmed or contradicted anything that was said of him, and would onlysmile when a rumor reached his ears, there was no real foundation forthe report. 

The ducal botanist had left behind him the rarest collection of plantsand trees, and a tradition in scientific gardening which had not beenallowed to die; it was neglected Normanthorpe that had loaded the tablesand replenished the greenhouses of seats more favored by the family; andall this was the more wonderful as a triumph of art over some naturaldisadvantages in the way of soil and climate. The Normanthorpe roses, famous throughout the north of England, were as yet barely budding inthe kindless wind; the blaze of early bulbs was over; but there were thecurious alien trees, and the ornamental waters haunted by outlandishwildfowl, bred there on the same principle of acclimatization. 

"I expect you know the way quite well, " said Rachel, as they followed awinding path over a bank of rhododendrons near the lake; "to me everystroll is still a voyage of exploration, and I shall be rather sorrywhen I begin to know exactly what I am going to see next. Now, I havenever been this way before, and have no idea what is coming, so you musttell me, if you know. What a funny scent! I seem to know it, too. Why, what have they got here?"

On the further side of the bank of rhododendrons the path had descendedinto a sheltered hollow, screened altogether from the colder winds, and, even in this temperate month of May, a very trap for the afternoon sun. And in this hollow was a clump of attenuated trees, with drooping leavesof a lacklustre hue, and a white bark peeling from the trunk; a pungentaroma, more medicinal than sylvan, hung rather heavily over thesequestered spot. 

Rachel stood a moment with wide nostrils and round eyes; the look hardlylasted longer, and she said no more, but she was aware that Morna hadmade some answer to her question. 

"What did you say?" inquired Rachel, turning politely to her visitor. 

"I said they were blue gums from Australia. "

Rachel made no immediate comment; secretive she might have to be, butto a deliberate pretence she would not stoop. So she did not even say, "Indeed!" but merely, after a pause, "You are something of a botanistyourself, then, Mrs. Woodgate?" For they had been talking of the gardensand of their history as they walked. 

"I?" laughed Morna. "I only wish I was; but I happen to remember Mr. Steel telling me that one day when we were here last summer. "

Rachel opened her eyes again, and her lips with them; but instead ofspeaking she went to the nearest gum-tree and picked a spray of thelacklustre leaves. "I like the smell of them, " she said, as they wenton; and the little incident left no impression upon Morna's mind. 

Yet presently she perceived that Mrs. Steel had some color after all--atthe moment Rachel happened to be smelling her gum-leaves--and that shewas altogether prettier than Morna had fancied hitherto. The fact wasthat it was her first good look at Rachel, who had kept her back to thelight indoors, and had literally led the way along the narrow paths, while her large hat had supplied a perpetual shadow of its own. It was apathetic habit, which had become second nature with Rachel during thelast six months; but now, for once, it was forgotten, and her faceraised unguardedly to the sun, which painted it in its true and sweetcolors, to Morna's surprise and real delight. The vicar's wife was oneof those healthy-hearted young women who are the first to admire theirown sex; she had very many friends among women, for whom marriage hadnot damped an enthusiasm which she hid from no one but themselves; andshe was to be sufficiently enthusiastic about the thin but perfect ovalof Rachel's face, the soft, sweet hazel of her eyes, the impetuous upperlip and the brave lower one, as she saw them now for an instant in theafternoon sun. 

Moreover, she was already interested in Rachel on her own account, andnot only as the wife of the mysterious Mr. Steel. There was an undoubtedair of mystery about her also; but that might only be derived from him, and with all her reserve she could not conceal a sweet and sympatheticself from one as like her in that essential as they were different inall others. Not that the reserve was all on one side. Morna Woodgate hadher own secrets too. One of them, however, was extracted during theirstroll. 

"May I make a personal remark?" asked Rachel, who had been admiring thepale brown face of Morna in her turn, as they came slowly back to thehouse across the lawns. 

"You frighten me, " said Morna, laughing. "But let me hear the worst. "

"It's the ribbon on your hat, " went on Rachel. "What pretty colors! Arethey your husband's school or college?"

"No, " said Morna, blushing as she laughed again. "No, they're my owncollege colors. "

Rachel stood still on the grass. 

"Have you really been at college?" said she; but her tone was soobviously one of envy that Morna, who was delightfully sensitive abouther learning, did not even think of the short answer which she sometimesreturned to the astonished queries of the intellectually vulgar, butadmitted the impeachment with another laugh. 

"Now, don't say you wouldn't have thought it of me, " she added, "anddon't say you would!"

"I am far too jealous to say anything at all, " Rachel answered with aflattering stare. "And do you mean to tell me that you took a degree?"

"Of sorts, " admitted Morna, whose spoken English was by no meansundefiled. But it turned out to have been a mathematical degree; andwhen, under sympathetic pressure, Morna vouchsafed particulars, evenRachel knew enough to appreciate the honors which the vicar's wife hadwon. What was more difficult to understand was how so young a woman ofsuch distinguished attainments could be content to hide her light underthe bushel of a country vicarage; and Rachel could not resist someexpression of her wonderment on that point. 

"Did you do nothing with it all, " she asked, "before you married?"

"No, " said Morna; "you see, I got engaged in the middle of it, and theweek after the lists came out we were married. "

"What a career to have given up!"

"I would give it up again, " said Morna, with a warmer blush; and Rachelwas left with a deeper envy. 

"I am afraid we shall have nothing in common, " sighed Mrs. Steel, asthey neared the house. "I have no education worthy the name. "

Morna waxed all but indignant at the implication; she had a morbidhorror of being considered a "blue-stocking, " which she revealed withmuch girlish naïveté and unconscious simplicity of sentiment and praise. She was not so narrow as all that; she had had enough of learning; shehad forgotten all that she had learnt; any dolt could be crammed to passexaminations. On the contrary, she was quite sure they would have heapsin common; for example, she was longing for some one to bicycle with;her husband seldom had the time, and he did not care for her to go quitealone in the country roads. 

"But I don't bicycle, " said Mrs. Steel, shaking her head rather sadly. 

"Ah, I forgot! People who ride and drive never do. " And it was Morna'sturn to sigh. 

"No, I should like it; but I have never tried. "

"I'll teach you!" cried Morna at once. "What fun it will be!"

"I should enjoy it, I know. But--"

The sentence was abandoned--as was often the case in the subsequentintercourse between Rachel Steel and Morna Woodgate. From the beginning, Rachel was apt to be more off her guard with Morna than with any onewhom she had met during the last six months; and, from the beginning, she was continually remembering and stopping herself in a manner thatwould have irritated Morna in anybody else. But then--yet again, fromthe beginning--these two were natural and immediate friends. 

"You must learn, " urged Morna, when she had waited some time for thesentence which had but begun. "There are people who scorn it--orpretend to--but I am sure you are not one. It may not be the finestform of exercise, but wait till you fly down these hills with your feeton the rests! And then you are so independent; no horses to consider, nocoachman to consult; only your own bones and your own self! Theindependence alone--"

"May be the very thing for you, Mrs. Woodgate, but it wouldn't do for mywife!"

Mr. Steel had stolen a silent march upon them, on the soft, smoothgrass; and now he was taking off his straw hat to Morna, and smilingwith all urbanity as he held out his hand. But Morna had seen how hiswife started at the sound of his voice, and her greeting was a littlecool. 

"I meant the bicycling, " he was quick enough to add; "not theindependence, of course!"

But there was something sinister in his smile, something quite sinisterand yet not unkindly, that vexed and puzzled Morna during the remainderof her visit, which she cut somewhat short on perceiving that Mr. Steelhad apparently no intention of leaving them to their own devices aftertea. Morna, however, would have been still more puzzled, and her spiritnot less vexed, had she heard the first words between the newly marriedcouple after she had gone. 

"What's that you have got?" asked Steel, as they turned back up thedrive, after seeing Morna to her woodland path. Rachel was stillcarrying her spray of gum-leaves; he must have noticed it before, butthis was the first sign that he had done so. She said at once what itwas, and why she had pulled it from the tree. 

"It took me back to Victoria; and, you know, I was born there. "

Steel looked narrowly at his wife, a hard gleam in his inscrutable eyes, and yet a lurking sympathy too, nor was there anything but the latter inthe tone and tenor of his reply. 

"I don't forget, " he said, "and I think I can understand; but neithermust you forget that I offered to take you back there. So that's a sprigof gum-tree, is it?"

Rachel gave him a sudden glance, which for once he missed, beingabsorbed in a curious examination of the leaves. 

"Did you never see one before?" she asked. 

"A gum-tree?" said Steel, without looking up, as he sniffed andscrutinized. "Never in all my life--to my knowledge!"

CHAPTER XI

ANOTHER NEW FRIEND

The country folk did call upon the Steels, as indeed, they couldscarcely fail to do, having called on him already as a bachelor the yearbefore. Nor were the Uniackes and the Invernesses the bell-wethers ofthe flock. Those august families had returned to London for the season;but the taboo half-suggested by Mrs. Venables had begun and ended in herown mind. Indeed, that potent and diplomatic dame, who was the undoubtedleader of society within a four-mile radius of Northborough town hall, was the first to recognize the mistake that she had made, and to behaveas though she had never made it. Quite early in June, the Steels werebidden to a dinner-party in their honor at Upthorpe Hall. 

"Mrs. Venables!" cried Rachel, in dismay. "Is that the gushing womanwith the quiet daughters who called last Thursday?"

"That is the lady, " said Steel, a gleam of humor in his grim eyes. Henever expressed an opinion to his wife about any one of theirneighbors, but when she let fall an impression of her own, he wouldlook at her in this way, as though it was the very one that he hadformed for himself a year ago. 

"But need we go?" asked Rachel, with open apprehension. 

"I think so, " he said. "Why not?"

"A dinner-party, of all things! There is no cover at the dinner-table;you can't even wear a hat; you must sit there in a glare for hours andhours!" And Rachel shuddered. "Oh, don't let us go!" she urged; but hertone was neither pathetic nor despairing; though free from the faintestaccent of affection, it was, nevertheless, the tone of a woman who hasnot always been denied. 

"I am afraid we must go, " he said firmly, but not unkindly. "You see, itis in our honor--as I happen to know; for Venables gave me a hint when Imet him in the town the other day. He will take you in himself. "

"And what is he like?"

"Fond of his dinner; he won't worry you, " said Steel, reassuringly. "Norneed you really bother your head about all that any more. Nobody hasrecognized you yet; nobody is in the least likely to do so down here. Don't you see how delightfully provincial they are? There's a locallawyer, a pillar of all the virtues, who has misappropriated his owndaughter-in-law's marriage portion and fled the country with theprincipal boy in their last pantomime; there are a lot of smart youngfellows who are making a sporting thousand every other day out of ironwarrants; the district's looking up after thirty years' bad times; andthis is the sort of thing it's talking about. These are its heroes andits villains. All you hear from London is what the last man spent whenhe was up, and where he dined; and from all I can gather, the Tichbornetrial made less impression down here than that of a Delverton parson whogot into trouble about the same time. "

"They must have heard of my trial, " said Rachel, in a low voice. Theywere walking in the grounds after breakfast, but she looked round beforespeaking at all. 

"They would glance at it, " said Steel, with a shrug; "an occasionalschoolboy might read it through; but even if you were guilty, and werehere on view, you would command much less attention than the localmalefactor in an infinitely smaller way. I am sorry I put it quite likethat, " added Steel, as Rachel winced, "but I feel convinced about it, and only wish I could convince you. "

And he did so, more or less; but the fear of recognition had increasedin Rachel, instead of abating, as time went on. It had increasedespecially since the rapid ripening of her acquaintance with MornaWoodgate into the intimacy which already subsisted between the two youngwives. Rachel had told her husband that she would not have Morna knowfor anything; and he had appeared in his own dark way to sympathize witha solicitude which was more actual than necessary; but that was perhapsbecause he approved of Mrs. Woodgate on his own account. And so rare wasthat approval, as a positive and known quantity, yet so marked in thiscase, that he usually contrived to share Morna's society with his wife. 

"You shall not monopolize Mrs. Woodgate, " he would say with all urbanityas he joined them when least expected. "I was first in the field, youknow!"

And in the field he would remain. There were no commands, no wishes toobey in the matter, no embargo upon the comings and goings between thetwo new friends. But Mr. Steel invariably appeared upon the scene aswell. The good vicar attributed it to the elderly bridegroom's jealousinfatuation for his beautiful young bride; but Morna knew better fromthe first. 

"Are you going?" asked Rachel, eagerly, when she and Morna met again;indeed, she had gone expressly to the Vicarage to ask the question; andnot until she had seen the Woodgates' invitation could Steel himselfinduce her to answer theirs. 

The Woodgates were going. Morna was already in alternate fits of despairand of ideas about her dress. 

"I wish I might dress you!" said Rachel, knowing her well enough alreadyto say that. "I have wardrobes full of them, and yet my husband insistsupon taking me up to London to get something fit to wear!"

"But not necessarily on your back!" cried Steel himself, appearing atthat moment in his usual way, warm, breathless, but only playfully putout. "My dear Mrs. Woodgate, I must have a special wire between yourhouse and ours. One thing, however, I always know where to find her! Didshe tell you we go by the 12:55 from Northborough?"

It was something to wear upon her neck--a diamond necklet of superbstones, gradually swelling to one of the first water at the throat; andRachel duly wore it at the dinner-party, with a rich gown of bridalwhite, whose dazzling purity had perhaps the effect of cancelling thebride's own pallor. But she was very pale. It was her first appearanceat a gathering of the kind, not only there in Delverton, but anywhereat all since her second marriage. And the invitation had been of thecorrect, most ample length; it had had time to wind itself aboutRachel's nerves. 

Mr. Venables, who of course did take her in, by no means belied herhusband's description of him; he was a rotund man with a highcomplexion, and his bulging eye was on the menu before his soft body hadsunk into his chair. His conversation proved limited, but strictly tothe point; he told Rachel what to eat, and once or twice what to avoid;lavished impersonal praise upon one dish, impartial criticisms uponanother, and only spoke between the courses. It was a largedinner-party; twenty-two sat down. Rachel was at last driven to glancingat the other twenty. 

To the man on her left she had not been introduced, but he had offeredone or two civil observations while Mr. Venables was better engaged;and, after the second, Rachel had chanced to catch sight of the cardupon which his name had been inscribed. He was, it seemed, a Mr. Langholm; and all at once Rachel leant back and looked at him. He was aloose-limbed, round-shouldered man, with a fine open countenance, and agreat disorderly moustache; his hair might have been shorter, and hisdress-coat shone where it caught the light. Rachel put the screw uponher courage. 

"These cards, " she said, with a glimpse of her own colonial self, "arevery handy when one hasn't been introduced. Your name is not verycommon, is it?"

"Not very, " he answered, "spelt like that. "

"Yes it's spelt the same way as the Mr. Langholm who writes. "

"It is. "

"Then are you any relation?"

"I am the man himself, " said Langholm, with quite a hearty laugh, accompanied by a flush of pleasurable embarrassment. He was not aparticularly popular writer, and this did not happen to him every day. 

"I hoped you were, " said Rachel, as she helped herself to the first_entrée_. 

"Then you haven't read my books, " he chuckled, "and you never must. "

"But I have, " protested Rachel, quite flushed in her turn by the smallexcitement. "I read heaps of them in Tauchnitz when we were abroad. ButI had no idea that I should ever meet you in the flesh!"

"Really?" he said. "Then that's funnier still; but I suppose Mr. Steeldidn't want to frighten you. We saw quite a lot of each other last year;he wrote to me from Florence before you came over; and I should havepaid my respects long ago, but I have been up in town, and only justcome back. "

The flush had died out of Rachel's face. Her husband told hernothing--nothing! In her indignation she was tempted to say so to thestranger; she had to think a moment what to say instead. A falsehood ofany sort was always a peculiar difficulty to Rachel, a constitutionalaversion, and it cost her an effort to remark at last that it was verystupid of her, she had quite forgotten, but now she remembered--ofcourse! And with that she turned to her host, who was offering anobservation across his empty plate. 

"Strange thing, Mrs. Steel, but you can't get the meat in the countrythat you can in town. Those fillets, now--I wish you could taste 'em atmy club; but we give our chef a thousand a year, and he drives up everyday in his brougham. "

The novels of Charles Langholm were chiefly remarkable for theirintricate plots, and for the hope of better things that breathed throughthe cheap sensation of the best of them. But it was a hope that had beendeferred a good many years. His manner was better than his matter;indeed, an incongruous polish was said by the literary to preventLangholm from being a first favorite either with the great public or thelittle critics. As a maker of plots, however, he still had humblepoints; and Rachel assured him that she had burnt her candle all nightin order to solve one of his ingenious mysteries. 

"What!" he cried; "you call yourself a lady, and you don't look at theend before you reach it?"

"Not when it's a good book. "

"Well, you have pitched on about the best of a bad lot; and it's asatisfaction to know you didn't cut the knot it took some months totie. "

Rachel was greatly interested. She had never before met a literary man;had no idea how the trick was done; and she asked many of thoseingenuous questions which seldom really displease the average gentlemanof this type. When not expatiating upon the heroine whom the exigenciesof "serial rights" demanded in his books, Charles Langholm, the talkerand the man, was an unmuzzled misogynist. But nobody would havesuspected it from his answers to Rachel's questions, or from any portionof their animated conversation. Certainly the aquiline lady whomLangholm had taken in, and to whom he was only attentive by remorsefulfits and penitential starts, had not that satisfaction; for herright-hand neighbor did not speak to her at all. There was thus oneclose and critical follower of a conversation which without warning tookthe one dramatic turn for which Rachel was forever on her guard; onlythis once, in an hour of unexpected entertainment, was she not. 

"How do I get my plots?" said Langholm. "Sometimes out of my head, asthey say in the nursery; occasionally from real life; more often a blendof the two combined. You don't often get a present from the newspaperthat you can lift into a magazine more or less as it stands. Facts arestubborn things; they won't serialize. But now and then there's a case. There was one a little time ago. Oh, there was a great case not longsince, if we had but the man to handle it, without spoiling it, inEnglish fiction!"

"And what was that?"

"The Minchin case!"

And he looked straight at her, as one only looks at one's neighbor attable when one is saying or hearing something out of the common; heturned half round, and he looked in Rachel's face with the smile of anartist with a masterpiece in his eye. It was an inevitable moment, comeat last when least expected; instinct, however, had prepared Rachel, just one moment before; and after all she could stare coldly on hisenthusiasm, without a start or a tremor to betray the pose. 

"Yes?" she said, her fine eyebrows raised a little. "And do you reallythink that would make a book?"

It was characteristic of Rachel that she did not for a moment--even thatunlooked-for moment--pretend to be unfamiliar with the case. 

"Don't you?" he asked. 

"I haven't thought about it, " said Rachel, looking pensively at theflowers. "But surely it was a very sordid case?"

"The case!" he cried. "Yes, sordid as you like; but I don't mean thecase at all. "

"Then what do you mean, Mr. Langholm?"

"Her after life, " he whispered; "the psychology of that woman, and hersubsequent adventures! She disappeared into thin air immediately afterthe trial. I suppose you knew that?"

"I did hear it. "

Rachel moistened her lips with champagne. 

"Well, I should take her from that moment, " said Langholm. "I shouldstart her story there. "

"And should you make her guilty or not guilty?"

"Ah!" said Langholm, as though that would require consideration;unluckily, he paused to consider on the spot. 

"Who are you talking about?" inquired Mr. Venables, who had caughtRachel's last words. 

"Mrs. Minchin, " she told him steadily. 

"Guilty!" cried Mr. Venables, with great energy. "Guilty, and I'd havegone to see her hanged myself!"

And Mr. Venables beamed upon Rachel as though proud of the sentiment, while the diamonds rose and fell upon her white neck, where he wouldhave had the rope. 

"A greater scandal, " he went on, both to Rachel and to the lady on hisother side (who interrupted Mr. Venables to express devout agreement), "a greater scandal and miscarriage of justice I have never known. Guilty? Of course she was guilty; and I only wish we could try her againand hang her yet! Now don't pretend you sympathize with a woman likethat, " he said to Rachel, with a look like a nudge; "you haven't beenmarried long enough; and for Heaven's sake don't refuse that bird! It'sthe best that can be got this time of year, though that's not sayingmuch; but wait till the grouse season, Mrs. Steel! I have a moor here inthe dales, keep a cellar full of them, and eat 'em as they drop off thestring. "

"Well?" said Rachel, turning to Langholm when her host became a busyman once more. 

"I should make her guilty, " said the novelist; "and she would marry aman who believed in her innocence, and he wouldn't care two pins whenshe told him the truth in the last chapter, and they would live happilyever afterwards. Nobody would touch the serial rights. But that would bea book!"

"Then do you think she really was guilty?"

And Rachel waited while he shrugged, her heart beating for no goodreason that she knew, except that she rather liked Mr. Langholm, and didnot wish to cease liking him on the spot. But it was to him that theanswer was big with fate; and he trifled and dallied with the issue ofthe moment, little dreaming what a mark it was to leave upon his life, while the paradox beloved of the literary took shape on his tongue. 

"What does it matter what she was? What do the facts matter, Mrs. Steel, when one has an idea like that for fiction? Fiction is truer than fact!"

"But you haven't answered my question. "

Rachel meant to have that answer. 

"Oh, well, as a matter of fact, I read the case pretty closely, and Iwas thankful the jury brought in an acquittal. It required a littleimagination, but the truth always does. It is no treason to our host towhisper that he has none. I remember having quite a heated argument withhim at the time. Oh, dear, no; she was no more guilty than you or I; butit would be a thousand times more artistic if she were; and I shouldmake her so, by Jove!"

Rachel finished heir dinner in great tranquillity after this; but therewas a flush upon her face which had not been there before, and Langholmreceived an astonishing smile when the ladies rose. He had been makingtardy atonement for his neglect of the aquiline lady, but Rachel had thelast word with him. 

"You will come and see us, won't you?" she said. "I shall want to hearhow the plot works out. "

"I am afraid it's one I can't afford to use, " he said, "unless I stickto foolish fact and make her innocent. "

And she left him with a wry face, her own glowing again. 

"You looked simply great--especially towards the end, " whispered MornaWoodgate in the drawing-room, for she alone knew how nervous Rachel hadbeen about what was indeed her social debut in Delverton. 

The aquiline lady also had a word to say. Her eyes were like brownbeads, and her nose very long, which gave her indeed a hawk-likeappearance, somewhat unusual in a woman; but her gravity was rather thatof the owl. 

"You talked a great deal to Mr. Langholm, " said she, sounding her rebukerather cleverly in the key of mere statement of fact. "Have you read hisbooks, Mrs. Steel?"

"Some of them, " said Rachel; "haven't you?"

"Oh, no, I never read novels, unless it be George Eliot, or in thesedays Mrs. Humphrey Ward. It's such waste of time when there areBrowning, Ruskin, and Carlyle to read and read again. I know I shouldn'tlike Mr. Langholm's; I am sure they are dreadfully uncultured andsensational. "

"But I like sensation, " Rachel said. "I like to be taken out of myself. "

"So you suggested he should write a novel about Mrs. Minchin!"

"No, I didn't suggest it, " said Rachel, hurriedly; but the beady browneyes were upon her, and she felt herself reddening horribly as shespoke. 

"You seemed to know all about her, " said the aquiline lady. "I'm not inthe habit of reading such cases. But I must really look this one up. "

CHAPTER XII

EPISODE OF THE INVISIBLE VISITOR

That was something like a summer, as the saying is, and for once theycould say it even on the bleak northern spurs of the Delverton Hills. There were days upon days when that minor chain looked blue and noble asthe mountains of Alsace and hackneyed song, seen with an envious eyefrom the grimy outskirts of Northborough, and when from the hillsthemselves the only blot upon the fair English landscape was the pall ofsmoke that always overhung the town. On such days Normanthorpe Housejustified its existence in the north of England instead of in southernItaly; the marble hall, so chill to the tread at the end of May, was theone really cool spot in the district by the beginning of July; andnowhere could a more delightful afternoon be spent by those who cared toavail themselves of a general invitation. 

The Steels had not as yet committed themselves to formal hospitality ofthe somewhat showy character that obtained in the neighborhood, but theykept open house for all who liked to come, and whom they themselvesliked well enough to ask in the first instance. And here (as in someother matters) this curious pair discovered a reflex identity of taste, rare enough in the happiest of conventional couples, but a gratuitousirony in the makers of a merely nominal marriage. Their mutual feelingstowards each other were a quantity unknown to either; but about a thirdperson they were equally outspoken and unanimous. Thus they had fewerdisagreements than many a loving couple, and perhaps more points ofinsignificant contact, while all the time there was not even thepretence of love between them. Their lives made a chasm bridged bythreads. 

This was not seen by more than two of their acquaintance. Morna Woodgatehad both the observation and the opportunities to see a little how theland lay between them. Charles Langholm had the experience and theimagination to guess a good deal. But it was little enough that Mornasaw, and Langholm's guesses were as wide of the mark as only the guessesof an imaginative man can be. As for all the rest--honest Hugh Woodgate, the Venables girls, and their friends the young men in the variousworks, who saw the old-fashioned courtesy with which Steel alwaystreated his wife, and the grace and charm of her consideration forhim--they were every one receiving a liberal object lesson in matrimony, as some of them even realized at the time. 

"I wish I could learn to treat my wife as Steel does his, " sighed thegood vicar, once when he had been inattentive at the table, and Mornahad rebuked him in fun. "That would be my ideal--if I wasn't too old tolearn!"

"Then thank goodness you are, " rejoined his wife. "Let me catch youdancing in front of me to open the doors, Hugh, and I shall keep my eyeon you as I've never kept it yet!"

But Rachel herself did not dislike these little graces, partly becausethey were not put on to impress an audience, but were an incident oftheir private life as well; and partly because they stimulated a studyto which she had only given herself since their return to England andtheir establishment at Normanthorpe House. This was her study of the manwho was still calmly studying her; she was returning the compliment atlast. 

And of his character she formed by degrees some remote conception; hewas Steel by name and steel by nature, as the least observant mightdiscern, and the least witty remark; a grim inscrutability was hisdominant note; he was darkly alert, mysteriously vigilant, a measurerof words, a governor of glances; and yet, with all his self-mastery andmastery of others, there were human traits that showed themselves fromtime to time as the months wore on. Rachel did not recognize among thesethat studious consideration which she could still appreciate; it seemedrather part of a preconceived method of treating his wife, and the waryeye gleamed through it all. But it has been mentioned that Rachel at onetime had a voice, of which high hopes had been formed by inexperiencedjudges. It was only at Normanthorpe that her second husband became awareof her possession, one afternoon when she fancied that she had the houseto herself. So two could play at the game of consistent concealment! Hecould not complain; it was in the bond, and he never said a word. But hestood outside the window till she was done, for Rachel saw him in amirror, and for many an afternoon to come he would hover outside thesame window at the same time. 

Why had he married her? Did he care for her, or did he not? What couldbe the object of that extraordinary step? Rachel was as far from hittingupon a feasible solution of these mysteries as she was from penetratingthe deeper one of his own past life. Sometimes she put the likequestions to herself; but they were more easily answered. She had beenin desperate straits, in reckless despair; even if her second marriagehad turned out no better than her first, she could not have been worseoff than she was on the night of her acquittal; but she had been verywell off ever since. Then there had been the incentive of adventure, thefascination of that very mystery which was a mystery still. Andthen--yes!--there had been the compelling will of a nature infinitelystronger than her own or any other that she had ever known. 

Did she regret this second marriage, this second leap in the dark? No, she could not honestly pretend that she did; yet it had its sufficientlysinister side, its occasional admixture of sheer horror. But this wasonly when the mysteries which encompassed her happened to prey uponnerves unstrung by some outwardly exciting cause; it was then she wouldhave given back all that he had ever given her to pierce the veil of herhusband's past. Here, however, the impulse was more subtle; it was notthe mere consuming curiosity which one in Rachel's position was bound tofeel; it was rather a longing to be convinced that that veil hid nothingwhich should make her shudder to live under the same roof with this man. 

Of one thing she was quite confident; wherever her husband had spent ormisspent his life (if any part of so successful a whole could reallyhave been misspent), it was not in England. He was un-English in ahundred superficial ways--in none that cut deep. With all his essentialcynicism, there was the breadth and tolerance of a travelled man. Cosmopolitan on the other hand, he could not be called; he had provedhimself too poor a linguist in every country that they had visited. Itwas only now, in their home life, that Rachel received hints of thetruth, and it filled her with vague alarms, for that seemed to her to bethe last thing he need have kept to himself. 

One day she saw him ride a fractious horse, not because he was fond ofriding, but because nobody in the stables could cope with this animal. Steel tamed it in ten minutes. But a groom remarked upon the shortnessof his stirrups, in Rachel's hearing, and on the word a flash of memorylit up her brain. All at once she remembered the incident of thegum-leaves, soon after their arrival; he had told Morna what they were, yet to his wife he had pretended not to know. If he also was anAustralian, why on earth should that fact, of all facts, be concealedfrom her? Nor had it merely been concealed; it was a point upon whichRachel had been deliberately misled, and the only one she could recall. 

She was still brooding over it when a fresh incident occurred, whichserved not only to confirm her suspicions in this regard, but to deepenand intensify the vague horror with which her husband's presencesometimes inspired her. 

Mr. Steel was an exceptionally early riser. It was his boast that henever went to sleep a second time; and one of his nearest approaches toa confidence was the remark that he owed something to that habit. NowRachel, who was a bad sleeper, kept quite a different set of hours, andwas seldom seen outside her own rooms before the forenoon. Onemagnificent morning, however, she was tempted to dress and make the bestof the day which she had watched breaking shade by shade. The lawns weregray with dew; the birds were singing as they never sing twice in onesummer's day. Rachel thought that for once she would like to be up andout before the sun was overpowering. And she proceeded to fulfil herwish. 

All had been familiar from the window; all was unfamiliar on the landingand the stairs. No one had been down; the blinds were all drawn; a clockticked like a sledge-hammer in the hall. Rachel ran downstairs like amouse, and almost into the arms of her husband, whom she met coming outof the dining-room with a loaded tray. Another would have dropped it;with Steel there was not so much as a rattle of the things, but hiscolor changed, and Rachel had not yet had such a look as he gave herwith his pursed mouth and his flashing eyes. 

"What does this mean?" he demanded, in the tone of distant thunder, withlittle less than lightning in his glance. 

"I think that's for me to ask, " laughed Rachel, standing up to him witha nerve that surprised herself. "I didn't know that you began so early!"

A decanter and a glass were among the things upon the tray. 

"And I didn't know it of you, " he retorted. "Why are you up?"

Rachel told him the simple truth in simple fashion. His tone of voicedid not hurt her; there was no opposite extreme of tenderness to call tomind for the contrast which inflicts the wound. On the other hand, therewas a certain satisfaction in having for once ruffled that smooth mienand smoother tongue; it was one of her rare glimpses of the real man, but as usual it was a glimpse and nothing more. 

"I must apologize, " said Steel, with an artificiality which was seldomso transparent; "my only excuse is that you startled me out of my temperand my manners. And I was upset to begin with. I have a poor fellow inrather a bad way in the boathouse. "

"Not one of the gardeners, I hope?" queried Rachel; but her kind anxietysubsided in a moment, for his dark eyes were measuring her, his darkmind meditating a lie; and now she knew him well enough to read him thusfar in his turn. 

"No, " replied Steel, deciding visibly against the lie; "no, not one ofour men, or anybody else belonging to these parts; but some unluckytramp, whom I imagine some of our neighbors would have given intocustody forthwith. I found him asleep on the lawn; of course he had nobusiness upon the premises; but he's so far gone that I'm taking himsomething to pull him together before I turn him off. "

"I should have said, " remarked Rachel, thoughtfully, "that tea or coffeewould have been better for him than spirits. "

Steel smiled indulgently across the tray. 

"Most ladies would say the same, " he replied, "but very few men. "

"And why didn't you bring him into the house, " pursued Rachel, lookingher husband very candidly in the face, "instead of taking him all thatway to the lake, and giving yourself so much more trouble than wasnecessary?"

The smile broadened upon Steel's thin lips, perhaps because it hadentirely vanished from his glittering eyes. 

"That, " said he, "is a question you would scarcely ask if you had seenthe poor creature for yourself. I don't intend you to see him; he is arather saddening spectacle, and one of a type for which one can doabsolutely nothing permanent. And now, if you are quite satisfied, Ishall proceed, with your permission, to get rid of him in my own way. "

It was seldom indeed that Steel descended to a display of sarcasm at hiswife's expense, though few people who came much in contact with himescaped an occasional flick from a tongue that could be as bitter as itwas habitually smooth. His last words were therefore as remarkable ashis first; both were exceptions to a rule; and though Rachel moved awaywithout replying, feeling that there was indeed no more to be said, shecould not but dwell upon the matter in her mind. Satisfied she certainlywas not; and yet there was so much mystery between them, so manyinstinctive reservations upon either side, that very little circumstanceof the kind could not carry an ulterior significance, but many must bedue to mere force of habit. 

Rachel hated the condition of mutual secretiveness upon which she hadmarried this man; it was antagonistic to her whole nature; she longed torepudiate it, and to abolish all secrets between them. But there herpride stepped in and closed her lips; and the intolerable thought thatshe would value her husband's confidence more than he would value hers, that she felt drawn to him despite every sinister attribute, would bringhumiliation and self-loathing in its train. It was the truth, however, or, at all events, part of the truth. 

Yet a more unfair arrangement Rachel had been unable to conceive, eversince the fatally reckless moment in which she had acquiesced in thisone. The worst that could be known about her was known to her husbandbefore her marriage; she had nothing else to hide; all concealment ofthe past, as between themselves, was upon his side. But matters werecoming to a crisis in this respect; and, when Rachel deemed it donewith, this incident of the tramp was only just begun. 

It seemed that the servants knew of it, and that it was not Steel whohad originally discovered the sleeping intruder, but an under-gardener, who, seeing his master also up and about, had prudently inquired whatwas to be done with the man before meddling with him. 

"And the master said, 'leave him to me, '" declared Rachel's maid, whowas her informant on the point, as she combed out her mistress'sbeautiful brown hair, before the late breakfast which did away withluncheon when there were no visitors at Normanthorpe. 

"And did he do so?" inquired Rachel, looking with interest into her owneyes in the glass. "Did he leave him to your master?"

"He did that!" replied her maid, a simple Yorkshire wench, whom Rachelherself had chosen in preference to the smart town type. "Catch any on'em not doin what master tells them!"

"Then did John see what happened?"

"No, m'm--because master sent him to see if the chap'd come in at t'lodge gates, or where, and when he got back he was gone, blanket an'all, an' master with him. "

"Blanket and all!" repeated Rachel. "Do you mean to say he had theimpudence to bring a blanket with him?"

"And slept in it!" cried her excited little maid. "John says he foundhim tucked up in a corner of the lawn, out of the wind, behind some o'them shrubs, sound asleep, and lapped round and round in his bluebanket from head to heel. "

Rachel saw her own face change in the glass; but she only asked one morequestion, and that with a smile. 

"Did John say it was a blue blanket, Harris, or did your own imaginationsupply the color?"

"He said it, m'm; faded blue. "

"And pray when did you see John to hear all this?" demanded Rachel, suddenly remembering her responsibility as mistress of this youngdaughter of the soil. 

"Deary me, m'm, " responded the ingenuous Harris, "I didn't see him, notmore than any of the others; he just comed to t' window of t' servants'hall, as we were having our breakfasts, and he told us all at once. Hewas that full of it, was John!"

Rachel asked no more questions; but she was not altogether sorry thatthe matter had already become one of common gossip throughout the house. Meanwhile she made no allusion to it at breakfast, but her observationhad been quickened by the events of the morning, and thus it was thatshe noticed and recognized the narrow blue book which was too long forher husband's breast-pocket, and would show itself as he stooped overhis coffee. It was his check-book, and Rachel had not seen it sincetheir travels. 

That afternoon a not infrequent visitor arrived on his bicycle, to whichwas tied a bouquet of glorious roses instead of a lamp; this was CharlesLangholm, the novelist, who had come to live in Delverton, over twohundred miles from his life-long haunts and the literary market-place, chiefly because upon a happy-go-lucky tour through the district he hadchanced upon what he never tired of calling "the ideal rose-coveredcottage of my dreams, " though also for other reasons unknown inYorkshire. His flat was abandoned before quarter-day, his effectstransplanted at considerable cost, and ever since Langholm had been abigoted countryman, who could not spend a couple of days in town withoutmaking himself offensive on the subject at his club, where he wasnevertheless discreetly vague as to the exact locality of his ruralparadise. Even at the club, however, it was admitted that his work hadimproved almost as much as his appearance; and he put it all down to theroses in which he lived embowered for so many months of the year. Suchwas their profusion that you could have filled a clothes-basket withoutmissing one, and Langholm never visited rich or poor without a littleoffering out of his abundance. 

"They may be coals to Newcastle, " he would say to the Woodgates or theSteels, "but none of your Tyneside collieries are a patch on mine. "

Like most victims of the artistic temperament, the literary Langholm wasa creature of moods; but the very fact of a voluntary visit from him wassufficient guarantee of the humor in which he came, and this afternoonhe was at his best. He had indeed been writing all day, and for manydays past, and was filled with the curious exhilaration whichaccompanies an output too rapid and too continuous to permit a runningsense of the defects. He was a ship with a fair wind, which he valuedthe more for the belts of calms and the adverse weather through which hehad passed and must inevitably pass again; for the moment he was a happyman, though one with no illusion as to the present product of histeeming pen. 

"It is nonsense, " he said to Rachel, in answer to a question from thatnew and sympathetic friend, "but it is not such nonsense as to seemnothing else when one's in the act of perpetrating it, and what more canone want? It had to be done by the tenth of August, and by Jove it willbe! A few weeks ago I didn't think it possible; but the summer hasthawed my ink. "

"Are you sure it isn't Mrs. Steel?" asked one of the Venables girls, who had also ridden over on their bicycles. "I heard you had atremendously literary conversation when you dined with us. "

"We had, indeed!" said Langholm, with enthusiasm. "And Mrs. Steel gaveme one of the best ideas I ever had in my life; that's another reasonwhy I'm racing through this rubbish--to take it in hand. "

It was Sybil to whom he was speaking, but at this point Rachel plungedinto the conversation with the sister, Vera, which required an effort, since the elder Miss Venables was a young lady who had cultivatedlanguor as a sign of breeding and sophistication. Rachel, however, madethe effort with such a will that the talk became general in a moment. 

"I don't know how anybody writes books, " was the elder young lady'ssolitary contribution; her tone added that she did not want to know. 

"Nor I, " echoed Sybil, "especially in a place like this, where nothingever happens. If I wanted to write a novel, I should go to Spain--orSiberia--or the Rocky Mountains--where things do happen, according toall accounts. "

"Young lady, " returned the novelist, a twinkle in his eye, "I hadexactly the same notion when I first began, and I remember what a mucholder hand said to me when I told him I was going down to Cornwall forromantic background. 'Young man, ' said he, 'have you placed a romance inyour mother's backyard yet?' I had not, but I did so at once instead ofgoing to Cornwall, and sounder advice I never had in my life. Material, like charity, begins at home; nor need you suppose that nothing everhappens down here. That is the universal idea of the native about his orher own heath, but I can assure you it isn't the case at all. Only justnow, on my way here, I saw a scene and a character that might have beenlifted bodily out of Bret Harte. "

Sybil Venables clamored for particulars, while her sister resignedherself to further weariness of the flesh. Rachel put down her cup andleant forward with curiously expectant eyes. They were sitting in thecool, square hall, with doors shut or open upon every hand, and thegilded gallery overhead. Statuettes and ferns, all reflected in thehighly polished marble floor, added a theatrical touch which was not outof keeping with a somewhat ornate interior. 

"It was the character, " continued Langholm, "who was making the scene;and a stranger creature I have never seen on English earth. He wore whatI believe they call a Crimean shirt, and a hat like a stage cowboy; andhe informed all passers that he was knocking down his check!"

"What?" cried Rachel and Sybil in one breath, but in curiously differenttones. 

"Knocking down his check, " repeated Langholm. "It's what they do in thefar west or the bush or somewhere--but I rather fancy it's thebush--when they get arrears of wages in a lump in one check. "

"And where did you see all this?" inquired Rachel, whose voice was veryquiet, but her hazel eyes alight with a deeper interest than the storywarranted. 

"At the Packhorse on the York Road. I came that way round for the sakeof the surface and the exercise. "

"And did you see the check?"

"No, I only stopped for a moment, to find out what the excitement wasabout; but the fellow I can see now. You never set eyes on such apirate--gloriously drunk and bearded to the belt. I didn't stop, becausehe was lacing into everybody with a cushion, and the local loafersseemed to like it. "

"What a joke!" cried Sybil Venables. 

"There is no accounting for taste, " remarked her sapient sister. 

"And he was belaboring them with a cushion, did you say?" added Rachel, with the slightest emphasis upon the noun. 

"Well, it looked like one to me, " replied Langholm, "but, on secondthoughts, it was more like a bolster in shape; and now I know what itwas! It has just dawned on me. It looked like a bolster done up in ablanket; but it was the swag that the tramps carry in Australia, withall their earthly goods rolled up in their bedding; and the fellow wasan Australian swagsman, that's what he was!"

"Swagman, " corrected Rachel, instinctively. "And pray what color was theblanket?" she made haste to add. 

"Faded blue. "

And, again from sheer force of instinct, Rachel gave a nod. 

"Were you ever out there, Mrs. Steel?" inquired Langholm, carelessly. "Inever was, but the sort of thing has been done to death in books, and Ionly wonder I didn't recognize it at once. Well, it was the last typeone thought to meet with in broad daylight on an English country road!"

Had Langholm realized that he had put a question which he had nobusiness to put? Had he convicted himself of a direct thoughunpremeditated attempt to probe the mystery of his hostess'santecedents, and were his subsequent observations designed to unsaythat question in effect? If so, there was no such delicacy in the elderMiss Venables, who became quite animated at the sudden change inRachel's face, and at her own perception of the cause. 

"Have you been to Australia, Mrs. Steel?" repeated Vera, looking Rachelfull in the eyes; and she added slyly, "I believe you have!"

There was a moment's pause, and then a crisp step rang upon the marble, as Mr. Steel emerged from his study. 

"Australia, my dear Miss Venables, " said he, "is the one country thatneither my wife nor I have ever visited in our lives, and the last onethat either of us has the least curiosity to see. "

And he took his seat among them with a smile. 

CHAPTER XIII

THE AUSTRALIAN ROOM

It was that discomfort to man, that cruelty to beast, that outrage byunnatural Nature upon all her children--a bitter summer's day. The windwas in the east; great swollen clouds wallowed across the sky, nowwithout a drop, now breaking into capricious showers of stinging rain;and a very occasional burst of sunlight served only to emphasize theevil by reminding one of the season it really was, or should have been, even if it did not entice one to the wetting which was the sure rewardof a walk abroad. The Delverton air was strong and bracing enough, butthe patron wind of the district bit to the bone through garments neverintended for winter wear. 

On such a day there could be few more undesirable abodes thanNormanthorpe House, with its marble floors, its high ceilings, and itsgeneral scheme of Italian coolness and discomfort. It was a Tuesday, when Mr. Steel usually amused himself by going on 'Change inNorthborough and lunching there at the Delverton Club. Rachel was thusnot only physically chilled and depressed, but thrown upon her ownsociety at its worst; and she missed that of her husband more than shewas aware. 

Once she had been a bright and energetic person with plenty of resourceswithin herself; now she had singularly few. She was distraught anduneasy in her mind, could settle less and less to her singing or a book, and was the victim of an increasing restlessness of mind and limb. Others did not see it; she had self-control; but repression was no cure. And for all this there were reasons enough; but the fear ofidentification by the neighbors as the notorious Mrs. Minchin was nolonger one of them. 

No; it was her own life, root and branch, that had grown into theupas-tree which was poisoning existence for Rachel Steel. She was beingpunished for her second marriage as she had been punished for her first, only more deservedly, and with more subtle stripes. Each day brought adozen tokens of the anomalous position which she had accepted in themadness of an hour of utter recklessness and desperation. Rachel was notmistress in her own house, nor did she feel for a moment that it was herown house at all. Everything was done for her; a skilled housekeepersettled the smallest details; and that these were perfect alike inarrangement and execution, that the said housekeeper was a woman ofirreproachable tact and capability, and that she herself had never anexcuse for concrete complaint, formed a growing though intangiblegrievance in Rachel's mind. She had not felt it at first. She hadchanged in these summer months. She wanted to be more like other wives. There was Morna Woodgate, with the work cut out for every hour of herfull and happy days; but Morna had not made an anomalous marriage, Mornahad married for love. 

And to-day there was not even Morna to come and see her, or for her togo and see, for Tuesday afternoon was not one of the few upon which thevicar's wife had no settled duty or occupation in the parish. Rachel soenvied her the way in which she helped her husband in his work; she hadtried to help also, in a desultory way; but it is one thing to do athing because it is a duty, and another thing to do it for something todo, as Rachel soon found out. Besides, Hugh Woodgate was not herhusband. Rachel had the right feeling to abandon those half-heartedattempts at personal recreation in the guise of good works, and thecourage to give Morna her reasons; but she almost regretted it thisafternoon. 

She had explored for the twentieth time that strange treasury known asthe Chinese Room, a state apartment filled with loot brought home fromthe Flowery Land by a naval scion of the house of Normanthorpe, andsomewhat cynically included in the sale. The idols only leered inRachel's face, and the cabinets of grotesque design were unprovided withany key to their history of former uses. In sheer desperation Rachelbetook herself to her husband's study; it was the first time she hadcrossed that threshold in his absence, but within were the books, and abook she must have. 

These also had been purchased with the house. With few exceptions, theywere ancient books in battered calf, which Steel had stigmatized as"musty trash" once when Rachel had asked him if she might take one. Shehad not made that request again; indeed, it was seldom enough that shehad set foot inside the spacious room which the old books lined, and inwhich the master of the house disliked being disturbed. Yet it wasanything but trash which she now discovered upon the dusty shelves. 

There was _Tom Jones_ in four volumes and the _Spectator_ in eight, _GilBlas_ and the works of Swift, all with the long "s, " and backs likepolished oak; in the lower shelves were Hogarth and Gillray in rarefolios; at every level and on either hand were books worth taking out. But this was almost all that Rachel did; she took them out and put themin again, for that was her unsettled mood. She spent some minutes overthe Swifts, but not sufficiently attracted to march off with them. Thequaint, obsolete type of the various volumes attracted her more as acuriosity than as readable print; the coarse satires of the earlymasters of caricature and cartoon did not attract her at all. Rachel'supbringing had deprived her of the traditions, the superstitions, andthe shibboleths which are at once a strength and a weakness of theordinary English education; if, however, she was too much inclined totake a world's masterpiece exactly as she found it, her taste, such asit was, at all events was her own. 

She had naturally an open mind, but it was not open now; it was full andrunning over with the mysteries and the perplexities of her ownenvironment. Books would not take her out of herself; in them she couldnot hope to find a key to any one of the problems within problems whichbeset and tortured her. So she ran her hand along the dusty books, little dreaming that the key was there all the time; so in the end, andquite by chance, but for the fact that she was dipping into so many, shetook out the right book, and started backward with it in her hand. 

The book was _The Faerie Queene_, and Rachel had extracted it in aGothic spirit, because she had once heard that very few living personshad read it from end to end; since she could not become interested inanything, she might as well be thoroughly bored. But she never openedthe volume, for in the dark slit which it left something shone like alittle new moon. Rachel put in her hand, and felt a small brass handle;to turn and pull it was the work of her hand without a guiding thought;but when tiers of books swung towards her with the opening door whichthey hid, it was not in human nature to shut that door again without somuch as peeping in. 

Rachel first peeped, then stepped, into a secret chamber asdisappointing at the first glance as such a place could possibly be. Itwas deep in dust, and filled with packing-cases not half unpacked, alumber-room and nothing more. The door swung to with a click behind heras Rachel stood in the midst of this uninteresting litter, andinstinctively she turned round. That instant she stood rooted to theground, her eyes staring, her chin fallen, a dreadful fear in everyfeature of her face. 

It was not that her second husband had followed and discovered her; itwas the face of her first husband that looked upon Rachel Steel, hisbold eyes staring into hers, through the broken glass of a fly-blownpicture-frame behind the door. 

The portrait was not hanging from the wall, but resting against it onthe floor. It was a photographic enlargement in colors, and the tintedeyes looked up at Rachel with all the bold assurance that she rememberedso keenly in the perished flesh. She had not an instant's doubt aboutthose eyes; they spoke in a way that made her shiver; and yet thephotograph was that of a much younger man than she had married. It wasAlexander Minchin with mutton-chop whiskers, his hair parted in themiddle, and the kind of pin in the kind of tie which had beenpractically obsolete for years; it was none the less indubitably andindisputably Alexander Minchin. 

And indeed that fact alone was enough to shake Rachel's nerves; herdiscovery had all the shock of an unwelcome encounter with the living. But it was the gradual appreciation of the true significance of herdiscovery that redoubled Rachel's qualms even as she was beginning toget the better of them. So they had been friends, her first husband andher second! Rachel stooped and looked hard at the enlargement, and theresure enough was the photographer's imprint. Yes, they had been friendsin Australia, that country which John Buchanan Steel elaborately andrepeatedly pretended never to have visited in all his travels!

Rachel could have smiled as she drew herself up with this point settledin her mind for ever; why, the room reeked of Australia! These cases hadnever been properly unpacked, they were overflowing with memorials ofthe life which she herself knew so well. Here a sheaf of boomerangs werepeeping out; there was an old gray wide-awake, with a blue-silk fly-veilcoiled above the brim; that was an Australian saddle; and those glasscases contained samples of merino wool. So it was in Australia as asquatter that Steel had made his fortune! But why suppress a fact sofree from all discredit? These were just the relics of a bush life whicha departing colonist might care to bring home with him to the oldcountry. Then why cast them into a secret lumber-room whose veryexistence was unknown to the old Australian's Australian wife?

Rachel felt her brain reeling; and yet she was thankful for the lightwhich had been vouchsafed to her at last. It was but a lantern flashthrough the darkness, which seemed the more opaque for that one thinbeam of light; but it was something, a beginning, a clew. For the restshe was going straight to the man who had kept her so long in suchunnecessary ignorance. 

Why had he not told her about Australia, at all events? What conceivableharm could that have done? It would have been the strongest possiblebond between them. But Rachel went further as she thought more. Why nothave told her frankly that he had known Alexander Minchin years beforeshe did herself? It could have made no difference after AlexanderMinchin's death; then why had be kept the fact so jealously to himself?And the dead man's painted eyes answered "Why?" with the bold andmocking stare his wife could not forget, a stare which at that momentassumed a new and sinister significance in her sight. 

Rachel looked upward through the window, which was barred, and almosttotally eclipsed by shrubs; but a clout of sky was just visible underthe architrave. It was a very gray sky; gray also was Rachel's face inthe sudden grip of horror and surmise. Then a ragged edge of cloudcaught golden fire, a glimmer found its way into the dust and dirt ofthe secret chamber, and Rachel relaxed with a slight smile but anexceedingly decided shake of the head. Thereafter she escapedincontinently, but successfully, as she had entered; closed the hiddendoor behind her, and restored _The Faerie Queene_ very carefully to itsplace. Rachel no longer proposed to join the select band of those whohave read that epic through. 

CHAPTER XIV

BATTLE ROYAL

She went to her own rooms to think and to decide; and what she firstthought and then decided was sensible enough. She was thankful she hadnot been caught like Fatima in the forbidden room; not that she lackedthe courage to meet the consequences of her acts, but it would have puther in the wrong and at a disadvantage at the first crash of battle. Anda battle royal Rachel quite expected; nor had she the faintest intentionof disguising what she had done; but it was her husband who was to betaken aback, for a change. 

The Steels dined alone, as usual, or as much alone as a man and his wifewith a butler and two footmen are permitted to be at their meals. Steelwas at his best after these jaunts of his to Northborough and the club. He would come home with the latest news from that centre of theuniverse, the latest gossip which had gone the rounds on 'Change and atlunch, the newest stories of Mr. Venables and his friends, which wereinvariably reproduced for Rachel's benefit with that slight butunmistakable local accent of which these gentry were themselves allunconscious. Steel had a wicked wit, and Rachel as a rule a sufficientlyappreciative smile, but this was to-night either lacking altogether orof an unconvincing character. Rachel could never pretend, and her firstspontaneous remark was when her glass filled up with froth. 

"Champagne!" said she, for they seldom drank it. 

"It has been such a wretched day, " explained Steel, "that I ordered itmedicinally. I am afraid it must have been perishing here, as it was inthe town. This is to restore your circulation. "

"My circulation is all right, " answered Rachel, too honest even to smileupon the man with whom she was going to war. "I felt cold all themorning, but I have been warm enough since the afternoon. "

And that was very true, for excitement had made her blood run hot inevery vein; nor had Rachel often been more handsome, or less lovely, than she was to-night, with her firm lip and her brooding eye. 

"There was another reason for the champagne, " resumed her husband, veryfrankly for him, when at last they had the drawing-room to themselves. "I am in disgrace with you, I believe, and I want to hear from you whatI have done. "

"It is what you have not done, " returned Rachel, as she stoodimperiously before the lighted fire; and her bosom rose and fell, whiteas the ornate mantelpiece of Carrara marble which gleamed behind her. 

"And what, may I ask, is my latest sin of omission?"

Rachel rushed to the point with a passionate directness that did her nodiscredit. 

"Why have you pretended all these months that you never were inAustralia in your life? Why did you never tell me that you knewAlexander Minchin out there?"

And she held her breath against the worst that he could do, being wellprepared for him to lose first his color and then the temper which hehad never lost since she had known him; to fly into a fury, to curse herup hill and down dale--in a word, to behave as her first husband haddone more than once, but this one never. What Rachel did not anticipatewas a smile that cloaked not a single particle of surprise, and thelittle cocksure bow that accompanied the smile. 

"So you have found it out, " said Steel, and his smile only ended as hesipped his coffee; even then there was no end to it in his eyes. 

"This afternoon, " said Rachel, disconcerted but not undone. 

"By poking your nose into places which you would not think ofapproaching in my presence?"

"By the merest accident in the world!"

And Rachel described the accident, truth flashing from her eyes; in aninstant her husband's face changed, the smile went out, but it was nofrown that came in its stead. 

"I beg your pardon, Rachel, " said he, earnestly. "I suppose, " he added, "that a man may call his wife by her Christian name for once in a way? Idid so, however, without thinking, and because I really do most humblybeg your pardon for an injustice which I have done you for some hours inmy own mind. I came home between three and four, and I heard you were inmy study. You were not, but that book was out; and then, of course, Iknew where you were. My hand was on the knob, but I drew it back. Iwondered if you would have the pluck to do the tackling! And I apologizeagain, " Steel concluded, "for I knew you quite well enough to have alsoknown that at least there was no question about your courage. "

"Then, " said Rachel, impulsively, after having made up her mind toignore these compliments, "then I think you might at least be candidwith me!"

"And am I not?" he cried. "Have I denied that the portrait you saw isindeed the portrait of Alexander Minchin? And yet how easy that wouldhave been! It was taken long before you knew him; he must have alteredconsiderably after that. Or I might have known him under another name. But no, I tell you honestly that your first husband was a very dearfriend of mine, more years ago than I care to reckon. Did you hear me?"he added, with one of his sudden changes of tone and manner. "A verydear friend, I said, for that he undoubtedly was; but was I going to askyou to marry a very dear friend of the man who deteriorated so terribly, and who treated you so ill?"

Delivered in the most natural manner imaginable, with the quietconfidence of which this man was full, and followed by a smile ofconscious yet not unkindly triumph, this argument, like most that fellfrom his lips upon her ears, was invested with a value out of allproportion to its real worth; and Steel clinched it with one of thosehomely saws which are not disdained by makers of speeches the wide worldover. 

"Could you really think, " he added, with one of his rarest and mostwinning smiles, "that I should be such a fool as to invite you to stepout of the frying-pan into the fire?"

Rachel felt for a moment that she would like to say it was exactly whatshe had done; but even in that moment she perceived that such astatement would have been very far from the truth. And her nature waslarge enough to refrain from the momentary gratification of a bitterrepartee. But he was too clever for her; that she did feel, whateverelse he might be; and her only chance was to return to the plainquestions with which she had started, demanding answers as plain. Rachelled up to them, however, with one or two of which she already knew theanswer, thus preparing for her spring in quite the Old Bailey manner, which she had mastered subconsciously at her trial, and which for oncewas to profit a prisoner at the bar. 

"Yet you don't any longer deny that you have been to Australia?"

"It is useless. I lived there for years. "

"And you admit that you knew Alexander quite well out there?"

"Most intimately, in the Riverina, some fifteen or twenty years ago; hewas on my station as almost everything a gentleman could be, up tooverseer; and by that time he was half a son to me, and half a youngerbrother. "

"But no relation, as a matter of fact?"

"None whatever, but my very familiar friend, as I have already toldyou. "

"Then why in the world, " Rachel almost thundered, "could you not tell meso in the beginning?"

"That is a question I have already answered. "

"Then I have another. Why so often and so systematically pretend thatyou never were in Australia at all?"

"That is a question which I implore you not to press!"

The two answers, so like each other in verbal form, were utterlydissimilar in the manner of their utterance. Suddenly, and for the firsttime in all her knowledge of him, his cynical aplomb had fallen from theman like a garment. One moment he was brazening past deceit with asmiling face; the next, he was in earnest, even he, and that mockingvoice vibrated with deep feeling. 

"I should have thought all the more of you for being an Australian, "continued Rachel, vaguely touched at the change in him, "I who am proudof being one myself. What harm could it have done, my knowing that?"

"You are not the only one from whom I have hidden it, " said Steel, still in a low and altered voice. 

"Yet you brought home all those keepsakes of the bush?"

"But I thought better of them, and have never even unpacked them all, asyou must have seen for yourself. "

"Yet your mysterious visitor of the other day--"

"Another Australian, of course; indeed, another man who worked upon myown run. "

"And he knows why you don't want it known over here?"

"He does, " said Steel, with grim brevity. 

Rachel moved forward and pressed his hand impulsively. To her surprisethe pressure was returned. That instant their hands fell apart. 

"I beg your pardon in my turn, " she said. "I can only promise you that Iwill never again reopen that wound--whatever it may be--and I won't eventry to guess. I undertook not to try to probe your past, and I will keepmy undertaking in the main; but where it impinges upon my own past Isimply cannot! You say you were my first husband's close friend, " addedRachel, looking her second husband more squarely than ever in the eyes. "Was that what brought you to my trial for his murder?"

He returned her look. 

"It was. "

"Was that what made you wish to marry me yourself?"

No answer, but his assurance coming back, as he stood looking at herunder beetling eyebrows, over black arms folded across a snowy shirt. Itwas the wrong moment for the old Adam's return, for Rachel had reachedthe point upon which she most passionately desired enlightenment. 

"I want to know, " she cried, "and I insist on knowing, what first put itinto your head or your heart to marry me--all but convicted--"

Steel held up his hand, glancing in apprehension towards the door. 

"I have told you so often, " he said, "and your glass tells you wheneveryou look into it. I sat within a few feet of you for the inside of aweek!"

"But that is not true, " she told him quietly; "trust a woman to know, ifit were. "

In the white glare of the electric light he seemed for once to changecolor slightly. 

"If you will not accept my word, " he answered, "there is no more to besaid. "

And he switched off a bunch of the lights that had beaten too fiercelyupon him; but it only looked as if he was about to end the interview. 

"You have admitted so many untruths in the last half hour, " pursuedRachel, in a thrilling voice, "that you ought not to be hurt if Isuspect you of another. Come! Can you look me in the face and tell methat you married me for love? No, you turn away--because you cannot!Then will you, in God's name, tell me why you did marry me?"

And she followed him with clasped hands, her beautiful eyes filled withtears, her white throat quivering with sobs, until suddenly he turnedupon her as though in self-defence. 

"No, I will not!" he cried. "Since the answer I have given you, and theobvious answer, is not good enough for you, the best thing you can do isto find out for yourself. "

A truculent look came into Rachel's eyes, as they rested upon the smoothface so unusually agitated beneath the smooth silvery hair. 

"I will!" she answered through her teeth. "I shall take you at yourword, and find out for myself I will!"

And she swept past him out of the room. 

[Illustration: "I will!" she answered through her teeth--and she sweptpast him out of the room. ]

CHAPTER XV

A CHANCE ENCOUNTER

There was now an open breach between the Steels, but no third personwould have discerned any difference in their relations. It was a meresnapping of the threads across the chasm which had always separatedRachel from her second husband. The chasm had been plain enough to thosewho came much in contact with the pair, but the little threads ofsympathy were invisible to the naked eye of ordinary observation. Therewas thus no outward change, for neither was there any outward rupture. It takes two to quarrel, and Steel imperturbably refused to make one. Rachel might be as trying as she pleased; no repulse depressed, nocaprice annoyed him; and this insensibility was not the least of Steel'soffences in the now jaundiced eyes of his wife. 

Rachel felt as bitter as one only does against those who have inspiredsome softer feeling; the poison of misplaced confidence rankled in herblood. Her husband had told her much, but it was not enough for Rachel, and the little he refused to tell eliminated all the rest from hermind. There was no merit even in such frankness as he had shown, sinceher own, accidental discoveries had forced some measure of honesty uponhim. He had admitted nothing which Rachel could not have deduced fromthat which she had found out for herself. She felt as far as ever fromany satisfactory clew to his mysterious reasons for ever wishing tomarry her. There lay the kernel of the whole matter, there the problemthat she meant to solve. If her first husband was at the bottom of it, no matter how indirectly, and if she had been married for the dead man'ssake, to give his widow a home, then Rachel felt that the last affronthad been put upon her, and she would leave this man as she had beenwithin an ace of leaving his friend. So ran the wild and unreasonabletenor of her thoughts. He had not married her for her own sake; it wasnot she herself who had appealed to him, after all. Curiosity mightconsume her, and a sense of deepening mystery add terrors of its own, but the resentful feeling was stronger than either of these, and wouldhave afforded as strange a revelation as any, had Rachel dared to lookdeeper into her own heart. 

If, on the other hand, she had already some conception of the truthabout herself, it would scarcely lessen her bitterness against one whoinspired in her emotions at once so complex and so painful. Suffice itthat this bitterness was extreme in the days immediately following thescene between Rachel and her husband in the drawing-room after dinner. It was also unconcealed, and must have been the cause of many anothersuch scene but for the imperturable temper and the singularly rulytongue of John Buchanan Steel. And then, in those same days, there fellthe two social events to which the bidden guests had been lookingforward for some two or three weeks, and of which the whole neighborhoodwas to talk for years. 

On the tenth of August the Uniackes were giving a great garden party atHornby Manor, while the eleventh was the date of the first realdinner-party for which the Steels had issued invitations to NormanthorpeHouse. 

The tenth was an ideal August day: deep blue sky, trees stilluntarnished in the hardy northern air, and black shadows under thetrees. Rachel made herself ready before lunch, to which she came downlooking quite lovely, in blue as joyous as the sky's, to find herhusband as fully prepared, and not less becomingly attired, in a grayfrock-coat without a ripple on its surface. They looked critically ateach other for an instant, and then Steel said something pleasant, towhich Rachel made practically no reply. They ate their lunch in asilence broken good-naturedly at intervals from one end of the tableonly. Then the Woodgates arrived, to drive with them to Hornby, whichwas some seven or eight miles away; and the Normanthorpe landau and pairstarted with, the quartette shortly after three o'clock. 

Morning, noon, and afternoon of this same tenth of August, CharlesLangholm, the minor novelist, never lifted his unkempt head from the oldbureau at which he worked, beside an open window overlooking his cottagegarden. A tumbler of his beloved roses stood in one corner of thewriting space, up to the cuts in MSS. , and roses still ungathered peepedabove the window-sill and drooped from either side. But Langholm had asoul far below roses at the present moment; his neatly numbered sheetsof ruled sermon-paper were nearing the five hundredth page; his hero andhis heroine were in the full sweep of those emotional explanations whichthey had ingeniously avoided for the last three hundred at least; in aword, Charles Langholm's new novel is being finished while you wait. Itis not one of his best; yet a moment ago there was a tear in his eye, and now he is grinning like a child at play. And at play he is, thoughhe be paid for playing, and though the game is only being won afterweeks and months of uphill labor and downhill joy. 

At last there is the final ticking of inverted commas, and CharlesLangholm inscribes the autograph for which he is importuned once in ablue moon, and which the printer will certainly not set up at the footof the last page; but the thing is done, and the doer must needs set hishand to it out of pure and unusual satisfaction with himself. And so, thank the Lord!

Langholm rose stiffly from the old bureau, where at his best he couldlose all sense of time; for the moment he was bent double, and faintwith fasting, because it was his mischievous rule to reach a given pointbefore submitting to the physical and mental distraction of a meal. Butto-day's given point had been the end of his book, and for some happyminutes Langholm fed on his elation. It was done at last, yet anothernovel, and not such a bad one after all. Not his best by any means, butperhaps still further from being his worst; and, at all events, thething was done. Langholm could scarcely grasp that fact, though therewas the last page just dry upon the bureau, and most of the rest lyingabout the room in galley-proofs or in typewritten sheets. Moreover, thepublishers were pleased; that was the joke. It was nothing less toLangholm when he reflected that the final stimulus to finish this bookhad been the prospect and determination of at last writing one to pleasehimself. And this reflection brought him down from his rosy clouds. 

It was the day of the Uniacke's garden-party; they had actually askedthe poor author, and the poor author had intended to go. Not that heeither shone or revelled in society; but Mrs. Steel would be there, andhe burned to tell her that he had finished his book, and was at lastfree to tackle hers; for hers at bottom it would be, the great novel bywhich the name of Langholm was to live, and which he was to found byRachel Steel's advice upon the case of her namesake Rachel Minchin. 

The coincidence of the Christian names had naturally struck thenovelist, but no suspicion of the truth had crossed a mind too skilledin the construction of dramatic situations to dream of stumbling intoone ready-made. It was thus with a heart as light as any feather thatLangholm made a rapid and unwholesome meal, followed by a deliberate andpainstaking toilet, after which he proceeded at a prudent pace upon hisbicycle to Hornby Manor. 

Flags were drooping from their poles, a band clashing fitfully throughthe sleepy August air, and carriages still sweeping into the long drive, when Langholm also made his humble advent. He was a little uneasy andself-conscious, and annoyed at his own anxiety to impart his tidings toMrs. Steel, but for whom he would probably have stayed at home. His eyesought her eagerly as he set foot upon the lawn, having left his bicycleat the stables, and carefully removed the clips from his trousers; butbefore his vigilance could be rewarded he was despatched by his hostessto the tea-tent, in charge of a very young lady, detached for the noncefrom the wing of a gaunt old gentleman with side whiskers and lanternjaws. 

Fresh from his fagging task, Langholm did not know what on earth to sayto the pretty schoolgirl, whose own shyness reacted on herself; but hewas doing his best, and atoning in attentiveness for his shortcomings asa companion, when in the tent he had to apologize to a lady in blue, whoturned out to be Rachel herself, with Hugh Woodgate at her side. 

"Oh, no, we live in London, " the young girl was saying; "only I go tothe same school as Ida Uniacke, and I am staying here on a visit. "

"I've finished it, " whispered Langholm to Rachel, "this very afternoon;and now I'm ready for yours! I see, " he added, dropping back into theattitude of respectful interest in the young girl; "only on a visit; andwho was the old gentleman from whom I tore you away?"

The child laughed merrily. 

"That was my father, " she said; "but he is only here on his way toLeeds. "

"You mustn't call it my book, " remonstrated Rachel, while Woodgatewaited upon both ladies. 

"But it was you who gave me the idea of writing a novel round Mrs. Minchin. "

"I don't think I did. I am quite sure it was your own idea. But one bookat a time. Surely you will take a rest?"

"I shall correct this thing. It will depress me to the verge of suicide. Then I shall fall to upon my _magnum opus_. "

"You really think it will be that?"

"It should be mine. It isn't saying much; but I never had such a plot asyou have given me!"

Rachel shook her head in a last disclaimer as she moved away with theVicar of Marley. 

"Oh, Mr. Langholm, do you write books?" asked the schoolgirl, with roundblue eyes. 

"For my sins, " he confessed. "But do you prefer an ice, or morestrawberries and cream?"

"Neither, thank you. I've been here before, " the young girl said with ajolly smile. "But I didn't know I should come back with an author!"

"Then we'll go out into the open air, " the author said; and theyfollowed Rachel at but a few yards' distance. 

It was a picturesque if an aimless pageant, the smart frocks sweepingthe smooth sward, the pretty parasols with the prettier facesunderneath, the well-set-up and well-dressed men, with the old graymanor rising upon an eminence in the background, and a dazzling splashof scarlet and of brass somewhere under the trees. The band was playingselections from _The Geisha_ as Langholm emerged from the tea-tent inRachel's wake. Mrs. Venables was manoeuvring her two highly marriageablegirls in opposite quarters of the field, and had only her ownindefatigable generalship to thank for what it lost her upon thisoccasion. Mr. Steel and Mrs. Woodgate apparently missed the same thingthrough wandering idly in the direction of the band; but the tableaumight have been arranged for the express benefit of Charles Langholm andthe very young lady upon whom he was dancing laborious attendance. 

Mrs. Uniacke had stepped apart from the tall old gentleman with the sidewhiskers, to whom she had been talking for some time, and hadintercepted Rachel as she was passing on with Hugh Woodgate. 

"Wait while I introduce you to my most distinguished guest, or rawtherhim to you, " whispered Mrs. Uniacke, with the Irish brogue whichrendered her slightest observation a delight to the appreciative. "SirBaldwin Gibson--Mrs. Steel. "

Langholm and the little Miss Gibson were standing close behind, and thetrained eye of the habitual observer took in every detail of a scenewhich he never forgot. Handsome Mrs. Uniacke was clinching theintroduction with a smile, which ended in a swift expression ofsurprise. Sir Baldwin had made an extraordinary pause, his hand half wayto his hat, his lantern jaws fallen suddenly apart. Mrs. Steel, thoughslower at her part of the obvious recognition, was only a second slower, and thereupon stood abashed and ashamed in the eyes of all who saw; butonly for another second at the most; then Sir Baldwin Gibson not onlyraised his hat, but held out his hand in a fatherly way, and as she tookit Rachel's color changed from livid white to ruby red. 

Yet even Rachel was mistress of herself so quickly that the one or twoeye-witnesses of this scene, such as Mrs. Uniacke and Charles Langholm, who saw that it had a serious meaning, without dreaming what thatmeaning was, were each in hopes that no one else had seen as much asthey. Sir Baldwin plunged at once into amiable and fluent conversation, and before many moments Rachel's replies were infected with anapproximate assurance and ease; then Langholm turned to his juvenilecompanion, and put a question in the form of a fib. 

"So that is your father, " said he. "I seem, do you know, to know hisface?"

Little Miss Gibson fell an easy prey. 

"You probably do; he is the judge, you know!"

"The judge, is he?"

"Yes; and I wanted to ask you something just now in the tent. Did youmean the Mrs. Minchin who was tried for murder, when you were talkingabout your plot?"

Langholm experienced an unforeseen shock from head to heel; he couldonly nod. 

"He was the judge who tried her!" the schoolgirl said with pardonablepride. 

A lady joined them as they spoke. 

"Do you really mean that that is Mr. Justice Gibson, who tried Mrs. Minchin at the Old Bailey last November?"

"Yes--my father, " said the proud young girl. 

"What a very singular thing! How do you do, Mr. Langholm? I didn't seeit was you. "

And Langholm found himself shaking hands with the aquiline lady to whomhe had talked so little at the Upthorpe dinner-party; she took herrevenge by giving him only the tips of her fingers now, and by lookingdeliberately past him at Rachel and her judge. 

CHAPTER XVI

A MATCH FOR MRS. VENABLES

That was absolutely all that happened at the Uniackes' garden-party. There was no scene, no scandal, no incident whatsoever beyond anapparently mutual recognition between Mrs. Steel and Mr. Justice Gibson. Of this there were not half-a-dozen witnesses, all of whom were givenimmediate reason to suppose that either they or the pair in question hadmade a mistake; for nothing could have surpassed the presence of mindand the kindness of heart with which Sir Baldwin Gibson chatted to thewoman whom he had tried for her life within the year. And his charitycontinued behind her back. 

"Odd thing, " said Sir Baldwin to his hostess, at the earliestopportunity, "but for the moment I could have sworn that woman was someone else. May I ask who she is exactly?"

"Sure, Sir Baldwin, " replied Mrs. Uniacke, "and that's what I thought wewere to hear at last. It's who she is we none of us know. And what doesit matter? She's pretty and nice, and I'm just in love with her; butthen nobody knows any more about her husband, and so we talk. "

A few more questions satisfied the judge that he could not possibly havebeen mistaken, and he hesitated a moment, for he was a pious man; butRachel's face, combined with her nerve, had deepended an impressionwhich was now nearly a year old, and the superfluous proximity of anangular and aquiline lady, to whom Sir Baldwin had not been introduced, but who was openly hanging upon his words, drove the good man's lastscruple to the winds. 

"Very deceptive, these likenesses, " said he, raising his voice for theinterloper's benefit; "in future I shall beware of them. I needn't tellyou, Mrs. Uniacke, that I never before set eyes upon the lady whom Ifear I embarrassed by behaving as though I had. "

Rachel was not less fortunate in her companion of the moment which hadso nearly witnessed her undoing. Ox-eyed Hugh Woodgate saw nothinginexplicable in Mrs. Steel's behavior upon her introduction to SirBaldwin Gibson, and anything he did see he attributed to an inconvenientsense of that dignitary's greatness. He did not think the matter worthmentioning to his wife, when the Steels had dropped them at theVicarage gate, after a pleasant but somewhat silent drive. Neither didRachel see fit to speak of it to her husband. There was a certainunworthy satisfaction in her keeping something from him. But again sheunderrated his uncanny powers of observation, and yet again he turnedthe tables upon her by a sudden display of the very knowledge which shewas painfully keeping to herself. 

"Of course you recognized the judge?" said Steel, following his wife foronce into her own apartments, where he immediately shut a door behindhim and another in front of Rachel, who stood at bay before the glitterin his eyes. 

"Of course, " she admitted, with irritating nonchalance. 

"And he you?"

"I thought he did at first; afterwards I was not so sure. "

"But I am!" exclaimed Steel through his teeth. 

Rachel's face was a mixture of surprise and incredulity. 

"How can you know?" she asked coldly. "You were at least a hundred yardsaway at the time, for I saw you with Morna Woodgate. "

"And do you think my sight is not good for a hundred yards, " retortedSteel, "when you are at the end of them? I saw the whole thing--hisconfusion and yours--but then I did not know who he was. He must havebeen in the house when we arrived; otherwise I should have taken goodcare that you never met. I saw enough, however, to bring me up in timeto see and hear more. I heard the way he was talking to you then; thatwas his damned good-nature, and he has us at his mercy all the same. "

Rachel had never seen her husband in such a passion; indeed, she hadnever before known him in a state of mind to justify the use of such aword. He was paler than his wont, his eyes brighter, his lips morebloodless. Rachel experienced a strange sense of advantage, at onceunprecedented and unforeseen, and with it an irresistible temptation tothe sort of revenge which she knew to be petty at the time. But he hadmade her suffer; for once it was her turn. He could be cold as ice whenshe was not, could deny her his confidence when she all but fell uponher knees before him; he should learn what it was to be treated as hehad treated her. 

"I'm well aware of it, " said Rachel, with a harsh, dry laugh, "though inpoint of fact I don't for a moment believe that he'll give me away. Butreally I don't think it matters if he does. "

Steel stared; it was wonderful to her to see his face. 

"It doesn't matter?" he repeated in angry astonishment. 

"Not to me, " rejoined Rachel, bitterly. "You tell me nothing. What canmatter to me? When you can tell me why you felt compelled to marryme--when you have the courage to tell me that--other things may begin tomatter again!"

Steel stared harder than before; he did not flinch, but his eyes seemedto hedge together as he stared, and the glittering light in them toconcentrate in one baleful gleam. Yet it was not a cruel look; it wasthe look of a man who has sealed his lips upon one point for ever, andwho views any questioning on that point as an attempt upon his treasury. There was more of self-defence than of actual hostility in thecompressed lips, the bloodless face, the glaring eyes. Then, with ashrug, the look, the resentment, and the passion were shaken off, andSteel stepped briskly to the inner door, which he had shut in Rachel'spath. Opening it, he bowed her through with a ceremony conspicuous evenin their ceremonious relations. 

But Rachel nursed her contrariety, even to the extent of a perversesatisfaction at her encounter with the judge, and a fierce enjoyment ofits still possible consequences. The mood was neither logical norgenerous, and yet it was human enough in the actual circumstances of thecase. At last she had made him feel! It had taken her the better part ofa year, but here at last was something that he really felt. And it hadto do with her; it was impending disaster to herself which had broughtabout this change in her husband; she knew him too well not to acquithim of purely selfish solicitude for his own good name and comfortablestatus in a society for which he had no real regard. There was never aman less dependent upon the good opinion of other men. In absoluteindependence of character, as in sheer strength of personality, Steelstood by himself in the estimation of his wife. But he had deceived herunnecessarily for weeks and months. He had lied to her. He had refusedher his whole confidence when she begged him for it, and when he knewhow he could trust her. There was some deep mystery underlying theirmarriage, he could not deny it, yet he would not tell her what it was. 

He had made her suffer needless pain; it was his turn. And yet, with allher resentment against him, and all her grim savoring of the scandalwhich he seemed to fear so much, there ran a golden thread ofunacknowledged contentment in the conviction that those fears were allfor her. 

Outwardly she was callous to the last degree, reckless as on the day shemade this marriage, and as light-hearted as it was possible to appear;but the excitement of the coming dinner-party was no small help toRachel in the maintenance of this attitude. It was to be a very largedinner-party, and Rachel's first in her own house; in any case she musthave been upon her mettle. Two dozen had accepted. The Upthorpe partywas coming in force; if anybody knew anything, it would be Mrs. Venables. What would she do or say? Mrs. Venables was capable of doingor of saying anything. And what might not happen before the day was out?

It was a stimulating situation for one so curiously compact of courageand of nerves as the present mistress of Normanthorpe House; and foronce she really was mistress, inspecting the silver with her own eyes, arranging the flowers with her own hands, and, what was more difficult, the order in which the people were to sit. She was thus engaged, in herown sanctum, when Mrs. Venables did the one thing which Rachel had notdreamt of her doing. 

She called at three in the afternoon, and sent her name upstairs. 

Rachel's heart made itself felt; but she was not afraid. Something wascoming earlier than she had thought; she was chiefly curious to knowwhat. Her first impulse was to have Mrs. Venables brought upstairs, andto invoke her aid in the arrangement of the table before that lady couldopen fire. Rachel disliked the great cold drawing-room, and felt thatshe must be at a disadvantage in any interview there. On the other hand, if this was a hostile visit, the visitor could not be treated with toomuch consideration. And so the servant was dismissed with word that hermistress would not be a moment; nor was Rachel very many. She glanced ina glass, but that was all; she might have been tidier, but not easilymore animated, confident, and alert. She had reached the landing whenshe returned and collected all the cards which she had been trying toarrange; they made quite a pack; and Rachel laughed as she took themdownstairs with her. 

Mrs. Venables sat in solitary stiffness on the highest chair she hadbeen able to find; neither Sybil nor Vera was in attendance; a tablefulof light literature was at her elbow, but Mrs. Venables sat with foldedhands. 

"This is too good of you!" cried Rachel, greeting her in a mannerredeemed from hypocrisy by a touch of irresistible irony. "You know myinexperience, and you have come to tell me things, have you not? Youcould not have come at a better time. How _do_ you fit in twenty-sixpeople at one table? I wanted to have two at each end, and it can't bedone!"

Mrs. Venables suppressed a smile suggestive of some unconscious humor inthese remarks, but sat more upright than ever in her chair, with a hardlight in the bright brown eyes that stared serenely into Rachel's own. 

"I cannot say I came to offer you my assistance, Mrs. Steel. I only takeliberties with very intimate friends. "

"Then I wonder what can have brought you!"

And Rachel returned both the smile and the stare with irritatingself-control. 

"I will tell you, " said Mrs. Venables, weightily. "There is a certainthing being said of you, Mrs. Steel; and I wish to know from your ownlips whether there is any truth in it or none. "

Rachel held up her hands as quick as thought. 

"My dear Mrs. Venables, you can't mean that you are bringing me a pieceof unpleasant gossip on the very afternoon of my first dinner-party?"

"It remains with you, " said Mrs. Venables, changing color at this hit, "to say whether it is mere gossip or not. You must know, Mrs. Steel, though we were all quite charmed with your husband from the moment hecame among us, we none of us had the least idea where he came from norhave we yet. "

"You are speaking for the neighborhood?" inquired Rachel, sweetly. 

"I am, " said Mrs. Venables. 

"Town _and_ county, " murmured Rachel. "And you mean that nobody in thedistrict knew anything at all about my husband?"

"Not a thing, " said Mrs. Venables. 

"And yet you called on him; and yet you took pity on him, poor lonelybachelor that he was!"

This shaft also left its momentary mark upon the visitor's complexion. "The same applies to you, " she went on the more severely. "We had noidea who you were, either!"

"And now?" said Rachel, still mistress of the situation, for she knew sowell what was coming. 

"And now we hear, and I wish to know whether it is true or not. Wereyou, or were you not, the Mrs. Minchin who was tried last winter for herhusband's murder?"

Rachel looked steadily into the hard brown eyes, until a certainhardness came into her own. 

"I don't quite know what right you think you have to ask me such aquestion, Mrs. Venables. Is it the usual thing to question people whohave made a second marriage--supposing I am one--about their first? Ifancied myself that it was considered bad form; but then I am still veryignorant of the manners and customs in this part of the world. Since youask it, however, you shall have your answer. " And Rachel's voice rangout through the room, as she rose majestically from the chair which shehad drawn opposite that of the visitor. "Yes, Mrs. Venables, I am thatunhappy woman. And what then?"

"No wonder you were silent about yourself, " said Mrs. Venables, in avindictive murmur. "No wonder we never even heard--"

"And what then?" repeated Rachel, with a quiet and compelling scorn. "Does it put one outside the local pale to keep to oneself any painfulincident in one's own career? Is an accusation down here the same thingas a conviction? Is there nothing to choose between 'guilty' and 'notguilty'?"

"You must be aware, " proceeded Mrs. Venables, without taking any noticeof these questions--"indeed, you cannot fail to be perfectly wellaware--that a large proportion of the public was dissatisfied with theverdict in your case. "

"Your husband, for one!" Rachel agreed, with a scornful laugh. "He wouldhave come to see me hanged; he told me so at his own table. "

"You never would have been at his table, " retorted Mrs. Venables, withsome effect, "if he or I had dreamt who you were; but now that we know, you may be quite sure that none of us will sit at yours. "

And Mrs. Venables rose up in all her might and spite, her brown eyesflashing, her handsome head thrown back. 

"Are you still speaking for the district?" inquired Rachel, conquering arecreant lip to put the question, and putting it with her finest scorn. 

"I am speaking for Mr. Venables, my daughters, and myself, " rejoined thelady with great dignity; "others will speak for themselves; and you willsoon learn in what light you are regarded by ordinary people. It is amerciful chance that we have found you out--a merciful chance! That youshould dare--you, about whom there are not two opinions among sensiblepeople--that you should dare to come among us as you have done and tospeak to me as you have spoken! But one thing is certain--it is for thelast time. "

With that Mrs. Venables sailed to the door by which she was to make hertriumphant exit, but she stopped before reaching it. Steel stood beforeher on the threshold, and as he stood he closed the door behind him, andas he closed it he turned and took out the key. There was the other doorthat led through the conservatory into the garden. Without a word hecrossed the room, shut that door also, locked it, and put the two keysin his pocket. Then at last he turned to the imprisoned lady. 

"You are quite right, Mrs. Venables. It is the last conversation we arelikely to have together. The greater the pity to cut it short!"

"Will you have the goodness to let me go?" the visitor demanded, whiteand trembling, but not yet unimpressive in her tremendous indignation. 

"With the greatest alacrity, " replied Steel, "when you have apologizedto my wife. "

Rachel stood by without a word. 

"For what?" cried Mrs. Venables. "For telling her what the whole worldthinks of her? Never; and you will unlock that door this instant, unlessyou wish my husband to--to--horsewhip you within an inch of your life!"

Steel merely smiled; he could well afford to do so, lithe and supple ashe still was, with flabby Mr. Venables in his mind's eye. 

"I might have known what to expect in this house, " continued Mrs. Venables, in a voice hoarse with suppressed passion, "what unmanly andungentlemanly behavior, what cowardly insults! I might have known!"

And she glanced from the windows to the bells. 

"It is no use ringing, " said Steel, with a shake of his snowy head, "ordoing anything else of the sort. I am the only person on the premiseswho can let you out; your footman could not get in if he tried; but ifyou like I shall shout to him to try. As for insults, you have insultedmy wife most cruelly and gratuitously, for I happen to have heard morethan you evidently imagine. In fact, 'insult' is hardly the word forwhat even I have heard you say; let me warn you, madam, that you havesailed pretty close to the wind already in the way of indictableslander. You seem to forget that my wife was tried and acquitted bytwelve of her fellow-countrymen. You will at least apologize for thatforgetfulness before you leave this room. "

"Never!"

Steel looked at his watch and sat down. "I begin to fear you are nojudge of character, Mrs. Venables; otherwise you would have seen erethis which of us will have to give in sooner or later. I can only tellyou which of us never will!"

And Rachel still stood by without a word. 

CHAPTER XVII

FRIENDS IN NEED

That afternoon the Vicar of Marley was paying house-to-house visitsamong his humbler parishioners. Though his conversation was the weakpoint to which attention has been drawn, Hugh Woodgate neverthelesspossessed the not too common knack of chatting with the poor. He had thesimplicity which made them kin, and his sympathy, unlike that of so manypersons who consider themselves sympathetic, was not exclusivelyreserved for the death-bed and the ruined home. He wrote letters for theilliterate, found places for the unemployed, knew one baby from anotheras soon as their own mothers, and with his own hand sent to the localpapers full reports of the village matches in which he rarely scored arun. Until this August afternoon he was not aware that he had made anactual enemy in all the years that he had spent in Delverton, first asan overworked Northborough curate, and latterly as one of the busiestcountry vicars in the diocese. But towards five o'clock, as Mr. Woodgatewas returning to the Vicarage, a carriage and pair, sweeping past himin a cloud of dust, left the clergyman quite petrified on the roadside, his soft felt hat still in his hand; the carriage contained Mrs. Venables, who had simply stared him in the face when he took it off. 

Woodgate was quite excited when he reached the Vicarage. Morna met himin the garden. 

"Mrs. Venables cut me dead!" he cried while they were still yards apart. 

"I am not surprised, " replied Morna, who was in a state of suppressedexcitement herself. 

"But what on earth is the meaning of it?"

"She has just been here. "

"Well?"

"She is not likely to come again. Oh, Hugh, I don't know how to tellyou! If you agree with her for a moment, if you see any possible excusefor the woman, it will break my heart!"

Morna's fine eyes were filled with tears; the sight of them put out theflame that had leapt for once from stolid Hugh, and he took her hand inhis own great soothing grasp. 

"Come and sit down, " he said, "and tell me all about it. Have I evertaken anybody's part against you, Morna, that you should think me likelyto begin now?"

"No; but you would if you thought they were right and I was wrong. "

Hugh reflected until they reached the garden-seat upon the lawn. 

"Well, not openly, at all events, " said he; "and not under anycircumstances I can conceive in which Mrs. Venables was the otherperson. "

"But she isn't the only other person; that is just it. Oh, Hugh, you dolike Rachel, don't you?"

"I do, " he said emphatically. "But surely you haven't been quarrellingwith her?"

"No, indeed! And that is exactly why I _have_ quarrelled with Mrs. Venables, because I wouldn't refuse to go to the dinner-party atNormanthorpe to-night!"

Woodgate was naturally nonplussed. 

"Wouldn't refuse?" he echoed. 

"Yes. She actually asked me not to go; and now I do believe she has gonedriving round to ask everybody else!"

Woodgate's amazement ended in a guffaw. 

"And that is what you quarrelled about!" he roared. "The woman must bemad. What reason did she give?"

"She had a reason, dear. "

"But not a good one! There can be no excuse for such an action, letalone a good reason!"

Morna looked at her husband with sidelong anxiety, wondering whether hewould say as much when he had heard all. She was sure enough of him. Butas yet they had never differed on a point that mattered, and the onewhich was coming mattered infinitely to Morna. 

"Hugh, " she began, "do you remember being with Rachel yesterday atHornby, when she was introduced to Sir Baldwin Gibson?"

"Perfectly, " said Hugh. 

"He is the judge, you know. "

"Yes, yes. "

"Did you think they looked as though they had ever seen each otherbefore?"

The vicar revolved where he sat, looking his wife suddenly in the face, while a light broke over his own. 

"Now you speak of it, " he cried, "they did! It didn't strike me at thetime. I was rather surprised at her being so nervous, but that neveroccurred to me as the explanation. Yet now I have no doubt about it. Youdon't mean to say he knows something against Mrs. Steel, and has beengiving her away?"

"No, dear, the judge has not; but you were not the only one who saw themeeting; and other eyes are more suspicious than yours, Hugh. Darling, you would not think the worse of Rachel for keeping her past life toherself, would you, especially if it had been a very unhappy one?"

"Of course not; it is no business of ours. "

"So you told Mrs. Venables the day she came to tell us Mr. Steel wasmarried, and so I told her again this afternoon. However, that is nother main point, and there is another thing I am still surer you wouldnever do. If a person had been put upon her trial, and found not guiltyin open court, you would not treat her as though she had been foundguilty, would you--even though the verdict had come as a surprise?"

"Of course I would not, Morna; no decent Christian would, I should hope!But do you mean to tell me that Mrs. Steel has been tried forsomething?"

"Yes; and by Justice Gibson!"

"Poor thing, " said Hugh Woodgate, after a pause. 

Morna took his hand. 

"My dear, she is, or rather she was, Mrs. Minchin!"

"What! The woman who was tried for murdering her husband?"

"Yes--and acquitted. "

"Good heavens!" exclaimed the vicar, and for a minute that was all. "Well, " he continued, "I didn't read the case, and I am glad that Ididn't, but I remember, of course, what was said about it at the time. But what does it matter what is said? I imagine the jury knew what theywere about; they listened to the evidence for a week, I believe, whichother people read in a few minutes. Of course they knew best! But howlong have you known this, Morna?"

"Never until this afternoon; there was no reason why I should. "

"Of course there was not. "

"Then you agree with me, Hugh?"

And Morna was transfigured. 

"Of course I agree with you! But I want to know more. Do you mean totell me that a woman of education and ability, who calls herself aChristian, like Mrs. Venables, has actually backed out of thisdinner-party on this account, and asked others to do the same?"

"She certainly asked me, point-blank, " said Morna. "And when I refused, and persisted in my refusal, she flounced out in a rage, and must havecut you dead next minute. "

"Incredible!" exclaimed Woodgate. "I mean, she must have had somefurther reason. "

"Oh, but she had! I forgot to tell you in my anxiety to know what youthought. She came to me straight from Normanthorpe, where they hadinsulted her as she had never been insulted in her life before!"

"Who? Steel or his wife?"

"Mr. Steel, I fancy. Mrs. Venables had no name bad enough for him, butshe brought it on herself, and I think more of him than I ever didbefore. You know that Mrs. Vinson, the Invernesses' new agent's wife?"

"I do. Langholm took her into dinner the night we dined at Upthorpe, andshe was in the offing yesterday when Mrs. Steel was talking to thejudge. "

"Exactly! It appears that it was Mrs. Vinson who first suspectedsomething, the very night you mention; and yesterday her suspicions wereconfirmed to her own satisfaction. At all events she felt justified inmentioning them to Mrs. Venables, who instantly drove over to ask Rachelto her face if there was any truth in the rumor that she was or had beenMrs. Minchin. "

"Well?"

"Rachel told her it was perfectly true. "

"Good!"

"And then the fat was in the fire; but what happened exactly it wasimpossible to gather from Mrs. Venables. I never saw a woman so besideherself with rage. She came in incoherent, and went out inarticulate!From the things she said of him, I could only guess that Mr. Steel hadcome upon the scene and insulted her as she deserved to be insulted. ButI would give a good deal to know what did happen. "

"Would you really?"

Morna started to her feet. The vicar rose more slowly, after sitting forsome moments in mute confusion. It was Mrs. Steel who stood before themon their lawn, pale as death, and ten years older since the day before, yet with a smile upon her bloodless lips, which appeared indeed toexpress some faint irresistible amusement. 

"Would you really like to know?" she repeated, standing at a distancefrom them, her great eyes travelling from one to the other. "It isstrange, because I had come on purpose to tell you both that and all therest--but especially all the rest--in which it seems Mrs. Venables hasbeen before me. " She paused an instant, and the corners of her sad mouthtwitched just once. "What my husband did, " said Rachel, "was to lock thedoors and refuse to let her out until she had begged my pardon. "

"I hope she did so, " said Hugh Woodgate, with the emphasis which oftenatoned for the inadequacy of his remarks. 

"In about three minutes, " replied Rachel, dryly, with some pride, but notriumph in her tone. 

Morna had not spoken. Now she took a quick step forward, her eyesbrimming. But Rachel held up her hand. 

"You are sure you realize who I am?"

"Yes, Rachel. "

"Rachel Minchin!" added Rachel, harshly. "The notorious Mrs. Minchin--the Mrs. Minchin whom Mr. Venables would have come to seehanged!"

"Hush, Rachel, hush!"

"Then be honest with me--mind, honest--not kind! You would not have saidwhat Mrs. Venables said to me; she said that all the world believed meguilty. You would not have said that, Morna; but are you sure you wouldnot have said it in your heart? Can you look me in the face and tell meyou don't believe it, like all the rest of the world?"

There was no faltering of the firm, sweet voice; it was only unutterablysad. 

And Morna answered it only with a sob, as she flung her arms roundRachel's neck, while her husband waited with outstretched hand. 

CHAPTER XVIII

"THEY WHICH WERE BIDDEN"

The rose-covered cottage of Charles Langholm's dreams, which could nothave come true in a more charming particular, stood on a wooded hill atthe back of a village some three miles from Normanthorpe. It was one oftwo cottages under the same tiled roof, and in the other there lived anadmirable couple who supplied all material wants of the simple lifewhich the novelist led when at work. In his idle intervals the placeknew him not; a nomadic tendency was given free play, and the man was awanderer on the face of Europe. But he wandered less than he had donefrom London, finding, in his remote but fragrant corner of the earth, that peace which twenty years of a strenuous manhood had taught him tovalue more than downright happiness. 

Its roses were not the only merit of this ideal retreat, though in thesummer months they made it difficult for one with eyes and nostrils toappreciate the others. There was a delightful room running right throughthe cottage; and it was here that Langholm worked, ate, smoked, read, and had his daily being; his bath was in the room adjoining, and his bedin another adjoining that. Of the upper floor he made no use; it wasfilled with the neglected furniture of a more substantial establishment, and Langholm seldom so much as set foot upon the stairs. The lower roomswere very simply furnished. There was a really old oak bureau, and somesolid, comfortable chairs. The pictures were chiefly photographs ofother writers. There were better pictures deep in dust upstairs. 

An artist in temperament, if not in attainment, Langholm had of lateyears found the ups and downs of his own work supply all the excitementthat was necessary to his life; it was only when the work was done thathis solitude had oppressed him; but neither the one nor the other hadbeen the case of late weeks. His new book had been written under thespur of an external stimulus; it had not written itself, like all themore reputable members of the large but short-lived family to which itbelonged. Langholm had not felt lonely in the breathing spaces betweenthe later chapters. On the contrary, he would walk up and down among hisroses with the animated face of one on the happy heights of intercoursewith a kindred spirit, when in reality he was quite alone. But the manwrote novels, and withal believed in them at the time of writing. Itwas true that on one occasion, when the Steels came to tea, the novelistwalked his garden with the self-same radiant face with which he hadlately taken to walking it alone; but that also was natural enough. 

The change came on the very day he finished his book, when Langholm madehimself presentable and rode off to the garden-party at Hornby Manor inspirits worthy of the occasion. About seven of the same evening hedismounted heavily in the by-lane outside the cottage, and pushed hismachine through the wicket, a different man. A detail declared hisdepression to the woman next door, who was preparing him a moresubstantial meal than Langholm ever thought of ordering for himself: hewent straight through to his roses without changing his party coat forthe out-at-elbow Norfolk jacket in which he had spent that summer andthe last. 

The garden behind the two cottages was all Langholm's. The whole thing, levelled, would not have made a single lawn-tennis court, nor yet apractice pitch of proper length. Yet this little garden contained almosteverything that a garden need have. There were tall pines among thetimber to one side, and through these set the sun, so that on thehottest days the garden was in sufficient shadow by the time themorning's work was done. There was a little grass-plot, large enough fora basket-chair and a rug. There was a hedge of Penzance sweet-brieropposite the backdoor and the window at which Langholm wrote, and yetthis hedge broke down in the very nick and place to give the luckywriter a long glimpse across a green valley, with dim woods upon theopposite hill. And then there were the roses, planted by the lastcottager--a retired gardener--a greater artist than his successor--a manwho knew what roses were!

Over the house clambered a William Allen Richardson and two Gloires deDijon, these last a-blowing, the first still resting from a profuseyield in June; in the southeast corner, a Crimson Rambler was at itsripe red height; and Caroline Testout, Margaret Dickson, La France, Madame Lambard, and Madame Cochet, blushed from pale pink to richestred, or remained coldly but beautifully white, at the foot of thePenzance briers. Langholm had not known one rose from another when hecame to live among this galaxy; now they were his separate, familiar, individual friends, each with its own character in his eyes, its owncharm for him; and the man's soul was the sweeter for each summer spentin their midst. But to-night they called to closed nostrils and blindeyes. And the evening sun, reddening the upper stems of the pines, andwarming the mellow tiles of his dear cottage, had no more to say toLangholm's spirit than his beloved roses. 

The man had emerged from the dreamy, artistic, aesthetic existence intowhich he had drifted through living alone amid so much simple beauty; hewas in real, human, haunting trouble, and the manlier man for italready. 

Could he be mistaken after all? No; the more he pondered, the moreconvinced he felt. Everything pointed to the same conclusion, beginningwith that first dinner-party at Upthorpe, and that first conversation ofwhich he remembered every word. Mrs. Steel was Mrs. Minchin--thenotorious Mrs. Minchin--the Mrs. Minchin who had been tried for herhusband's murder, and acquitted to the horror of a righteous world. 

And he had been going to write a book about her, and it was she herselfwho had given him the idea!

But was it? There had been much light talk about Mrs. Steel's novel, andthe plot that Mrs. Steel had given Langholm, but that view of the matterhad been more of a standing joke than an intellectual bond betweenthem. It was strange to think of it in the former light to-night. 

Langholm recalled more than one conversation upon the same subject. Ithad had a fascination for Rachel, which somehow he was sorry to remembernow. Then he recollected the one end to all these conversations, and hismomentary regret was swept away by a rush of sympathy which it did himgood to feel. They had ended invariably in her obtaining from him, onone cunning pretext or another, a fresh assurance of his belief in Mrs. Minchin's innocence. Langholm radiated among his roses as his memoryconvinced him of this. Rachel had not talked about her case and his plotfor the morbid excitement of discussing herself with another, but forthe solid and wholesome satisfaction of hearing yet again that the otherdisbelieved in her guilt. 

And did he not? Langholm stood still in the scented dusk as he asked hisheart of hearts the point-blank question. And it was a crisper step thathe resumed, with a face more radiant than before. 

Yes, analytical as he was, there at least he was satisfied with himself. Thank God, he had always been of one opinion on that one point; that hehad made up his mind about her long before he knew the whilom Mrs. Minchin in the flesh, and had let her know which way almost as longbefore the secret of her identity could possibly have dawned upon him. Now, if the worst came to the worst, his sincerity at least could not bequestioned. Others might pretend, others again be unconsciouslyprejudiced in favor of their friend; he at least was above eithersuspicion. Had he not argued her case with Mrs. Venables at the time, and had he not told her so on the very evening that they met?

Certainly Langholm felt in a strong position, if ever the worst came tothe worst; it illustrated a little weakness, however, that he himselfforesaw no such immediate eventuality. There had been a very briefencounter between two persons at a garden-party, and a yet more briefconfusion upon either side. Of all this there existed but half-a-dozenwitnesses, at the outside, and Langholm did not credit the other fivewith his own trained insight and powers of observation; he furthermorereflected that those others, even if as close observers as himself, could not possibly have put two and two together as he had done. Andthis was sound; but Langholm had a fatal knack of overlooking the ladywhom he had taken in to dinner at Upthorpe Hall, and scarcely noticed atHornby Manor. Cocksure as he himself was of the significance of thatwhich he had seen with his own eyes, the observer flattered himself thathe was the only real one present; remembered the special knowledge whichhe had to assist his vision; and relied properly enough upon the silenceof Sir Baldwin Gibson. 

The greater the secret, however, the more piquant the situation for onewho was in it; and there were moments of a sleepless night in whichLangholm found nothing new to regret. But he was in a quandary none theless. He could scarcely meet Mrs. Steel again without a word about theprospective story, which they had so often discussed together, and uponwhich he was at last free to embark; nor could he touch upon that themewithout disclosing the new knowledge which would burn him until he did. Charles Langholm and Rachel Steel had two or three qualities in common:an utter inability to pretend was one, if you do not happen to think ita defect. 

As a rule when he had finished a rapid bit of writing, Langholm sat downto correct, and a depressing task his spent brain always found it; butfor once he let it beat him altogether. After a morning's tussle withone unfortunate chapter, the desperate author sent off the rest in theirsins, and rode his bicycle to abolish thought. But that mild pastimefell lamentably short of its usual efficacy. It was not one of hisheroines who was worrying the novelist, but a real woman whom he likedand her husband whom he did not. The husband it was who had finishedmatters by entering the field of speculation during the morning's work. It may he confessed that Langholm had not by any means disliked him theyear before. 

What was the secret of this second marriage on the part of one who hadbeen so recently and so miserably married? Was it love? Langholm wouldnot admit it for a moment. Steel did not love his wife, and there wascertainly nothing to love in Steel. Langholm had begun almost to hatehim; he told himself it was because Steel did not even pretend to lovehis wife, but let strangers see the abnormal terms on which they lived. 

What, then, was the explanation--the history--the excuse? They weresupposed to have married on the Continent; that was one of the fewstatements vouchsafed by Steel, and he happened to have made it in thefirst instance to Langholm himself. Was there any truth in it? And didSteel know the truth concerning his wife?

Your imaginative man is ever quick to form a theory based upon facts ofhis own involuntary invention. Langholm formed numerous theories andinvented innumerable facts during the four-and-twenty hours of hispresent separation from the heroine and the villain of these romances. The likeliest of the lot was the idea that the pair had really metabroad, at some out-of-the-way place, where Rachel had been in hidingfrom the world, and that in her despair of receiving common justice fromher kind, she had accepted the rich man without telling him who she was. His subsequent enlightenment was Langholm's explanation of Steel'scoldness towards his wife. 

He wondered if it was the kind of coldness that would ever be removed;if Steel believed her guilty, it never would. Langholm would not haveadmitted it, was not even aware of it in his own introspective mind, buthe almost hoped that Steel was not thoroughly convinced of his wife'sinnocence. 

The night of the dinner-party was so fine and the roads so clean thatLangholm went off on his bicycle once more, making an incongruous figurein his dress-suit, but pedalling sedately to keep cool. Fortune, however, was against him, for they had begun clipping those northernhedgerows, and an ominous bumping upon a perfectly flat road led to thediscovery of a puncture a long mile from Normanthorpe. Thence onward theunhappy cyclist had to choose between running beside his machine andriding on the rims, and between the two expedients arrived at last bothvery hot and rather late. But he thought he must be very late; for heneither met, followed, nor was followed by any vehicle whatsoever in thedrive; and the door did not open before Langholm rang, as it does whenthey are still waiting for one. Then the house seemed strangely silentwhen the door did open, and the footman wore a curious expression as heushered the late comer into an empty drawing-room. Langholm was nowalmost convinced that he had made some absurd mistake, and theimpression was not removed by the entry of Steel with his napkin in onehand. 

"I've mistaken the night!" exclaimed the perspiring author. 

"Not a bit of it, " replied Steel; "only we thought you weren't coming atall. "

"Am I really so late as all that?"

And Langholm began to wish he had mistaken the night. 

"No, " said Steel, "only a very few minutes, and the sin is oursentirely. But we thought you were staying away, like everybody else. "

"Like--everybody--else?"

"My dear fellow, " said Steel, smiling on the other's bewilderment, "Ihumbly apologize for having classed you for an instant with the rank andfile of our delightful neighbors; for the fact is that all but two havemade their excuses at the last moment. The telegrams will delight you, one of these days!"

"There was none from me, " declared Langholm, as he began to perceivewhat had happened. 

"There was not; and my wife was quite confident that you would come; sothe fault is altogether mine. Langholm, you were almost at her heelswhen she was introduced to the old judge yesterday?"

"I was. "

"Have you guessed who she was--before she married me--or has anybodytold you?"

"I have guessed. "

Steel stood silent for an instant, his eyes resting in calm scrutinyupon the other, his mouth as firm and fixed, his face fresh as a youngman's, his hair like spun silver in the electric light. Langholm lookedupon the man who was looking upon him, and he could not hate him as hewould. 

"And do you still desire to dine with us?" inquired his host at last. 

"I don't want to be in the way, " faltered Langholm, "on a painful--"

"Oh, never mind that!" cried Steel. "Are you quite sure you don't wantto cut our acquaintance?"

"You know I don't, " said Langholm, bluntly. 

"Then come in, pray, and take us as we are. "

"One moment, Steel! All this is inconceivable; do you mean to say thatyour guests have thrown you over on account of--of--"

"My wife having been a certain Mrs. Minchin before she changed her nameto Steel! Yes, every one of them, except our vicar and his wife, who arereal good friends. "

"I am another, " said Langholm through his big mustache. 

"The very servants are giving notice, one by one!"

"I am her servant, too!" muttered Langholm, as Steel stood aside to lethim pass out first; but this time it was through his teeth, though fromhis heart, and the words were only audible to himself. 

CHAPTER XIX

RACHEL'S CHAMPION

The immediate ordeal proved less trying than Langholm was prepared tofind it. His vivid imagination had pictured the long table, laid forsix-and-twenty, with four persons huddled at one end; but the telegramshad come in time to have the table reduced to its normal size, andLangholm found a place set for him between Mrs. Woodgate and Mrs. Steel. He was only embarrassed when Rachel rose and looked him in the eyesbefore holding out her hand. 

"Have you heard?" she asked him, in a voice as cold as her marble face, but similarly redeemed and animated by its delicate and distant scorn. 

"Yes, " answered Langholm, sadly; "yes, I have heard. "

"And yet--"

He interrupted her in another tone. 

"I know what you are going to say! I give you warning, Mrs. Steel, Iwon't listen to it. No 'and yets' for me; remember the belief I had, long before I knew anything at all! It ought not to be a whit strongerfor what I guessed yesterday for myself, and what your husband has thisminute confirmed. Yet it is, if possible, ten thousand times strongerand more sure!"

"I do remember, " said Rachel, slowly; "and, in my turn, I believe whatyou say. "

But her face did not alter as she took his hand; her own was so coldthat he looked at her in alarm; and the whole woman seemed turned tostone. Yet the dinner went on without further hitch; it might have beenthe very smallest and homeliest affair, to which only these guests hadbeen invited. Indeed, the menu had been reduced, like the table, by theunerring tact of Rachel's husband, so that there was no undue memorialto the missing one-and-twenty, and the whole ordeal was curtailed. 

There was, on the other hand, no blinking what had happened, no pretenceof ignoring the one subject which was in everybody's thoughts. Thus Mrs. Woodgate exclaimed aloud, what she was thinking to herself, that shewould never speak to Mrs. Venables again in all her life, and herhusband told her across the table that she had better not. Rachelthereupon put in her word, to the effect that the Woodgates would cutthemselves off from everybody if they made enemies of all whodisbelieved in her, and she could not allow them to do anything of thekind. Steel, again, speculated upon the probable behavior of theUniackes and the Invernesses, neither of these distinguished familieshaving been invited to the dinner, for obvious reasons arising fromtheir still recent return to the country. There was no effort to ignorethe absorbing topic before the butler and his satellites, but the linewas drawn in the right place, excluding as it did any reference to therout of Mrs. Venables, and indeed all details whatsoever. 

The butler, however, and in a less degree the footman, presented arather interesting study during the course of this momentous meal, hadthe professional observer present been only a little less concerned forhis hostess. The butler was a pompous but capable creature, whom Steelhad engaged when he bought the place. Though speedily reduced to a morerespectful servitude than he was accustomed to, the man had long sinceceased to complain of his situation, which carried with it the highestwages and all arbitrary powers over his subordinates. On the steps, ather deferred departure, Mrs. Venables had screamed the secret of hismistress's identity into the butler's ear. The butler had risen withdignity to the occasion, and, after a brief interview, resigned on thespot with all his men. The mild interest was in the present behavior ofthese gentry, which was a rich blend of dignity and depression, andbetrayed a growing doubt as to whether the sinking ship, that they hadbeen so eager to abandon, was really sinking after all. 

Certainly the master's manner could not have been very different at thehead of his table as originally laid. It was not festive, it was neitherunnaturally jocular nor showy in any way, but it was delightfullyconfident and serene. And the mistress was as calm in her way, thoughfor once hers was the colder way, and it was the opinion of the pantrythat she felt more than she showed; without a doubt Mrs. Woodgate hadmore work to restrain, now her tears for Rachel, and now her consumingindignation with the absentees. 

"Your wife feels it as much as mine, " said Steel to the vicar, when thegentlemen were alone at last; and one of them could have struck him forthe speech, one who had insight and could feel himself. 

"I wouldn't go so far as that, " the good vicar rejoined. "But Mornafeels it dreadfully. Dreadfully she feels it!"

"I almost wish we had kept the table as it was, " pursued Steel over hiscigar, "and had one of those flash-light photographs taken, as they doat all the twopenny banquets nowadays. All that was left of them--leftof six-and-twenty!"

His flippant tone made Langholm writhe, and drove him into theconversation to change its tenor. He asked by whom the evil had come. "Surely not the judge?"

"No, " said Steel, with emphasis. "Not that I have it for a fact, but Iwould put a thousand pounds upon his charity and his discretion in sucha matter. A kinder and a sounder man does not exist, though I say it whonever met him in my life. But I heard every word of my wife's trial, andI know the way the judge took the case. There were a heap of womenwitnesses, and her counsel was inclined to bully them; it was delightfulto see the fatherly consideration that they received as compensationfrom the bench. "

Langholm's breath was taken away. Here was an end to the likeliesttheory that he had evolved that morning among his roses. Steel had notmarried his wife in ignorance of her life's tragedy; he had beenpresent, and probably fallen in love with her, at her trial! Then whydid he never behave as though he were in love? And why must he expatiateupon the judge's kindness to the female witnesses, instead of on thegrand result of the trial over which he had presided? Did Steel himselfentertain the faintest doubt about the innocence of his wife, whosetrial he had heard, and whom he had married thereafter within a fewmonths at the most? Langholm's brain buzzed, even while he listened towhat Hugh Woodgate was saying. 

"I am not surprised, " remarked the vicar. "I remember once hearing thatSir Baldwin Gibson and Lord Edgeware were the two fairest judges on thebench; and why, do you suppose? Because they are both old athletes andOld Blues, trained from small boys to give their opponents everypossible chance!"

Steel nodded an understanding assent. Langholm, however, who was betterqualified to appreciate the vicar's point, took no notice of it. 

"If it was not the judge, " said he, "who in the world is it who hassprung this mine, I saw them meet, and as a matter of fact I did guessthe truth. But I had special reasons. I had thought, God forgive me, ofmaking something out of your wife's case, Steel, little dreaming it washers, though I knew it had no ordinary fascination for her. But no oneelse can have known that. "

"You talked it over with her, however?"

And Steel had both black eyes upon the novelist, who made his innocentadmission with an embarrassment due entirely to their unnecessarilypiercing scrutiny. 

"You talked it over with her, " repeated Steel, this time in drystatement of fact, "at least on one occasion, in the presence of a ladywho had a prior claim upon your conversation. That lady was Mrs. Vinson, and it is she who ought to have a millstone hanged about her neck, andbe cast into the sea. Don't look as though you deserved the same fate, Langholm! It would have been better, perhaps, if you had paid moreattention to Vinson's wife and less to mine; but she is the last womanin the world to blame you--naturally! And now, if you are ready, we willjoin them, Woodgate. "

Sensitive as all his tribe, and himself both gentle by nature andconsiderate of others according to his lights, which thoughtlessnessmight turn down or passion blur, but which burned steadily and brightlyin the main, Charles Langholm felt stung to the soul by the last fewwords, in which Hugh Woodgate noticed nothing amiss. Steel's tone wasnot openly insulting, but rather that of banter, misplaced perhaps, andin poor taste at such a time, yet ostensibly good-natured and innocentof ulterior meaning. But Langholm was not deceived. There was anulterior meaning to him, and a very unpleasant one withal. Yet he didnot feel unjustifiably insulted; he looked within, and felt justlyrebuked; not for anything he had said or done, but for what he found inhis heart at that moment. Langholm entered the drawing-room in profounddepression, but his state of mind was no longer due to anything that hadjust been said. 

The scene awaiting him was surely calculated to deepen that dejection. Rachel had left the gentlemen with the proud mien and the unbrokenspirit which she had maintained at table without trace of effort; theyfound her sobbing on Morna Woodgate's shoulder, in distress so poignantand so pitiful that even Steel stopped short upon the threshold. In aninstant she was on her feet, the tears still thick in her noble eyes, but the spirit once more alight behind the tears. 

"Don't go!" she begged them, in a voice that pierced one heart at least. "Stop and help me, for God's sake! I can't bear it. I am not strongenough. I can only pretend to bear it, for an hour, before the servants. Even that has almost maddened me, the effort, and the shame. "

"The shame is on others, " said Steel, gravely enough now, "and not onyou. And who are those others, I should like to know? And what does itmatter what they think or say? A hole-and-corner district like this isnot the world!"

Rachel shook her head sadly; her beautiful eyes were dry now, and onlythe more lustrous for the tears that they had shed. Langholm saw nothingelse. 

"But it is the world, " she asserted. "It is part of the world, and thesame thing would happen in any other part. It would happen in London, and everywhere else as soon as I became known. And henceforth I mean tobe known!" cried Rachel, wilfully; "there shall be no more hiding who Iwas, or am; that is the way to make them think the worst when they findout. But is it not disgraceful? I was acquitted, and yet I am to betreated as though I had been merely pardoned. Is that not a disgrace tocommon humanity?"

"Humanity is not so common as you imagine, " remarked Steel. 

"It is un-Christian!" cried Hugh Woodgate, with many repetitions of theepithet. 

Langholm said nothing. His eyes never left Rachel's face. Neither didshe meet them for an instant, nor had she a look for Hugh Woodgate oreven for his wife. It was to her husband that Rachel had spoken everyword; it was nearest him she stood, in his face only that she gazed. 

"Are you going to let the disgrace continue?" she asked him, fiercely. 

His answer was natural enough. 

"My dear Rachel, what can I do? I never dreamt that it would come outhere; it is by the merest fluke that it did. "

"But I want it to come out, " cried Rachel; "if you mean the fact of mytrial and my acquittal. It was a mistake ever to hide either for amoment. Henceforth they shall be no secret. "

"Then we cannot prevent the world from thinking and saying what itlikes, however uncharitable and unjust. Do be reasonable, and listen toreason, though God knows you can be in no mood for such cold comfort!But I have done my best; I will do my best again. I will sell this placeto-morrow. We will go right away somewhere else. "

"And then the same thing will happen there! Is that all you can suggest, you who married me after hearing with your own ears every scrap ofevidence that they could bring against me?"

"Have you anything better to suggest yourself, Rachel?"

"I have, " she answered, looking him full and sternly in the face, inthe now forgotten presence of their three guests. "Find out who _is_guilty, if you really want people to believe that I am not!"

Steel did not start, though there came a day when one at least of thelistening trio felt honestly persuaded that he had; as a matter of fact, his lips came more closely together, while his eyes searched those ofhis wife with a wider stare than was often seen in them, but for two orthree seconds at most, before dropping in perplexity to the floor. 

"How can I, Rachel?" her husband asked quietly, indeed gently, yet withlittle promise of acquiescence in his tone. "I am not a detective, afterall. "

But that was added for the sake of adding something, and was enough toprove Steel ill at ease, to the wife who knew him as no man ever had. 

"A detective, no!" said she, readily enough. "But you are a rich man;you could employ detectives; you could clear your wife, if you liked. "

"Rachel, you know very well that you are cleared already. "

"That is your answer, then!" she cried scornfully, and snatched her eyesfrom him at last, without waiting for a denial. She was done with him, her face said plainly; he looked at her a moment, then turned aside witha shrug. 

But Rachel's eyes went swiftly round the room; they alighted for aninstant upon Morna Woodgate, leaning forward upon the sofa where theyhad sat together, eager, enthusiastic, but impotent as a woman must be;they passed over the vicar, looking stolid as usual, and more than alittle puzzled; but at last they rested on Langholm's thin, stoopingfigure, with untidy head thrust forward towards her, and a light in hisdreamy eyes that kindled a new light in her own. 

"You, Mr. Langholm!" cried Rachel, taking a quick, short step in hisdirection. "You, with your plots and your problems that nobody cansolve; don't you think you could unravel this one for me?"

Her eyes were radiant now, and their radiance all for him. Langholm feltthe heart swimming in his body, the brain in his head. A couple oflong-legged strides to meet her nine-tenths of the way, and he had takenRachel's hand before her husband and her friends. 

"Before God, " said Langholm, "I'll try!"

Their hands met only to part. There was a sardonic laugh from Rachel'shusband. 

"Do you forbid me?" demanded Langholm, turning upon him. 

"Far from it, " said Steel. "I shall be most interested to see you go towork. "

"Is that a challenge?"

The two men faced each other, while the third man and the women lookedon. It had sounded like a challenge to all but the vicar, though neitherof the others had had time to think so before they heard the word andrecognized its justice. 

"If you like, " said Steel, indifferently. 

"I accept it as such, " rejoined Langholm, dogging the other with hiseyes. "And find him I will--the guilty man--if I never write anotherline--and if the villain is still alive!"

CHAPTER XX

MORE HASTE

There are eminent men of action who can acquit themselves with equalcredit upon the little field of letters, as some of the very best booksof late years go to prove. The man of letters, on the other hand, capable of cutting a respectable figure in action, is, one fears, a muchrarer type. Langholm was essentially a man of letters. He was at hisbest among his roses and his books, at his worst in unforeseen collisionwith the rougher realities of life. But give him time, and he was notthe man to run away because his equipment for battle was as short as hisconfidence in himself; and perhaps such courage as he possessed was notless courageous for the crust of cowardice (mostly moral) through whichit always had to break. Langholm had one other qualification for thequest to which he had committed himself, but for which he was asthoroughly unsuited by temperament as by the whole tenor of his solitarylife. In addition to an ingenious imagination (a quality with its owndefects, as the sequel will show), he had that capacity for takingpains which has no disadvantageous side, though in Langholm's case, forone, it was certainly not a synonym for genius. 

It was 3. 45 on the Monday afternoon when he alighted at King's Cross, having caught the 9. 30 from Northborough after an early adieu to WilliamAllen Richardson and the rest. Langholm made sure of the time beforegetting into his hansom at the terminus. 

"Drive hard, " he said, "to the Capital and Counties Bank in OxfordStreet. "

And he was there some minutes before the hour. 

"I want to know my exact balance, if it is not too much trouble to lookit up before you close. "

A slip of paper was soon put into Langholm's hand, and at a glance heflushed to the hat with pleasure and surprise, and so regained his cab. "The Cadogan Hotel, in Sloane Street, " he cried through the trap; "andthere's no hurry, you can go your own pace. "

Nor was there any further anxiety in Langholm's heart. His balance was aclear hundred more than he had expected to find it, and his whole soulsang the praises of a country life. Unbusinesslike and unmethodical ashe was, in everything but the preparation of MS. , such a discoverycould never have been made in town, where Langholm's expenditure hadmarched arm-in-arm with his modest earnings. 

"And it can again, " he said recklessly to himself, as he decided on thebest hotel in the field of his investigations, instead of lodgings;"thank God, I have enough to run this racket till the end of the year atleast! If I can't strike the trail by then--"

He lapsed into dear reminiscence and dearer daydreams, their commonscene some two hundred miles north; but to realize his lapse was torecover from it promptly. Langholm glanced at himself in the littlemirror. His was an honest face, and it was an honest part that he mustplay, or none at all. He leaned over the apron and interested himself inthe London life that was so familiar to him still. It was as though hehad not been absent above a day, yet his perceptions were sharpened byhis very absence of so many weeks. The wood pavement gave off a strongbut not unpleasant scent in the heavy August heat; it was positivelydear to the old Londoner's nostrils. The further he drove upon hissouthwesterly course, the emptier were the well-known thoroughfares. St. James's Street might have been closed to traffic; the clubs in PallMall were mostly shut. On the footways strolled the folk whom one onlysees there in August and September, the entire families from thecountry, the less affluent American, guide book in hand. Here and therewas a perennial type, the pale actor with soft hat and blue-black chin, the ragged sloucher from park to park. Langholm could have foregatheredwith one and all, such was the strange fascination of the town for onewho was twice the man among his northern roses. But that is the kind ofmistress that London is to those who have once felt her spell; you mayforget her by the year, but the spell lies lurking in the first whiff ofthe wood pavement, the first flutter of the evening paper on the curb;and even in the cab you wonder how you have borne existence elsewhere. 

The hotel was very empty, and Langholm found not only the best of roomsat his disposal, but that flattering quality of attention which awaitsthe first comer when few come at all. He refreshed himself with tea anda bath, and then set out to reconnoitre the scene of the alreadyhalf-forgotten murder. He had a vague though sanguine notion that hisimaginative intuition might at once perceive some possibility which hadnever dawned upon the academic intelligence of the police. 

Of course he remembered the name of the street, and it was easilyfound. Nor had Langholm any difficulty in discovering the house, thoughhe had forgotten the number. There were very few houses in the street, and only one of them was empty and to let. It was plastered with thebills of various agents, and Langholm noted down the nearest of these, whose office was in King's Road. He would get an order to view thehouse, and would explore every inch of it that very night. But his bathand his tea had made away with the greater part of an hour; it was sixo'clock before Langholm reached the house-agent's, and the office wasalready shut. 

He dined quietly at his hotel, feeling none the less that he had made abeginning, and spent the evening looking up Chelsea friends, who werelikely to be more conversant than himself with all the circumstances ofMr. Minchin's murder and his wife's arrest; but who, as might have beenexpected, were one and all from home. 

In the morning the order of his plans were somewhat altered. It wasessential that he should have those circumstances at his fingers' ends, at least so far as they had transpired in open court. Langholm had readthe trial at the time with the inquisitive but impersonal interest whichsuch a case inspires in the average man. Now he must study it in a verydifferent spirit, and for the nonce he repaired betimes to the newspaperroom at the British Museum. 

By midday he had mastered most details of the complex case, and made anote of every name and address which had found their way into thenewspaper reports. But there was one name which did not appear in anyaccount. Langholm sought it in bound volume after bound volume, untileven the long-suffering attendants, who trundle the great tomes fromtheir shelves on trolleys, looked askance at the wanton reader whofilled in a new form every five or ten minutes. But the reader's faceshone with a brighter light at each fresh failure. Why had the name hewanted never come up in open court? Where was the evidence of the manwho had made all the mischief between the Minchins? Langholm intendedhaving first the one and then the other; already he was on the spring toa first conclusion. With a caution, however, which did infinite creditto one of his temperament, the amateur detective determined to look alittle further before leaping even in his own mind. 

Early in the afternoon he was back in Chelsea, making fraudulentrepresentations to the house-agent near the Vestry Hall. 

"Not more than ninety, " repeated that gentleman, as he went through hisbook, and read out particulars of several houses at about that rental;but the house which Langholm burned to see over was not among thenumber. 

"I want a quiet street, " said the wily writer, and named the one inwhich it stood. "Have you nothing there?"

"I have one, " said the agent with reserve, "and it's only seventy. "

"The less the better, " cried Langholm, light-heartedly. "I should liketo see that one. "

The house-agent hesitated, finally looking Langholm in the face. 

"You may as well know first as last, " said he, "for we have had enoughtrouble about that house. It was let last year for ninety; we're askingseventy because it is the house in which Mr. Minchin was shot dead. Still want to see it?" inquired the house-agent, with a wry smile. 

It was all Langholm could do to conceal his eagerness, but in the end heescaped with several orders to view, and the keys of the house of housesin his pocket. No caretaker could be got to live in it; the agent seemedhalf-surprised at Langholm's readiness to see over it all alone. 

About an hour later the novelist stood at a door whose name and numberwere not inscribed upon any of the orders obtained by fraud from theKing's Road agent. It was a door that needed painting, and there was aconspicuous card in the ground-floor window. Langholm tugged twice inhis impatience at the old-fashioned bell. If his face had been alightbefore, it was now on fire, for by deliberate steps he had arrived atthe very conclusion to which he had been inclined to jump. At last camea slut of the imperishable lodging-house type. 

"Is your mistress in?"

"No. "

"When do you expect her?"

"Not before night. "

"Any idea what time of night?"

The untidy child had none, but at length admitted that she had orders tokeep the fire in for the landlady's supper. Langholm drew his owndeduction. It would be little use in returning before nine o'clock. Fivehours to wait! He made one more cast before he went. 

"Have you been here long, my girl?"

"Going on three months. "

"But your mistress has been here some years?"

"I believe so. "

"Are you her only servant?"

"Yes. "

And five hours to wait for more!

It seemed an infinity to Langholm as he turned away. But at all eventsthe house had not changed hands. The woman he would eventually see wasthe woman who had given invaluable evidence at the Old Bailey. 

CHAPTER XXI

WORSE SPEED

Langholm returned to his hotel and wrote a few lines to Rachel. It hadbeen arranged that he was to report progress direct to her, and as oftenas possible; but it was a very open arrangement, in which Steel hadsardonically concurred. Yet, little as there was to say, and for all hispractice with the pen, it took Langholm the best part of an hour towrite that he believed he had already obtained a most important clew, which the police had missed in the most incredible manner, though it hadbeen under their noses all the time. So incredible did it appear, however, even to himself, when written down, that Langholm decided notto post this letter until after his interview with the Chelsea landlady. 

To kill the interval, he went for his dinner to the single club to whichhe still belonged. It was a Bohemian establishment off the Strand, andits time-honored name was the best thing about it in this member's eyes. He was soon cursing himself for coming near the place while engagedupon his great and sacred quest. Not a "clubable" person himself, asthat epithet was understood in this its home, Langholm was not a littlesurprised when half-a-dozen men (most of whom he barely knew) rose togreet him on his appearance in the smoking-room. But even with theirgreetings came the explanation, to fill the newcomer with a horror toosudden for concealment. 

It appeared that Mrs. Steel's identity with the whilom Mrs. Minchin hadnot only leaked out in Delverton. Langholm gathered that it was actuallyin one of that morning's half-penny papers, at which he had not foundtime to glance in his hot-foot ardor for the chase. For the moment hewas shocked beyond words, and not a little disgusted, to discover thecause of his own temporary importance. 

"Talk of the devil!" cried a comparative crony. "I was just telling themthat you must be the 'well-known novelist' in the case, as your cottagewas somewhere down there. Have you really seen anything of the lady?"

"Seen anything of her?" echoed a journalist to whom Langholm had neverspoken in his life. "Why, can't you see that he bowled her out himselfand came up straight to sell the news?"

Langholm took his comparative crony by the arm. 

"Come in and dine with me, " he said; "I can't stand this! Yes, yes, Iknow her well, " he whispered, as they went round the screen which wasthe only partition between pipes and plates; "but let me see what thatscurrilous rag has to say while you order. I'll do the rest, and you hadbetter make it a bottle of champagne. "

The "scurrilous rag" had less to say than Langholm had been led toexpect. He breathed again when he had read the sequence of short butpithy paragraphs. Mrs. Minchin's new name was not given after all, northat of her adopted district; while Langholm himself only slunk intoprint as "a well-known novelist who, oddly enough, was among the guests, and eye-witness of a situation after his own heart. " The district mighthave been any one of the many manufacturing centres in "the largest ofshires, " which was the one geographical clew vouchsafed by thehalf-penny paper. Langholm began to regret his readiness to admit theimpeachment with which he had been saluted; it was only in his own clubthat he would have been pounced upon as the "well-known novelist"; butit was some comfort to reflect that even in his own club his exactaddress was not known, for his solicitor paid his subscription and sentperiodically for his letters. Charles Langholm had not set up as hermitby halves; he had his own reasons for being thorough there. And it wasmore inspiriting than the champagne to feel that no fresh annoyance waslikely to befall the Steels through him. 

"It's not so bad as I thought, " said Langholm, throwing the newspaperaside as his companion, whose professional name was Valentine Venn, finished with the wine-card. 

"Dear boy, " said Venn, "it took a pal to spot you. Alone I did it! But Iwish you weren't so dark about that confounded cottage of yours; thehumble mummer would fain gather the crumbs that fall from the richscribe's table, especially when he's out of a shop, which is the presentcondition of affairs. Besides, we might collaborate in a play, and makemore money apiece in three weeks than either of us earns in a fat year. That little story of yours--"

"Never mind my little stories, " said Langholm, hastily; "I've justfinished a long one, and the very thought of fiction makes me sick. "

"Well, you've got facts to turn to for a change, and for once theyreally do seem as strange as the other thing. Lucky bargee! Have you hadher under the microscope all the summer? Ye gods, what a part ofMrs. --"

"Drink up, " said Langholm, grimly, as the champagne made an opportuneappearance; "and now tell me who that fellow is who's opening the piano, and since when you've started a musical dinner. "

The big room that the screen divided had a grand piano in the dininghalf, for use upon those Saturday evenings for which the old club wasstill famous, but rarely touched during the working days of the week. Yet even now a dark and cadaverous young man was raising the top of thepiano, slowly and laboriously, as though it were too heavy for him. Valentine Venn looked over his shoulder. 

"Good God!" said he. "Another fact worth most folks' fiction--anothercoincidence you wouldn't dare to use!"

"Why--who is it?"

Venn's answer was to hail the dark, thin youth with rude geniality. Theyoung fellow hesitated, almost shrank, but came shyly forward in theend. Langholm noted that he looked very ill, that his face was assensitive as it was thin and pale, but his expression singularly sweetand pleasing. 

"Severino, " said Venn, with a play-actor's pomp, "let me introduce youto Charles Langholm, the celebrated novelist--'whom not to know is toargue yourself unknown. '"

"Which is the champion _non sequitur_ of literature, " added Langholm, with literary arrogance, as he took the lad's hand cordially in his own, only to release it hurriedly before he crushed such slender fingers totheir hurt. 

"Mr. Langholm, " pursued Venn, "is the hero of that paragraph"--Langholmkicked him under the table--"that--that paragraph about his last book, you know. Severino, Langholm, is the best pianist we have had in theclub since I have been a member, and you will say the same yourself inanother minute. He always plays to us when he drops in to dine, and youmay think yourself lucky that he has dropped in to-night. "

"But where does the coincidence come in?" asked Langholm, as the youngfellow returned to the piano with a rather sad shake of the head. 

"What!" cried Venn, below his breath; "do you mean to say you are afriend of Mrs. Minchin's, or whatever her name is now, and that younever heard of Severino?"

"No, " replied Langholm, his heart in an instantaneous flutter. "Who ishe?"

"The man she wanted to nurse the night her husband was murdered--thecause of the final row between them! His name was kept out of thepapers, but that's the man. "

Langholm sat back in his chair. To have spent a summer's day in stolidsearch for traces of this man, only to be introduced to the man himselfby purest chance in the evening! It was, indeed, difficult to believe;nor was persuasion on the point followed by the proper degree ofgratitude in Langholm for a transcendent stroke of fortune. In fact, healmost resented his luck; he would so much rather have stood indebted tohis skill. And there were other causes for disappointment, as in aninstant there were things more incredible to Langholm than the everydaycoincidence of a chance meeting with the one person whom one desires tomeet. 

"So that's the man!" he echoed, in a tone that might have told hiscompanion something, only the fingers which Langholm had feared to crushhad already fallen upon the keys, with the strong, tender, unerringtouch of a master, and the impressionable player was swaying withenthusiasm on his stool. 

"And can't he play?" whispered Valentine Venn, as though it were theman's playing alone that they were discussing. 

Yet even the preoccupied novelist had to listen and nod, and thenlisten again, before replying. 

"He can, " said Langholm at length. "But why was it that they took suchpains to keep his name out of the case?"

"They didn't. It would have done no good to drag him in. The poor devilwas at death's door at the time of the murder. "

"But is that a fact?"

Venn opened his eyes. 

"Supposing, " continued Langholm, speaking the thing that was not in hismind with the deplorable facility of the professionalstory-teller--"supposing that illness had been a sham, and they hadreally meant to elope under cover of it!"

"Well, it wasn't. "

"I dare say not. But how do you know? They ought to have put him in thebox and had his evidence. "

"He was still too ill to be called, " rejoined Venn. "But I'll take youat your word, dear boy, and tell you exactly how I do know all about hisillness. You see that dark chap with the cigar, who's just come in tolisten? That's Severino's doctor; it was he who put him up here; andI'll introduce you to him, if you like, after dinner. "

"Thank you, " said Langholm, after some little hesitation; "as a matterof fact, I should like it very much. Venn, " he added, leaning rightacross the little table, "I know the woman well! I believe in herabsolutely, on every point, and I mean to make her neighbors and mine dothe same. That is my object--don't give it away!"

"Dear boy, these lips are sealed, " said Valentine Venn. 

But a very little conversation with the doctor sufficed to satisfyLangholm's curiosity, and to remove from his mind the wild prepossessionwhich he had allowed to grow upon it with every hour of that wasted day. The doctor was also one of the Bohemian colony in Chelsea, and by nomeans loath to talk about a tragedy of which he had exceptionalknowledge, since he himself had been one of the medical witnesses ateach successive stage of the investigations. He had also heard on theother side of the screen, that Langholm was the novelist referred to ina paragraph which had of course had a special interest for him; and, aswas only fair, Langholm was interrogated in his turn. What was lessfair, and indeed ungrateful in a marked degree, was the way in which theoriginal questioner parried all questions put to himself; and he verysoon left the club. On his way out, he went into the writing-room, and, tearing into little pieces a letter which he had written thatafternoon, left the fragments behind him in the waste-paper basket. 

His exit from the room was meanwhile producing its sequel in a littleincident which would have astonished Langholm considerably. Severino hadbeen playing for nearly an hour on end, had seemed thoroughly engrossedin his own fascinating performance, and quite oblivious of the diningand smoking going on around him according to the accepted ease andfreedom of the club. Yet no sooner was Langholm gone than the pianistbroke off abruptly and joined the group which the other had deserted. 

"Who is that fellow?" said Severino, in English so perfect that theslight Italian accent only added a charm to his gentle voice. "I did notcatch the name. "

It was repeated, with such additions as may be fairly made behind aman's back. 

"A dashed good fellow, who writes dashed bad novels, " was one of these. 

"You forget!" said another. "He is the 'well-known novelist' who isgoing the rounds as a neighbor and friend of Mrs. --"

Looks from Venn and the doctor cut short the speech, but not before itsimport had come home to the young Italian, whose hollow cheeks flusheda dusky brown, while his sunken eyes caught fire. In an instant he wason his feet, with no attempt to hide his excitement, and still less tomask the emotion that was its real name. 

"He knows her, do you tell me? He knows Mrs. Minchin--"

"Or whatever her name is now; yes; so he says. "

"And what is her name?"

"He won't say. "

"Nor where she lives?"

"No. "

"Then where does he live?"

"None of us know that either; he's the darkest horse in the club. "

Venn agreed with this speaker, some little bitterness in his tone. Another stood up for Langholm. 

"We should be as dark, " said he, "if we had married Gayety choristers, and they had left us, and we went in dread of their return!"

They sum up the life tragedies pretty pithily, in these clubs. 

"He was always a silly ass about women, " rejoined Langholm's critic, summing up the man. "So it's Mrs. Minchin now!"

The name acted like magic upon young Severino. His attention hadwandered. In an instant it was more eager than before. 

"If you don't know where he lives in the country, " he burst out, "whereis he staying in town?"

"We don't know that either. "

"Then I mean to find out!"

And the pale musician rushed from the room, in pursuit of the man whohad been all day pursuing him. 

CHAPTER XXII

THE DARKEST HOUR

The amateur detective walked slowly up to Piccadilly, and climbed on topof a Chelsea omnibus, a dejected figure even to the casual eye. He wasmore than disappointed at the upshot of his wild speculations, and inhimself for the false start that he had made. His feeling was one ofpositive shame. It was so easy now to see the glaring improbability ofthe conclusion to which he had jumped in his haste, at the firstpromptings of a too facile fancy. And what an obvious idea it had beenat last! As if his were the only brain to which it could have occurred!

Langholm could have laughed at his late theory if it had only entailedthe loss of one day, but it had also cost him that self-confidence whichwas the more valuable in his case through not being a commoncharacteristic of the man. He now realized the difficulties of hisquest, and the absolutely wrong way in which he had set about it. Hisimagination had run away with him. It was no case for the imagination. It was a case for patient investigation, close reasoning, logicaldeduction, all arts in which the imaginative man is almost inevitablydeficient. 

Langholm, however, had enough lightness of temperament to abandon anidea as readily as he formed one, and his late suspicion was alreadydriven to the four winds. He only hoped he had not shown what was in hismind at the club. Langholm was a just man, and he honestly regretted theinjustice that he had done, even in his own heart, and for ever so fewhours, to a thoroughly innocent man. 

And all up Piccadilly this man was sitting within a few inches of him, watching his face with a passionate envy, and plucking up courage tospeak; he only did so at Hyde Park Corner, where an interveningpassenger got down. 

Langholm was sufficiently startled at the sound of his own name, breaking in upon the reflections indicated, but to find at his elbow thevery face which was in his mind was to lose all power of immediatereply. 

"My name is Severino, " explained the other. "I was introduced to you anhour or two ago at the club. "

"Ah, to be sure!" cried Langholm, recovering. "Odd thing, though, for wemust have left about the same time, and I never saw you till thismoment. "

Severino took the vacant place by Langholm's side. "Mr. Langholm, " saidhe, a tremor in his soft voice, "I have a confession to make to you. Ifollowed you from the club!"

"_You_ followed _me_?"

Langholm could not help the double emphasis; to him it seemed agrotesque turning of the tables, a too poetically just ending to thatmisspent day. It was all he could do to repress a smile. 

"Yes, I followed you, " the young Italian repeated, with his takingaccent, in his touching voice; "and I beg your pardon for doingso--though I would do the same again--I will tell you why. I thoughtthat you were talking about me while I was strumming to them at theclub. It is possible, of course, that I was quite mistaken; but when youwent out I stopped at once and asked questions. And they told me youwere a friend of--a great friend of mine--of Mrs. Minchin!"

"It is true enough, " said Langholm, after a pause. "Well?"

"She was a very great friend of mine, " repeated Severino. "That wasall. "

And he sighed. 

"So I have heard, " said Langholm, with sympathy. "I can well believeit, for I might almost say the same of her myself. "

The 'bus toiled on beside the park. The two long lines of lights rosegently ahead until they almost met, and the two men watched them as theyspoke. 

"Until to-day, " continued Severino, "I did not know whether she was deador alive. "

"She is both alive and well. "

"And married again?"

"And married again. "

There was a long pause. The park ended first. 

"I want you to do me a great favor, " said Severino in Knightsbridge. "She was so good to me! I shall never forget it, and yet I have neverbeen able to thank her. I nearly died--it was at that time--and when Iremembered, she had disappeared. I beg and beseech you, Mr. Langholm, totell me her name, and where she is living now!"

Langholm looked at his companion in the confluence of lights at theSloane Street corner. The pale face was alight with passion, the sunkeneyes ablaze. "I cannot tell you, " he answered, shortly. 

"Is it your own name?"

"Good God, no!"

And Langholm laughed harshly. 

"Will you not even tell me where she lives?"

"I cannot, without her leave; but if you like I will tell her aboutyou. "

There was no answer as they drove on. Then of a sudden Langholm's armwas seized and crushed by bony fingers. 

"I am dying, " the low voice whispered hoarsely in his ear. "Can't yousee it for yourself? I shall never get better; it might be a year ortwo, it may be weeks. But I want to see her again and make sure. Yes, Ilove her! There is no sense in denying it. But it is all on my side, andI am dying, and she has married again! What harm can it do anybody if Isee her once more?"

The sunken eyes were filled with tears. There were more tears in thehollow voice. Langholm was deeply touched. 

"My dear fellow, " he said, "I will let her know. No, no, not that, ofcourse! But I will write to her at once--to-night! Will that not do?"

Severino thanked him, with a heavy sigh. "Oh, don't get down, " he added, as Langholm rose. "I won't talk about her any more. "

"I am staying in this street, " explained Langholm, guardedly. 

"And these are my lodgings, " rejoined the other, pulling a letter fromhis pocket, and handing the envelope to Langholm. "Let me hear fromyou, for pity's sake, as soon as you hear from her!"

Langholm sauntered on the pavement until the omnibus which he had leftwas no longer distinguishable from the general traffic of thethoroughfare. The address on the envelope was that of the lodging-houseat which he was to have called that night. He was glad now that his luckhad not left him to find Severino for himself; the sense of fatuitywould have been even keener than it was. In a way he now felt drawn tothe poor, frank boy who had so lately been the object of his unjust andunfounded suspicions. There was a new light in which to think of him, anew bond between them, a new spring of sympathy or jealousy, if not ofboth. But Langholm was not in London to show sympathy or friendship forany man. He was in London simply and solely upon his own great quest, inwhich no man must interrupt him. That was why he had been so guardedabout his whereabouts--though not guarded enough--and why he watched theomnibus out of sight before entering his hotel. The old Londoner hadforgotten how few places there are at which one can stay in SloaneStreet. 

A bad twenty-four hours was in store for him. 

They began well enough with the unexpected discovery that an eminentauthority on crime and criminals, who had been a good friend to Langholmin his London days, was still in town. The novelist went round to hishouse that night, chiefly because it was not ten minutes' walk from theCadogan Hotel, and with little hope of finding anybody at home. Yetthere was his friend, with the midnight lamp just lighted, and so kind awelcome that Langholm confided in him on the spot. And the man who knewall the detectives in London did not laugh at the latest recruit totheir ranks; but smile he did. 

"I'll tell you what I might do, " he said at length. "I might give you acard that should get you into the Black Museum at New Scotland Yard, where they would show you any relics they may have kept of the Minchinmurder; only don't say why you want to see them. Every man you see therewill be a detective; you may come across the very fellows who got up thecase; if so, they may tell you what they think of it, and you should beable to find out whether they're trying again. Here you are, Langholm, and I wish you luck. Doing anything to-morrow night?"

Langholm could safely say that he was not. 

"Then dine with me at the Rag at seven, and tell me how you get on. Itmust be seven, because I'm off to Scotland by the night mail. And Idon't want to be discouraging, my dear fellow, but it is only honest tosay that I think more of your chivalry than of your chances of success!"

At the Black Museum they had all the trophies which had been produced incourt; but the officer who acted as showman to Langholm admitted thatthey had no right to retain any of them. They were Mrs. Minchin'sproperty, and if they knew where she was they would of course restoreeverything. 

"But the papers say she isn't Mrs. Minchin any longer, " the officeradded. "Well, well! There's no accounting for taste. "

"But Mrs. Minchin was acquitted, " remarked Langholm, in tone asimpersonal as he could make it. 

"Ye-es, " drawled his guide, dryly. "Well, it's not for us to sayanything about that. "

"But you think all the more, I suppose?"

"There's only one opinion about it in the Yard. "

"But surely you haven't given up trying to find out who really didmurder Mr. Minchin?"

"We think we did find out, sir, " was the reply to that. 

So they had given it up! For a single second the thought wasstimulating; if the humble author could succeed where the police hadfailed! But the odds against such success were probably a million toone, and Langholm sighed as he handled the weapon with which the crimehad been committed, in the opinion of the police. 

"What makes you so certain that this was the revolver?" he inquired, more to satisfy his conscience by leaving no question unasked than tovoice any doubt upon the point. 

The other smiled as he explained the peculiarity of the pistol; it hadbeen made in Melbourne, and it carried the bullet of peculiar size whichhad been extracted from Alexander Minchin's body. 

"But London is full of old Australians, " objected Langholm, forobjection's sake. 

"Well, sir, " laughed the officer, "you find one who carries a revolverlike this, and prove that he was in Chelsea on the night of the murder, with a motive for committing it, and we shall be glad of his name andaddress. Only don't forget the motive; it wasn't robbery, you know, though her ladyship was so sure it was robbers! There's the maker's nameon the barrel. I should take a note of it, sir, if I was you!"

That name and that note were all that Langholm had to show when he dinedwith the criminologist at his service club the same evening. Theamateur detective looked a beaten man already, but he talked throughhis teeth of inspecting the revolvers in every pawnbroker's shop inLondon. 

"It will take you a year, " said the old soldier, cheerfully. 

"It seems the only chance, " replied the despondent novelist. "It is acase of doing that or nothing. "

"Then take the advice of an older fogey than yourself, and do nothing!You are quite right to believe in the lady's innocence; there is noexcuse for entertaining any other belief, still less for expressing it. But when you come to putting salt on the real culprit, that's anothermatter. My dear fellow, it's not the sort of thing that you or I couldhope to do on our own, even were the case far simpler than it is. It wasvery sporting of you to offer for a moment to try your hand; but if Iwere you I should confess without delay that the task is far beyond you, for that's the honest truth. "

Langholm walked back to his hotel, revolving this advice. Its soundnesswas undeniable, while the source from which it came gave it exceptionalweight and value. It was an expert opinion which no man in his sensescould afford to ignore, and Langholm felt that Mrs. Steel also ought atleast to hear it before building on his efforts. The letter wouldprepare her for his ultimate failure, as it was only fair that sheshould be prepared, and yet would leave him free to strain every nervein any fresh direction in which a chance ray lit the path. But it wouldbe a difficult letter to write, and Langholm was still battling with thefirst sentence when he reached the Cadogan. 

"A gentleman to see me?" he cried in surprise. "What gentleman?"

"Wouldn't leave his name, sir; said he'd call again; a foreigngentleman, he seemed to me. "

"A delicate-looking man?"

"Very, sir. You seem to know him better than he knows you, " added thehall-porter, with whom Langholm had made friends. "He wasn't certainwhether it was the Mr. Langholm he wanted who was staying here, and heasked to look at the register. "

"Did you let him see it?" cried Langholm, quickly. 

"I did, sir. "

"Then let me have another look at it, please!"

It was as Langholm feared. Thoughtlessly, but naturally enough, whenrequested to put his own name in the book, he had also filled in thatfull address which he took such pains to conceal in places where he wasbetter known. And that miserable young Italian, that fellow Severino, had discovered not only where he was staying in town, but where he livedin the country, and his next discovery would be Normanthorpe House andits new mistress! Langholm felt enraged; after his own promise to writeto Rachel, a promise already fulfilled, the unhappy youth might have hadthe decency to refrain from underhand tricks like this. Langholm feltinclined to take a cab at once to Severino's lodgings, there to relievehis mind by a very plain expression of his opinion. But it was late; andperhaps allowances should be made for a sick man with a passion ashopeless as his bodily state; in any case he would sleep upon it first. 

But there was no sleep for Charles Langholm that night, nor did thethought of Severino enter his head again; it was suddenly swept asideand as suddenly replaced by that of the man who was to fill thenovelist's mind for many a day. 

Idly glancing up and down the autographed pages of the hotel register, as his fingers half-mechanically turned leaf after leaf backward, Langholm's eye had suddenly caught a name of late as familiar to him ashis own. 

It was the name of John Buchanan Steel. 

And the date was the date of the Minchin murder. 

CHAPTER XXIII

DAWN

The hall-porter was only too ready for further chat. It was the dullseason, and this visitor was one of a variety always popular in thequieter hotels; he was never above a pleasant word with the servants. Yet the porter stared at Langholm as he approached. His face wasflushed, and his eyes so bright that there would have been but onediagnosis by the average observer. But the porter knew that Langholm hadcome in sober, and that for the last twenty minutes he had sat absorbedin the hotel register. 

"I see, " said Langholm--and even his voice was altered, which made theother stare the harder--"I see that a friend of mine stayed here justupon a year ago. I wonder if you remember him?"

"If it was the off-season, sir, I dare say I shall. "

"It was in September, and his name was Steel. "

"How long did he stay?"

"Only one night, I gather--an elderly gentleman with very white hair. "

The porter's face lighted up. 

"I remember him, sir! I should think I did! A very rich gentleman, Ishould say; yes, he only stayed the one night, but he gave me asovereign when he went away next day. "

"He is very rich, " said Langholm, repressing by main force a desire toask a string of questions. He fancied that the porter was not one whoneeded questioning, and his patience had its immediate reward. 

"I remember when he arrived, " the man went on. "It was late at night, and he hadn't ordered his room. He came in first to see whether we couldgive him one. I paid the cab myself and brought in his bag. "

"He had just arrived from the country, I presume?"

The porter nodded. 

"At King's Cross, by the 10. 45, I believe; but it must have been a goodbit late, for I was just coming off duty, and the night-porter was justcoming on. "

"Then you didn't see any more of Mr. Steel that night?"

"I saw him go out again, " said the porter, dryly, "after he hadsomething to eat, for we are short-handed in the off-season, and Istopped up myself to see he got it. I didn't see him come in the secondtime. "

Langholm could hardly believe his ears. To cover his excitement he burstout laughing. 

"The old dog!" he cried. "Do you know if he ever came in at all?"

"Between two and three, I believe, " said the porter in the same tone. 

Langholm laughed again, but asked no more questions, and in a little hewas pacing his bedroom floor, with fevered face and tremulous stride, ashe was to continue pacing it for the greater part of that August night. 

Yet it was not a night spent in thought, but rather in intercepting andin casting out the kind of thoughts that chased each other through thenovelist's brain. His imagination had him by the forelock once more, butthis time he was resisting with all his might. It meant resistance tothe strongest attribute that he possessed. The man's mind was now apicture-gallery and now a stage. He thought in pictures and he saw inscenes. It was no fault of Langholm's, any more than it was a merit. Imagination was the predominant force of his intellect, as in others isthe power of reasoning, or the gift of languages, or the mastery offigures. Langholm could no more help it than he could change the colorof his eyes, but to-night he did his best. He had mistaken invention fordiscovery once already. He was grimly determined not to let it happentwice. 

To suspect Steel because he chanced to have been in the neighborhood ofChelsea on the night of the murder, and absent from his hotel about thehour of its committal, was not less absurd than his first suspicion ofthe man who could be proved to have been lying between life and death atthe time. There had been something to connect the dead man withSeverino. There was nothing within Langholm's knowledge to connect himwith Steel. Yet Steel was the most mysterious person that he had evermet with outside the pages of his own novels. No one knew where he hadmade his money. He might well have made it in Australia; they might haveknown each other out there. Langholm suddenly remembered the Australianswagman whom he had seen "knocking down his check" at a wayside innwithin a few miles of Normanthorpe, and Steel's gratuitously explicitstatement that neither he nor his wife had ever been in Australia intheir lives. There was one lie at least, then why not two? Yet, theproven lie might have been told by Steel simply to anticipate and allayany possible suspicion of his wife's identity. That was at leastconceivable. And this time Langholm sought the conceivable explanationmore sedulously than the suspicious circumstance. 

He had been far too precipitate in all that he had done hitherto, fromthe Monday morning up to this Wednesday night. His departure on theMonday had been in itself premature. He had come away without seeing theSteels again, whereas he should have had an exhaustive interview withone or both of them before embarking upon his task. But Steel'shalf-hostile and half-scornful attitude was more than Langholm couldtrust his temper to endure, and he had despaired of seeing Mrs. Steelalone. There were innumerable points upon which she could have suppliedhim with valuable information. He had hoped to obtain what he wantedfrom the fuller reports of the trial; but that investigation had beenconducted upon the supposition that his wife, and no other, had causedthe death of Alexander Minchin. No business friend of the deceased hadbeen included among the witnesses, and the very least had been made ofhis financial difficulties, which had formed no part of the case for theCrown. 

Langholm, however, his wits immensely quickened by the tonic of his newdiscovery, began to see possibilities in this aspect of the matter, and, as soon as the telegraph offices were open, he despatched a rather longmessage to Mrs. Steel, reply paid. It was simply to request the businessaddress of her late husband, with the name and address of any partner orother business man who had seen much of him in the City. If the telegramwere not intercepted, Langholm calculated that he should have his replyin a couple of hours, and one came early in the forenoon:--

 "Shared office 2 Adam's Court Old Broad Street with a Mr. Crofts his friend but not mine Rachel Steel. "

Langholm looked first at the end, and was thankful to see that the replywas from Rachel herself. But the penultimate clause introduced acomplication. It must have some meaning. It would scarcely be a whollyirrelevant expression of dislike. Langholm, at all events, read awarning in the words--a warning to himself not to call on Mr. Crofts asa friend of the dead man's wife. And this increased the complication, ultimately suggesting a bolder step than the man of letters quiterelished, yet one which he took without hesitation in Rachel's cause. Hehad in his pocket the card of the detective officer who had shown himover the Black Museum; luckily it was still quite clean; and Langholmonly wished he looked the part a little more as he finally salliedforth. 

Mr. Crofts was in, his small clerk said, and the sham detective followedthe real one's card into the inner chamber of the poky offices upon thethird floor. Mr. Crofts sat aghast in his office chair, the puzzledpicture of a man who feels his hour has come, but who wonders which ofhis many delinquencies has come to light. He was large and florid, witha bald head and a dyed mustache, but his coloring was an unwholesomepurple as the false pretender was ushered in. 

"I am sorry to intrude upon you, Mr. Crofts, " began Langholm, "but Ihave come to make a few inquiries about the late Alexander Minchin, who, I believe, once--"

"Quite right! Quite right!" cried Crofts, as the purple turned a normalred in his sanguine countenance. "Alexander Minchin--poor fellow--to besure! Take a seat, Inspector, take a seat. Happy to afford you anyinformation in my power. "

If Mr. Crofts looked relieved, however, as many a decent citizen mightunder similar visitation, it was a very real relief to Langholm not tohave been found out at a glance. He took the proffered seat with thegreater readiness on noting how near it was to the door. 

"The death of Mr. Minchin is, as you know, still a mystery--"

"I didn't know it, " interrupted Crofts, who had quite recovered hisspirits. "I thought the only mystery was how twelve sane men could haveacquitted his wife. "

"That, " said Langholm, "was the opinion of many at the time; but it isone which we are obliged to disregard, whether we agree with it or not. The case still engages our attention, and must do so until we haveexplored every possible channel of investigation. What I want from you, Mr. Crofts, is any information that you can give me concerning Mr. Minchin's financial position at the time of his death. "

"It was bad, " said Mr. Crofts, promptly; "about as bad as it could be. He had one lucky flutter, and it would have been the ruin of him if hehad lived. He backed his luck for more than it was worth, and his luckdeserted him on the spot. Yes, poor old devil!" sighed the sympatheticCrofts: "he thought he was going to make his pile out of hand, but inanother week he would have been a bankrupt. "

"Had you known him long, Mr. Crofts?"

"Not six months; it was down at Brighton we met, quite by chance, andgot on talking about Westralians. It was I put him on to his one goodspec. His wife was with him at the time--couldn't stand the woman! Shewas much too good for me and my missus, to say nothing of her ownhusband. I remember one night on the pier--"

"I won't trouble you about Brighton, Mr. Crofts, " Langholm interrupted, as politely as he could. "Mr. Minchin was not afterwards a partner ofyours, was he?"

"Never; though I won't say he mightn't have been if things had pannedout differently, and he had gone back to Westralia with some capital. Meanwhile he had the run of my office, and that was all. "

"And not even the benefit of your advice?"

"He wouldn't take it, once he was bitten with the game. "

Thus far Langholm had simply satisfied his own curiosity upon one or twopoints concerning a dead man who had been little more than a name to himhitherto. His one discovery of the least potential value was thatMinchin had evidently died in difficulties. He now consulted some notesjotted down on an envelope upon his way to the City. 

"Mr. Minchin, as you are aware, " resumed Langholm, "was, like his wife, an Australian by birth. Had he many Australian friends here in London?"

"None at all, " replied Mr. Crofts, "that I am aware of. "

"Nor anywhere else in the country, think you?"

"Not that I remember. "

"Not in the north of England, for example?"

Thus led, Mr. Crofts frowned at his desk until an enlightened look brokeover his florid face. 

"By Jove, yes!" said he. "Now you speak of it, there _was_ somebody upnorth--a rich man, too--but he only heard of him by chance a day or sobefore his death. "

"A rich man, you say, and an Australian?"

"I don't know about that, but it was out there they had known eachother, and Minchin had no idea he was in England till he saw it in thepaper a day or two before his death. "

"Do you remember the name?"

"No, I don't, for he never told it to me; fact is, we were not on thebest of terms just at the last, " explained Mr. Crofts. "Moneymatters--money matters--they divide the best of friends--and to tell youthe truth he owed me more than I could afford to lose. But the daybefore the last day of his life he came in and said it was all right, he'd square up before the week was out, and if that wasn't good enoughfor me I could go to the devil. Of course I asked him where the moneywas coming from, and he said from a man he'd not heard of for yearsuntil that morning, but he didn't say how he'd heard of him then, onlythat he must be a millionaire. So then I asked why a man he hadn't seenfor so long should pay his debts, but Minchin only laughed and sworethat he'd make him. And that was the last I ever heard of it; he satdown at that desk over yonder and wrote to his millionaire there andthen, and took it out himself to post. It was the last time I saw himalive, for he said he wasn't coming back till he got his answer, and itwas the last letter he ever wrote in the place. "

"On that desk, eh?" Langholm glanced at the spare piece of officefurniture in the corner. "Didn't he keep any papers here?" he added. 

"He did, but you fellows impounded them. "

"Of course we did, " said Langholm, hastily. "Then you have nothing ofhis left?"

"Only his pen, and a diary in which he hadn't written a word. I slippedthem into a drawer with his papers, and there they are still. "

Langholm felt disappointed. He had learnt so much, it was tantalizingnot to learn a little more. If he could only make sure of thatmillionaire friend of Minchin! In his own mind he was all but sure, buthis own mind was too elastic by half. 

Crofts was drumming on the blotting-pad in front of him; all of a suddenLangholm noticed that it had a diary attached. 

"Minchin's diary wasn't one like yours, was it?" he exclaimed. 

"The same thing, " said Mr. Crofts. 

"Then I should like to see it. "

"There's not a word written in it; one of you chaps overhauled it at thetime. "

"Never mind!"

"Well, then, it's in the top long drawer of the desk he used to use--ifmy clerk has not appropriated it to his own use. "

Langholm held his breath as he went to the drawer in question. Inanother instant his breath escaped him in a sigh of thankfulness. The"Universal Diary" (for the year before) was there, sure enough. And itwas attached to a pink blotter precisely similar to that upon which Mr. Crofts still drummed with idle fingers. 

"Anything more I can show you?" inquired that worthy, humorously. 

Langholm was gazing intently, not at the diary, but at the pinkblotting-paper. Suddenly he looked up. 

"You say that was the last letter he ever wrote in your office?"

"The very last. "

"Then--yes--you can show me a looking-glass if you have one!"

Crofts had a small one on his chimney-piece. 

"By the Lord Harry, " said he, handing it, "but you tip-top 'tecs are aleery lot!"

CHAPTER XXIV

ONE WHO WAS NOT BIDDEN

Langholm went north next morning by the ten o'clock express from King'sCross. He had been but four nights in town, and not four days, yet toLangholm they might have been weeks, for he had never felt so much andslept so little in all his life. He had also done a good deal; but it isthe moments of keen sensation that make up the really crowded hours, andLangholm was to run the gamut of his emotions before this memorable weekwas out. In psychological experience it was to be, for him, a littlelifetime in itself; indeed, the week seemed that already, while it wasstill young, and comparatively poor in incident and surprise. 

He had bought magazines and the literary papers for his journey, but hecould concentrate his mind on nothing, and only the exigencies ofrailway travelling kept him off his legs. Luckily for Langholm, however, sleep came to him when least expected, in his cool corner of thecorridor train, and he only awoke in time for luncheon before thechange at York. His tired brain was vastly refreshed, but so far hecould not concentrate it, even on the events of these eventful days. Hewas still in the thick of them. A sense of proportion was as yetimpossible, and a consecutive review the most difficult of intellectualfeats. Langholm was too excited, and the situation too identical withsuspense, for a clear sight of all its bearings and potentialities; andthen there was the stern self-discipline, the determined bridling of theimagination, in which he had not yet relaxed. Once in the night, however, in the hopeless hours between darkness and broad day, he hadseen clearly for a while, and there and then pinned his vision down topaper. It concerned only one aspect of the case, but this was howLangholm found that he had stated it, on taking out his pocket-bookduring the final stages of his journey--

PROVISIONAL CASE AGAINST ---- ---- ----

1. Was in Sloane Street on the night of the murder, at an hotel about a mile from the house in which the murder was committed. This can be proved. 

2. Left hotel shortly after arrival towards midnight, believed to have returned between two and three, and would thus have been absent at very time at which crime was committed according to medical evidence adduced at trial. But exact duration of absence from hotel can he proved. 

3. Knew M. In Australia, but was in England unknown to M. Till two mornings before murder, when M. Wrote letter on receipt of which ---- ---- ---- came up to town (arriving near scene of murder as above stated, about time of commission). All this morally certain and probably capable of legal proof. 

4. "So then I asked why a man he hadn't seen for so long should pay his debts; but M. Only laughed and swore, and said he'd make him. " C. Could be subpoenaed to confirm if not to amplify this statement to me, with others to effect that it was for money M. Admitted having written to "a millionaire. "

5. Attended Mrs. M. 's trial throughout, thereafter making her acquaintance and offering marriage without any previous private knowledge whatsoever of her character or antecedents. 

 POSSIBLE MOTIVES

 ---- ---- ---- is a human mystery, his past life a greater one. He elaborately pretends that no part of that past was spent in Australia. 

 M. Said he knew him there; also that "he'd make him"--pay up!

 Blackmail not inconsistent with M. 's character. 

 Men have died as they deserved before to-day for threatening blackmail. 

 _Possible Motive for Marriage_

 Atonement of the Guilty to the Innocent. 

As Langholm read and re-read these precise pronouncements, withsomething of the detachment and the mild surprise with which heoccasionally dipped into his own earlier volumes, he congratulatedhimself upon the evidently lucid interval which had produced so muchorder from the chaos that had been his mind. Chaotic as its conditionstill was, that orderly array of impression, discovery, and surmise, bore the test of conscientious reconsideration. And there was nothingthat Langholm felt moved to strike out in the train; but, on the otherhand, he saw the weakness of his case as it stood at present, and washelped to see it by the detective officer's remark to him at ScotlandYard: "You find one [old Australian] who carries a revolver like this, and prove that he was in Chelsea on the night of the murder, with amotive for committing it, and we shall be glad of his name and address. "Langholm had found the old Australian who could be proved to have beenin Chelsea, or thereabouts, on the night in question; but the pistol hecould not hope to find, and the motive was mere surmise. 

And yet, to the walls of the mind that he was trying so hard to cleansefrom prejudice and prepossession--to school indeed to an inhumanfairness--there clung small circumstances and smaller details whichcould influence no one else, which would not constitute evidence beforeany tribunal, but which weighed more with Langholm himself than all thepoints arrayed in his note-book with so much primness and precision. 

There was Rachel's vain appeal to her husband, "Find out who _is_ guiltyif you want people to believe that I am not. " Why should so natural apetition have been made in vain, to a husband who after all had shownsome solicitude for his wife's honor, and who had the means to employthe best detective talent in the world? Langholm could only conceiveone reason: there was nothing for the husband to find out, buteverything for him to hide. 

Langholm remembered the wide-eyed way in which Steel had looked at hiswife before replying, and the man's embarrassment grew automatically inhis mind. His lips had indeed shut very tight, but unconsciousexaggeration made them tremble first. 

And then the fellow's manner to himself, his defiant taunts, his finalchallenge! Langholm was not sorry to remember the last; it relieved himfrom the moral incubus of the clandestine and the underhand; it bid himgo on and do his worst; it set his eyes upon the issue as betweenhimself and Steel, and it shut them to the final possibilities astouching the woman in the case. 

So Langholm came back from sultry London to a world of smoke and rain, with furnaces flaring through the blurred windows, and the soot laidwith the dust in one of the grimiest towns in the island; but he soonshook both from his feet, and doubled back upon the local line to arural station within a mile and a half of his cottage. This distance hewalked by muddy ways, through the peculiarly humid atmosphere created bya sky that has rained itself out and an earth that can hold no more, and came finally to his dripping garden by the wicket at the back of thecottage. There he stood to inhale the fine earthy fragrance which atonedsomewhat for a rather desolate scene. The roses were all washed away. William Allen Richardson clung here and there, in the shelter of thesouthern eaves, but he was far past his prime, and had better haveperished with the exposed beauties on the tiny trees. The soakingfoliage had a bluish tinge; the glimpse of wooded upland, across thevalley through the gap in the hedge of Penzance briers, lay colorlessand indistinct as a faded print from an imperfect negative. A footstepcrunched the wet gravel at Langholm's back. 

"Thank God you've got back, sir!" cried a Yorkshire voice in devoutaccents; and Langholm, turning, met the troubled face and tired eyes ofthe woman next door, who kept house for him while living in her own. 

"My dear Mrs. Brunton, " he exclaimed, "what on earth has happened? Youdidn't expect me earlier, did you? I wired you my train first thing thismorning. "

"Oh, no, it isn't that, sir. It's--it's the poor young gentleman--"

And her apron went to her eyes. 

"What young gentleman, Mrs. Brunton?"

"Him 'at you saw i' London an' sent all this way for change of air! Hewasn't fit to travel half the distance. I've been nursing of him allnight and all day too. "

"A young gentleman, and sent by me?" Langholm's face was blank until aharsh light broke over it. "What's his name, Mrs. Brunton?"

"I can't tell you, sir. He said he was a friend of yours, and that wasall before he took ill. He's been too bad to answer questions all day. And then we knew you'd soon be here to tell us. "

"A foreigner, I suppose?"

"I should say he was, sir. "

"And did he really tell you I had sent him?"

"Well, I can't say he did, not in so many words, but that was what Ithought he meant. It was like this, sir, " continued Mrs. Brunton, asthey stood face to face on the wet gravel: "just about this timeyesterday I was busy ironing, when my nephew, the lad you used to sendwith letters, who's here again for his summer holidays, comes to me an'says, 'You're wanted. ' So I went, and there was a young gentlemanlooking fit to drop. He'd a bag with him, and he'd walked all the wayfrom Upthorpe station, same as I suppose you have now; but yesterday wasthe hottest day we've had, and I never did see living face so like thedead. He had hardly life enough to ask if this was where you lived; andwhen I said it was, but you were away, he nodded and said he'd just seenyou in London; and he was sure he might come in and rest a bit. Well, sir, I not only let him do that, but you never will lock up anything, soI gave him a good sup o' your whiskey too!"

"Quite right, " said Langholm--"and then?"

"It seemed to pull him together a bit, and he began to talk. He wantedto know about all the grand folks round about, where they lived and howlong they'd lived there. At last he made me tell him the way toNormanthorpe House, after asking any amount of questions about Mr. AndMrs. Steel; it was hard work not to tell him what had just come out, butI remembered what you said before you went away, sir, and I left that toothers. "

"Good!" said Langholm. "But did he go to Normanthorpe?"

"He started, though I begged him to sit still while we tried to get hima trap from the village; and his self-will nearly cost him his life, ifit doesn't yet. He was hardly out of sight when we see him comestaggering back with his handkerchief up to his mouth, and the blooddripping through his fingers into the road. "

"A hemorrhage!"

"Yes, sir, yon was the very word the doctor used, and he says if he hasanother it'll be all up. So you may think what a time I've had! If he'sa friend of yours, sir, I'm sure I don't mind. In any case, poorgentleman--"

"He is a friend of mine, " interrupted Langholm, "and we must do all wecan for him. I will help you, Mrs. Brunton. You shall have your sleepto-night. Did you put him into my room?"

"No, sir, your bed wasn't ready, so we popped him straight into our own;and now he has everything nice and clean and comfortable as I could makeit. If only we can pull him through, poor young gentleman, between us!"

"God bless you for a good woman, " said Langholm, from his heart; "itwill be His will and not your fault if we fail. Yes, I should like tosee the poor fellow, if I may. "

"He is expecting you, sir. He told Dr. Sedley he must see you the momentyou arrived, and the doctor said he might. No, he won't know you're hereyet, and he can't have heard a word, for our room is at t'front o't'house. "

"Then I'll go up alone, Mrs. Brunton, if you won't mind. "

Severino was lying in a high, square bed, his black locks tossed upon aspotless pillow no whiter than his face; a transparent hand came fromunder the bedclothes to meet Langholm's outstretched one, but it fellback upon the sick man's breast instead. 

"Do you forgive me?" he whispered, in a voice both hoarse and hollow. 

"What for?" smiled Langholm. "You had a right to come where you liked;it is a free country, Severino. "

"But I went to your hotel--behind your back!"

"That was quite fair, my good fellow. Come, I mean to shake hands, whether you like it or not. "

And the sound man took the sick one's hand with womanly tenderness; andso sat on the bed, looking far into the great dark sinks of fever thatwere human eyes; but the fever was of the brain, for the poor fellow'shand was cool. 

"You do not ask me why I did it, " came from the tremulous lips at last. 

"Perhaps I know. "

"I will tell you if you are right. "

"It was to see her again--your kindest friend--and mine, " saidLangholm, gently. 

"Yes! It was to see her again--before I die!"

And the black eyes blazed again. 

"You are not going to die, " said Langholm, with the usual reassuringscorn. 

"I am. Quite soon. On your hands, I only fear. And I have not seen heryet!"

"You shall see her, " said Langholm, tenderly, gravely. He was rewardedwith a slight pressure of the emaciated hand; but for the first time hesuspected that all the scrutiny was not upon one side--that the sickyouth was trying to read him in his turn. 

"I love her!" at last cried Severino, in rapt whispers. "Do you hear me?I love her! I love her! What does it matter now?"

"It would matter to her if you told her, " rejoined Langholm. "It wouldmake her very unhappy. "

"Then I need not tell her. "

"You must not, indeed. "

"Very well, I will not. It is a promise, and I keep my promises; it isonly when I make none--"

"That's all right, " said Langholm, smiling. 

"Then you will bring her to me?"

"I shall have to see her first, and the doctor. "

"But you will do your best? That is why I am here, remember! I shalltell the doctor so myself. "

"I will do my best, " said Langholm, as he rose. 

A last whisper followed him to the door. 

"Because I worship her!" were the words. 

CHAPTER XXV

A POINT TO LANGHOLM

"I am glad you have come back, " said Dr. Sedley with relief. "Of courseeventually he will require trained nursing, either here or somewhereelse; there is only one end to such a case, but it needn't come yet, unless he has another hemorrhage. I understand you offered him yourcottage while you were away, but there was some muddle, and he camebefore they were ready for him? It was like your kindness, my dearfellow, only never you send another consumptive to the northeast coastor anywhere near it! As to his seeing any ladies who like to look himup, by all means, only one at a time, and they mustn't excite him. Yourreturn, for example, has been quite enough excitement for to-day, and Ishould keep him quiet for the next twenty-four hours. "

The doctor had called within an hour of the return of Langholm, whorepeated these stipulations upstairs, with his own undertaking in regardto Rachel. He would write that night and beg her to call the followingday. No, he preferred writing to going to see her, and it took up farless time. But he would write at once. And, as he went downstairs to doso then and there, Langholm asked himself whether an honorable man couldmeet the Steels again without reading to their faces the notes that hehad made in London and conned in the train. 

This letter written, there was a small pile of them awaiting attentionon top of the old bureau; and Langholm sat glancing at proofs andcrumpling up press-cuttings until he needed a lamp. The letter that hekept to the last looked like one of the rare applications for hisautograph which he was not too successful to welcome as straws showingthe wind of popular approval. In opening the envelope, however, henoticed that it bore the Northborough postmark, also that thehandwriting was that of an illiterate person, and his very surnamemisspelt. The contents were as follows:

 "Northborough, August 18, 189--. 

 "MR. LANGHAM, Sir, "I here as you are on the tracks of them that murdered Alexander Minchin, if you want to know of them that had a Reason for doing it I can give you the straight Tip. 

 "I have been out to your place to-night, but you are only due home to-morrow night, therefore I will be your way again to-morrow night, but will only come to the cross-roads as your old girl look suspichious last night and this is on the strickt Q. T. 

 "Till to-morrow night then at the cross-roads near your place, from nine to ten to-morrow night, when you will here of something to your advantage. 

 "Believe your's faithly, "JOHN WILLIAM ABEL. "

Langholm could not guess who this man Abel might be, but idly imaginedhim one of the innumerable drinking drones who stood about the streetcorners of Northborough from morning till night throughout the year. This one had more information than the common run, with perhaps morecunning and ingenuity to boot. Langholm deemed it discreet not tomention the matter to his dear "old girl" of disrespectful reference, who served him an excellent supper at eight o'clock. And little betterthan an hour later, having seen the invalid once more, and left him calmand comfortable for the night, the novelist sallied forth to meet hisunknown correspondent. 

It was a dark night, for the rain was by no means over, though notactually falling at the moment; and the cross-roads, which lay low, withtrees in all four angles, was a dark spot at full moon. As he approachedwith caution, rapping the road with his stick in order to steer clearof the ditch, Langholm wished he had come on his bicycle, for the sakeof the light he might have had from its lamp; but a light there was, ready waiting for him, though a very small and feeble one; for hisilliterate correspondent was on the ground before him, with a cutty-pipein full blast. 

"Name of Langholm?" said a rather rollicking voice, with a rank puff anda shower of sparks, as the cautious steps followed the rapping stick. 

"That's it, " said Langholm; "if yours is Abel, I have got your letter. "

"You have, have you?" cried the other, with the same jovial familiarity. "And what do you think of it?"

The glowing pipe lit a wild brown beard and mustache, thickly streakedwith gray, a bronzed nose, and nothing more. Indeed, it was only at eachinhalation that so much stood out upon the surrounding screen ofimpenetrable blackness. Langholm kept his distance, stick in hand, hisgaunt figure as invisible as the overhanging trees; but his voice mighthave belonged to the most formidable of men. 

"As yet, " said he, sternly, "I think very little of either you or yourletter. Who are you, and what do you mean by writing to me like that?"

"Steady, mister, you do know my name!" remonstrated the man, in rathermore respectful tones. "It's Abel--John William--and as much at yourservice as you like if you take him proper; but he comes from a countrywhere Jack isn't the dirt under his master's feet, and you're no mastero' mine. "

"I don't want to be, my good fellow, " rejoined Langholm, modifying hisown manner in turn. "Then you're not a Northborough man?"

"Not me!"

"I seem to have heard your voice before, " said Langholm, to whom thewild hair on the invisible face was also not altogether unfamiliar. "Where do you come from?"

"A little place called Australia. "

"The devil you do!"

And Langholm stood very still in the dark, for now he knew who this manwas, and what manner of evidence he might furnish, and against whom. Themissing links in his own secret chain, what if these were about to begiven to him by a miracle, who had discovered so much already by sheerchance! It seemed impossible; yet his instinct convinced Langholm of thenature of that which was to come. Without another word he stood untilhe could trust himself to speak carelessly, while the colonist madetraditional comparisons between the old country as he found it and theone which he wished he had never left. 

"I know you, " said Langholm, when he paused. "You're the man I saw'knocking down your check, ' as you called it, at an inn near here calledthe Packhorse. "

"I am so!" cried the fellow, with sudden savagery. "And do you knowwhere I got the check to knock down? I believe he's a friend of yours;it's him I've come to talk to you about to-night, and he calls himselfSteel!"

"Isn't it his real name?" asked Langholm, quickly. 

"Well, for all I know, it is. If it isn't, it ought to be!" added Abel, bitterly. 

"You knew him in Australia, then?"

"Knew him? I should think I did know him! But who told you he was everout there? Not him, I'll warrant!"

"I happen to know it, " said Langholm, "that's all. But do you mean totell me that it was Mr. Steel to whom you referred in your letter?"

"I do so!" cried Abel, and clinched it with an oath. 

"You said 'they. '"

"But I didn't mean anybody else. "

Langholm lowered his voice. Neither foot nor hoof had passed or evensounded in the distance. There was scarcely a whisper of the trees; anordinary approach could have been heard for hundreds of yards, astealthy one for tens. Langholm had heard nothing, though his ears werepricked. And yet he lowered his voice. 

"Do you actually hint that Mr. Steel has or could have been a gainer byMr. Minchin's death?"

Abel pondered his reply. 

"What I will say, " he declared at length, "is that he might have been aloser by his life!"

"You mean if Mr. Minchin had gone on living?"

"Yes--amounts to the same thing, doesn't it?"

"You are not thinking of--of Mrs. Steel?" queried Langholm, afterpausing in his turn. 

"Bless you, no! She wasn't born or thought of, so far as we wasconcerned, when we were all three mates up the bush. "

"Ah, all three!"

"Steel, Minchin, and me, " nodded Abel, as his cutty glowed. 

"And you were mates!"

"Well, we were and we weren't: that's just it, " said Abel, resentfully. "It would be better for some coves now, if we'd all been on the samefootin' then. But that we never were. I was overseer at the principalout-station--a good enough billet in its way--and Minchin was overseerin at the homestead. But Steel was the boss, damn him, trust Steel to bethe boss!"

"But if the station was his?" queried Langholm. "I suppose it was astation?" he added, as a furious shower of sparks came from the cutty. 

"Was it a station?" the ex-overseer echoed. "Only about the biggest andthe best in the blessed back-blocks--that's all! Only about half thesize of your blessed little old country cut out square! Oh, yes, it washis all right; bought it for a song after the bad seasons fifteen yearago, and sold it in the end for a quarter of a million, after making afortune off of his clips alone. And what did I get out of it?" demandedAbel, furiously. "What was my share? A beggarly check same as he give methe other day, and not a penny more!"

"I don't know how much that was, " remarked Langholm; "but if you weren'ta partner, what claim had you on the profits?"

"Aha! that's tellings, " said Abel, with a sudden change both of toneand humor; "that's what I'm here to tell you, if you really want toknow! Rum thing, wasn't it? One night I turn up, like any other swaggy, humping bluey, and next week I'm overseer on a good screw (I will saythat) and my own boss out at the out-station. Same way, one morning Iturn up at his grand homestead here--and you know what! It was a checkfor three figures. I don't mind telling you. It ought to have been four. But why do you suppose he made it even three? Not for charity, you betyour boots! I leave it to you to guess what for. "

The riddle was perhaps more easily solvable by an inveterate novelistthan by the average member of the community. It was of a kind whichLangholm had been concocting for many years. 

"I suppose there is some secret, " said he, taking a fresh grip of hisstick, in sudden loathing of the living type which he had only imaginedhitherto. 

"Ah! You've hit it, " purred the wretch. 

"It is evident enough, and always has been, for that matter, " saidLangholm, coldly. "And so you know what his secret is!"

"I do, mister. "

"And did Mr. Minchin?"

"He did. "

"You would tell him, of course?"

The sort of scorn was too delicate for John William Abel, yet even heseemed to realize that an admission must be accompanied by some form ofexcuse. 

"I did tell him, " he said, "for I felt I owed it to him. He was a goodfriend to me, was Mr. Minchin; and neither of us was getting enough forall we did. That was what I felt; to have his own way, the boss'd rideroughshod over us both, and he himself only--but that's tellings again. You must wait a bit, mister! Mr. Minchin hadn't to wait so very long, because I thought we could make him listen to two of us, so one night Itold him what I knew. You could ha' knocked him down with a feather. Nobody dreamt of it in New South Wales. No, there wasn't a hand on theplace who would have thought it o' the boss! Well, he was fond ofMinchin, treated him like a son, and perhaps he wasn't such a good sonas he might have been. But when he told the boss what I told him, andmade the suggestion that I thought would come best from a gent likehim--"

"That you should both be taken into partnership on the spot, I suppose?"interrupted Langholm. 

"Well, yes, it came to something like that. "

"Go on, Abel. I won't interrupt again. What happened then?"

"Well, he'd got to go, had Mr. Minchin! The boss told him he could tellwho he liked, but go he'd have to; and go he did, with his tail betweenhis legs, and not another word to anybody. I believe it was the boss whostarted him in Western Australia. "

"Not such a bad boss, " remarked Langholm, dryly; and the words set himthinking a moment on his own account. "And what happened to you?" headded, abandoning reflection by an effort. 

"I stayed on. "

"Forgiven?"

"If you like to put it that way. "

"And you both filed the secret for future use!"

"Don't talk through your neck, mister, " said Abel, huffily. "What areyou drivin' at?"

"You kept this secret up your sleeve to play it for all it was worth ina country where it would be worth more than it was in the back-blocks?That's all I mean. "

"Well, if I did, that's my own affair. "

"Oh, certainly. Only you came here at your own proposal in order, Isuppose, to sell this secret to me?"

"Yes, to sell it. "

"Then, you see, it is more or less my affair as well. "

"It may be, " said Abel, doggedly. And his face was very evil as hestruck a match to relight his pipe; but before the flame Langholm hadstepped backward, with his stick, that no superfluous light might fallupon his thin wrists and half-filled sleeves. 

"You are sure, " he pursued, "that Mr. Minchin was in possession of thisprecious secret at the time of his death?"

"I told it him myself. It isn't one you would forget. "

"Was it one that he could prove?"

"Easily. "

"Could I?"

"Anybody could. "

"Well, and what's your price?"

"Fifty pounds. "

"Nonsense! I'm not a rich man like Mr. Steel. "

"I don't take less from anybody--not much less, anyhow!"

"Not twenty in hard cash?"

"Not me; but look here, mister, you show me thirty and we'll see. "

The voice drew uncomfortably close. And there were steps upon thecross-roads at last; they were those of one advancing with lumberinggait and of another stepping nimbly backward. The latter laughed aloud. 

"Did you really think I would come to meet the writer of a letter likeyours, at night, in a spot like this, with a single penny-piece in mypocket? Come to my cottage, and we'll settle there. "

"I'm not coming in!"

"To the gate, then. It isn't three hundred yards from this. I'll leadthe way. "

Langholm set off at a brisk walk, his heart in his mouth. But thelumbering steps did not gain upon him; a muttered grumbling was theironly accompaniment; and in minute they saw the lights. In another minutethey were at the wicket. 

"You really prefer not to come in?"

There was a sly restrained humor in Langholm's tone. 

"I do--and don't be long. "

"Oh, no, I shan't be a minute. "

There were other lights in the other cottage. It was not at all late. Awarm parallelogram appeared and disappeared as Langholm opened his doorand went in. Was it a sound of bolts and bars that followed? Abel wasstill wondering when his prospective paymaster threw up the window andreappeared across the sill. 

"It was a three-figured check you had from Mr. Steel, was it?"

"Yes--yes--but not so loud!"

"And then he sent you to the devil to do your worst?"

"That's your way of putting it. "

"I do the same--without the check. "

And the window shut with a slam, the hasp was fastened, and the blindpulled down. 

CHAPTER XXVI

A CARDINAL POINT

The irresistible discomfiture of this ruffian did not affect the valueof the evidence which he had volunteered. Langholm was glad to rememberthat he had volunteered it; the creature was well served for his spiteand his cupidity; and the man of peace and letters, whose temperamentshrank from contention of any kind, could not but congratulate himselfupon an incidental triumph for which it was impossible to feel thesmallest compunction. Moreover, he had gained his point. It was enoughfor him to know that there was a certain secret in Steel's life, uponwhich the wretch Abel had admittedly traded, even as his superiorMinchin had apparently intended to do before him. Only those two seemedto have been in this secret, and one of them still lived to reveal itwhen called upon with authority. The nature of the secret matterednothing in the meanwhile. Here was the motive, without which the caseagainst John Buchanan Steel must have remained incomplete. Langholmadded it to his notes--and trembled!

He had compunction enough about the major triumph which now seemed incertain store for him; the larger it loomed, the less triumphant and themore tragic was its promise. And, with all human perversity, anunforeseen and quite involuntary sympathy with Steel was the lastcomplication in Langholm's mind. 

He had to think of Rachel in order to harden his heart against herhusband; and that ground was the most dangerous of all. It was strangeto Langholm to battle against _that_ by the bedside of a weaker brotherfallen in the same fight. Yet it was there he spent the night. He hadscarcely slept all the week. It was a comfort to think that this vigilwas a useful one. 

Severino slept fitfully, and Langholm had never a long stretch ofuninterrupted thought. 

But before morning he had decided to give Steel a chance. It was a vaguedecision, dependent on the chance that Steel gave him when they met, asmeet they must. Meanwhile Langholm had some cause for satisfaction withthe mere resolve; it defined the line that he took with a somewhatabsurd but equally startling visitor, who waited upon him early in theforenoon, in the person of the Chief Constable of Northborough. 

This worthy had heard of Langholm's quest, and desired to be informed ofwhat success, if any, he had met with up to the present. Langholm openedhis eyes. 

"It's my own show, " he protested. 

"Would you say that if you had got the man? I doubt it would be our showthen!" wheezed the Chief Constable, who was enormously fat. 

"It would be Scotland Yard's, " admitted Langholm, "perhaps. "

"Unless you got him up here, " suggested the fat official. "In that caseyou would naturally come to me. "

Langholm met his eyes. They were very small and bright, as the eyes ofthe obese often are, or as they seem by contrast with a large crassface. Langholm fancied he perceived a glimmer of his own enlightenment, and instinctively he lied. 

"We are not likely to get him up here, " he said. "This is about the lastplace where I should look!"

The Chief Constable took his departure with a curious smile. Langholmbegan to feel uneasy; his unforeseen sympathy with Steel assumed theform of an actual fear on his behalf. Severino was another thorn in hisside. He knew that Rachel had been written to, and fell into a fever ofimpatience and despair because the morning did not bring her to hisbedside. She was not coming at all. She had refused to come--or herhusband would not allow it. So he must die without seeing her again! Theman was as unreasonable as sick men will be; nothing would console himbut Langholm's undertaking to go to Normanthorpe himself after lunch andplead in person with the stony-hearted lady or her tyrannical lord. Thisplan suited Langholm well enough. It would pave the way to the "chance"which he had resolved to give to Rachel's husband. 

That resolve was not weakened by successive encounters, first with apoliceman near the entrance gates, next with a trespasser whom Langholmrightly took for another policeman in plain clothes, and finally withthe Woodgates on their way from the house. The good couple welcomed himwith a warmth beyond his merits. 

"Oh, what a blessing you have come!" cried Morna, whose kind eyesdiscovered a tell-tale moisture. "Do please go up and convince Mrs. Steel that you can't be rearrested on a charge on which you have alreadybeen tried and acquitted!"

"But of course you can't, " said Langholm. "Who has put that into herhead, Mrs. Woodgate?"

"The place is hemmed in by police. "

"Since when?" asked Langholm, quickly. 

"Only this morning. "

Langholm held his tongue. So the extortioner Abel, outwitted by theamateur policeman, had gone straight to the professional force! Theamateur had not suspected him of such resource. 

"I don't think this has anything to do with Mrs. Steel, " he said atlast; "in fact, I think I know what it means, and I shall be only tooglad to reassure her, if I can. "

But his own face was not reassuring, as Hugh Woodgate plainly told himin the first words which the vicar contributed to the discussion. 

"I have been finding out things--I have not been altogetherunsuccessful--but the things are rather on my mind, " the authorexplained. "How does Steel take the development, by the way?"

"As a joke!" cried Morna, with indignation; her husband was her echoboth as to words and tone; but Langholm could only stare. 

"I must see him, " he exclaimed, decisively. "By the way, once more, doyou happen to know whether Mrs. Steel got a letter from me this morning, Mrs. Woodgate?"

"Yes, she did, " answered Morna at once. Her manner declared her to benot unacquainted with the contents of the letter, and Langholm treatedthe declaration as though spoken. 

"And is she not going to see that poor fellow?" he asked. 

"At once, " said Morna, "and I am going with her. She is to call for mewith the phaeton at three. "

"Do you know anything about him, Mrs. Woodgate?"

"All. "

"Then I can only commend him to the sympathy which I know he hasalready. And I will talk to Mr. Steel while you are gone. "

The first sentence was almost mechanical. That matter was off Langholm'smind, and in a flash it was fully occupied with the prospect beforehimself. He lifted the peak of his cap, but, instead of remounting hisbicycle, he wheeled it very slowly up the drive. The phaeton was at thedoor when Langholm also arrived, and Rachel herself ran out to greet himon the steps--tall and lissome, in a light-colored driving cloak down toher heels, and a charming hat--yet under it a face still years olderthan the one he wore in his heart, though no less beautiful in itsdistress. 

"I hardly dare ask you!" she gasped, her hand trembling in his. "Haveyou found out--anything at all?"

"A little. "

And he opened his hand so that hers must drop. 

"Oh, but anything is better than nothing! Come in and tell me--quick!"

"Bravo!" added an amused voice from the porch. 

It was Steel, spruce and serene as ever, a pink glow upon his mobileface, a pink flower in his reefer jacket, a jaunty Panama straw coveringhis white hairs, and buckskin shoes of kindred purity upon his small andwell-shaped feet. Langholm greeted him in turn, only trusting that thetremors which had been instantly communicated to his own right handmight not be detected by the one it was now compelled to meet. 

"I came to tell Mr. Steel, " said Langholm, a little lamely. 

"Excellent!" murmured that gentleman, with his self-complacent smile. 

"But am I not to hear also?" demanded Rachel. 

"My dear Mrs. Steel, there is very little to tell you as yet. I onlywish there were more. But one or two little points there are--if youwould not mind my first mentioning them to your husband?"

"Oh, of course. "

There was no pique in the tone. There was only disappointment--anddespair. 

"You manage a woman very prettily, " remarked Steel, as they watched thephaeton diminish down the drive like a narrow Roman road. 

"You are the first who ever said so, " rejoined the novelist, with arather heavy sigh. 

"Well, let us have a cigar and your news. I confess I am interested. Astroll, too, would be pleasanter than sitting indoors, don't you think?The thickest walls have long ears, Langholm, when every servant in theplace is under notice. The whole lot? Oh, dear, yes--every mother's sonand daughter of them. It is most amusing; every one of them wants tostay and be forgiven. The neighbors are little better. The excuses theyhave stooped to make, some of them! I suppose they thought that weshould either flee the country or give them the sanguinary satisfactionof a double suicide. Well, we are not going to do either one or theother; we are agreed about that, if about nothing else. And my wife hasbehaved like a trump, though she wouldn't like to hear me say so; it isher wish that we should sit tighter than if nothing had happened, andnot even go to Switzerland as we intended. So we are advertising for afresh domestic crew, and we dine at Ireby the week after next. It istrue that we got the invitation before the fat fell into the fire, but Ifancy we may trust the Invernesses not to do anything startling. I aminterested, however, to see what they will do. It is pretty safe to bean object-lesson to the countryside, one way or the other. "

During this monologue the pair had strolled far afield with theircigars, and Langholm was beginning to puff his furiously. At first hehad merely marvelled at the other's coolness; now every feeling in hisbreast was outraged by the callousness, the flippancy, the cynicism ofhis companion. There came a moment when Langholm could endure thecombination no longer. Steel seemed disposed to discuss every aspect ofthe subject except that of the investigations upon which his very lifemight depend. Langholm glanced at him in horror as they walked. Thebroad brim of his Panama hat threw his face in shadow to the neck; butto Langholm's heated imagination, it was the shadow of the black cap andof the rope itself that he saw out of the corners of his eyes. It wasthe shadow that had lit upon the wife the year before, happily to liftforever; now it was settling upon the husband; and it rested withLangholm--if it did rest with him--and how could he be sure? His mindwas off at a tangent. He was not listening to Steel; without ceremony heinterrupted at last. 

"I thought you came out to listen to me?"

"My dear fellow, " cried Steel, "and so, to be sure, I did! Why on earthdid you let me rattle on? Let me see--the point was--ah, yes! Of course, my dear Langholm, you haven't really anything of any account to tell? Iconsidered you a Quixote when you undertook your quest; but I shallbegin to suspect a dash of Munchausen if you tell me you have found outanything in the inside of a week!"

"Nevertheless, " said Langholm, grimly, "I have. "

"Anything worth finding out?"

"I think so. "

"You don't mean to tell me you have struck a clew?"

"I believe I can lay hands upon the criminal, " said Langholm, as quietlyas he could. But he was the more nervous man of the two. 

The other simply stood still and stared his incredulity. The staremelted into a smile. "My dear fellow!" he murmured, in a mild blend ofhorror and reproof, as though it were the fourth dimension that Langholmclaimed to have discovered. It cost the discoverer no small effort notto cry out that he could lay hands on him then and there. The unspokenwords were gulped down, and a simple repetition substituted at the last. 

"I could swear to him myself, " added Langholm. "It remains to be seenwhether there is evidence enough to convict. "

"Have you communicated with the police?"

"Not yet. "

"They seem to have some absurd bee in their helmet down here, you know. "

"They don't get it from me. "

It was impossible any longer to doubt the import of Langholm's earnestand rather agitated manner. He was doing his best to suppress hisagitation, but that strengthened the impression that he had indeeddiscovered something which he himself honestly believed to be the truth. There was an immediate alteration in the tone and bearing of his host. 

"My dear fellow, " he said, "forgive my levity. If you have really foundout anything, it is a miracle; but miracles do happen now and then. Here's the pond, and there's the boathouse behind those rhododendrons. Suppose you tell me the rest in the boat? We needn't keep looking overour shoulders in the middle of the pond!"

For an instant Langholm dreamt of the readiest and the vilest resource;in another he remembered, not only that he could swim, but the insidioussympathy for this man which a darker scoundrel had sown in his heart. Ithad grown there like Jonah's gourd; only his flippancy affected it; andSteel was far from flippant now. Langholm signed to him to lead the way, and in a very few minutes they were scaring the wildfowl in mid-water, Steel sculling from the after thwart, while Langholm faced him from thecrimson cushions. 

"I thought, " said the latter, "that I would like to tell you what sortof evidence I could get against him before--before going any further. I--I thought it would be fair. "

Steel raised his bushy eyebrows the fraction of an inch. "It would befairest to yourself, I agree. Two heads are better than one, and--well, I'm open to conviction still, of course. "

But even Langholm was not conscious of the sinister play upon words; hehad taken out his pocket-book, and was nervously turning to the leavesthat he had filled during his most sleepless night in town. 

"Got it all down?" said Steel. 

"Yes, " replied Langholm, without raising his eyes; "at least I did makesome notes of a possible--if not a really damning--case against the manI mean. "

"And what may the first point be?" inquired Steel, who was graduallydrifting back into the tone which Langholm had resented on the shore; hetook no notice of it now. 

"The first point, " said Langholm, slowly, "is that he was in Chelsea, orat least within a mile of the scene of the murder, on the night that ittook place. "

"So were a good many people, " remarked Steel, smiling as he dipped thesculls in and out, and let his supple wrists fall for the feather, asthough he were really rowing. 

"But he left his--he was out at the time!" declared Langholm, making hisamended statement with all the meaning it had for himself. 

"Well, you can't hang him for that. "

"He will have to prove where he was, then. "

"I am afraid it will be for you to prove a little more first. "

Langholm sat very dogged with his notes. There had been a pause onSteel's part; there was a thin new note in his voice. Langholm was toogrimly engrossed to take immediate heed of either detail, or to watchthe swift changes in the face which was watching him. And there he lostmost of all. 

"The next point is that he undoubtedly knew Minchin in Australia--"

"Aha!"

"That he was and is a rich man, whereas Minchin was then on the verge ofbankruptcy, and that Minchin only found out that he was in Englandthirty-six hours before his own death, when he wrote to his old friendfor funds. "

"And you have really established all that!"

Steel had abandoned all pretence of rowing; his tone was one ofadmiration, in both senses of the word, and his dark eyes seemed topenetrate to the back of Langholm's brain. 

"I can establish it, " was the reply. 

"Well! I think you have done wonders; but you will have to do somethingmore before they will listen to you at Scotland Yard. What about amotive?"

"I was coming to that; it is the last point with which I shall troubleyou for the present. " Langholm took a final glance at his notes, thenshut the pocket-book and put it away. "The motive, " he continued, meeting Steel's eyes at last, with a new boldness in his own--"themotive is self-defence! There can be no doubt about it; there cannot bethe slightest doubt that Minchin intended blackmailing this man, atleast to the extent of his own indebtedness in the City of London. "

"Blackmailing him?"

There was a further change of voice and manner; and this time nothingwas lost upon Charles Langholm. 

"There cannot be the slightest doubt, " he reiterated, "that Minchin wasin possession of a secret concerning the man in my mind, which secret hewas determined to use for his own ends. "

Steel sat motionless, his eyes upon the bottom of the boat. It wasabsolutely impossible to read the lowered face; even when at length heraised it, and looked Langholm in the eyes once more, the naturalinscrutability of the man was only more complete than ever. 

"So that is your case!" said he. 

And even his tone might have been inspired either by awe or by contempt, so truly rang the note between the two. 

"I should be sorry to have to meet it, " observed Langholm, "if I werehe. "

"I should find out a little more, " was the retort, "if I were you!"

"And then?"

"Oh, then I should do my duty like a man--and take all the emoluments Icould. "

The sneer was intolerable. Langholm turned the color of brick. 

"I shall!" said he through his mustache. "I have consulted you; therewill be no need to do so again. I shall make a point of taking you atyour word. And now do you mind putting me ashore?"

A few raindrops were falling when they reached the landing-stage; theyhurried to the house, to find that Langholm's bicycle had been removedfrom the place where he had left it by the front entrance. 

"Don't let anybody trouble, " he said, ungraciously enough, for he wasstill smarting from the other's sneer. "I can soon find it for myself. "

Steel stood on the steps, his midnight eyes upon Langholm, the glint ofa smile in those eyes, but not the vestige of one upon his lips. 

"Oh, very well, " said he. "You know the side-door near thebilliard-room? They have probably put it in the first room on the left;that is where we keep ours--for we have gone in for them at last. Good-by, Langholm; remember my advice. "

And, that no ceremony should be lost between them, the host turned onhis heel and disappeared through his own front door, leaving Langholmvery angry in the rain. 

But anger was the last emotion for such an hour; the judge might as wellfeel exasperated with the prisoner at the bar, the common hangman withthe felon on the drop. Langholm only wished that, on even one moment'sreflection, he could rest content in so primitive and so single a stateof mind. He knew well that he could not, and that every subtle sort ofcontest lay before him, his own soul the arena. In the meantime let himfind his bicycle and get away from this dear and accursed spot; for dearit had been to him, all that too memorable summer; but now of a suretythe curse of Cain brooded over its cold, white walls and deep-setwindows like sunken eyes in a dead face. 

Langholm found the room to which he had been directed; in fact, he knewit of old. And there were the two new Beeston Humbers; but theirlustrous plating and immaculate enamel did not shame his own olddisreputable roadster, for the missing machine certainly was not there. Langholm was turning away when the glazed gun-rack caught his eye. Yes, this was the room in which the guns were kept. He had often seen themthere. They had never interested him before. Langholm was no shot. Yetnow he peered through the glass--gasped--and opened one of the slidingpanels with trembling hand. 

There on a nail hung an old revolver, out of place, rusty, mostconspicuous; and at a glance as like the relic in the Black Museum asone pea to another. But Langholm took it down to make sure. And themaker's name upon the barrel was the name that he had noted down at theBlack Museum; the point gained, the last of the cardinal pointspostulated by the official who had shown him round. 

The fortuitous discoverer of them all was leaving like a thief--more andmore did Langholm feel himself the criminal--when the inner door openedand Steel himself stood beaming sardonically upon him. 

"Sorry, Langholm, but I find I misled you about the bicycle. They hadtaken it to the stables. I have told them to bring it round to thefront. "

"Thank you. "

"Sure you won't wait till the rain is over?"

"No, thank you. "

"Well, won't you come through this way?"

"No, thank you. "

"Oh, all right! Good-by, Langholm; remember my advice. "

It was an inglorious exit that Langholm made; but he was thinking tohimself, was there ever so inglorious a triumph? He knew not what he hadsaid; there was only one thing that he did know. But was the law itselfcapable of coping with such a man?

CHAPTER XXVII

THE WHOLE TRUTH

"Have the ladies gone?"

Langholm had ridden a long way round, through the rain, in order toavoid them; nor was there any sign of the phaeton in the lane; yet thesewere his first whispered words across the wicket, and he would notventure to set foot upon the noisy wet gravel without Mrs. Brunton'sassurance that the ladies had been gone some time. 

"And they've left him a different man, " she added. "But what have youbeen doing to get wet like that? Dear, dear, dear! I do call it foolishof yer! Well, sir, get out o' them nasty wet things, or I shall have youto nurse an' all!"

The kind, blunt soul bustled to bring him a large can of scalding water, and Langholm bathed and changed before going near the invalid. He alsofelt another man. The thorough wetting had cooled his spirit and calmedhis nerves. His head still ached for sleep, but now it was clear enough. If only his duty were half as plain as the mystery that was one nomore! Yet it was something to have solved the prime problem; nay, everything, since it freed his mind for concentration upon his ownimmediate course. But Langholm reckoned without his stricken guest nextdoor; and went up presently, intending to stay five or ten minutes atthe most. 

Severino lay smiling, like a happy and excited child. Langholm was sorryto detect the excitement, but determined to cut his own visit shorterthan ever. It was more pleasing to him to note how neat and comfortablethe room was now, for that was his own handiwork, and the ladies hadbeen there to see it. The good Bruntons had moved most of their thingsinto the room to which they had themselves migrated. In their stead wereother things which Langholm had unearthed from the lumber in his upperstory, dusted, and carried down and up with his own hands. Thus at thebedside stood a real Chippendale table, with a real Delft vase upon it, filled with such roses as had survived the rain. A drop of water hadbeen spilt upon the table from the vase, and there was something almostfussy in the way that Langholm removed it with his handkerchief. 

"Oh, " said Severino, "she quite fell in love with the table you foundfor me, and Mrs. Woodgate wanted the vase. They were wondering if Mrs. Brunton would accept a price. "

"They don't belong to Mrs. Brunton, " said Langholm, shortly. 

"No? Mrs. Woodgate said she had never noticed them in your room. Wheredid you pick them up?"

Langholm looked at the things, lamps of remembrance alight beneath hislowered eyelids. "The table came from a little shop on Bushey Heath, inHertfordshire, you know. We--I was spending the day there once . . . Youhad to stoop to get in at the door, I remember. The vase is only fromGreat Portland Street. " The prices were upon his lips; both had beenbargains, a passing happiness and pride. 

"I must remember to tell them when they come to-morrow, " said Severino. "They are the sort of thing a woman likes. "

"They are, " agreed Langholm, his lowered eyes still lingering on thetable and the vase "the sort of thing a woman likes . . . So these womenare coming again to-morrow, are they?"

The question was quite brisk, when it came. 

"Yes, they promised. "

"Both of them, eh?"

"Yes, I hope so!" The sick man broke into eager explanations. "I onlywant to see her, Langholm! That's all I want. I don't want her tomyself. What is the good? To see her and be with her is all Iwant--ever. It has made me so happy. It is really better than if shecame alone. You see, as it is, I can't say anything--that matters. Doyou see?"

"Perfectly, " said Langholm, gently. 

The lad lay gazing up at him with great eyes. Langholm fancied theirexpression was one of incredulity. Twilight was falling early with therain; the casement was small, and further contracted by an overgrowth ofcreeper; those two great eyes seemed to shine the brighter through thedusk. Langholm could not make his visit a very short one, after all. Hefelt it would be cruel. 

"What did you talk about, then?" he asked. 

A small smile came with the answer, "You!"

"Me! What on earth had you to say about me?"

"I heard all you had been doing. "

"Oh, that. "

"You know you didn't tell me, that evening in town. "

"No, I was only beginning, then. "

It seemed some months ago--more months since that very afternoon. 

"Have you found out anything?"

Langholm hesitated. 

"Yes. "

Why should he lie?

"Do you mean to say that you have any suspicion who it is?" Severino wason his elbow. 

"More than a suspicion. I am certain. There can be no doubt about it. Apure fluke gave me the clew, but every mortal thing fits it. "

Severino dropped back upon his pillow. Langholm seemed glad to talk tohim, to loosen his tongue, to unburden his heart ever so little. And, indeed, he was glad. 

"And what are you going to do about it?"

"That's my difficulty. She must be cleared before the world. That is thefirst duty--if it could be done without--making bad almost worse!"

"Bad--worse? How could it, Langholm?"

No answer. 

"Who do you say it is?"

No answer again. Langholm had not bargained to say anything to anybodyjust yet. 

Severino raised himself once more upon an elbow. 

"I must know!" he said. 

Langholm rose, laughing. 

"I'll tell you who I thought it was at first, " said he, heartily. "Idon't mind telling you that, because it was so absurd; and I thinkyou'll be the first to laugh at it. I was idiot enough to think it mightbe you, my poor, dear chap!"

"And you don't think so still?" asked Severino, harshly. He had not beenthe first to laugh. 

"Of course I don't, my dear fellow. "

"I wish you would sit down again. That's better. So you know it is someone else?"

"So far as one can know anything. "

"And you are going to try to bring it home to this man?"

"I don't know. The police may save me the trouble. I believe they are onthe same scent at last. Meanwhile, I have given him as fair a warning asa man could wish. "

Severino lay back yet again in silence and deep twilight. His breathcame quickly. A shiver seemed to pass through the bed. 

"You needn't have done that, " he whispered at last. 

"I thought it was the fair thing to do. "

"Yet you needn't have done it--because--your first idea was right!"

[Illustration: "I'll tell you who I thought it was at first, " said he, heartily. ]

"Right?" echoed Langholm, densely. "My first idea was--right?"

"You said you first thought it was I who killed--her husband. "

"It couldn't have been!"

"But it was. "

Langholm got back to his feet. He could conceive but one explanation ofthis preposterous statement. Severino's sickness had extended to hisbrain. He was delirious. This was the first sign. 

"Where are you going?" asked the invalid, querulously, as his companionmoved towards the door. 

"When was the doctor here last?" demanded Langholm in return. 

There was silence for a few moments, and then a faint laugh, thatthreatened to break into a sob, from the bed. 

"I see what you think. How can I convince you that I have all my witsabout me? I'd rather not have a light just yet--but in my bag you'llfind a writing-case. It is locked, but the keys are in my trouser'spocket. In my writing-case you will find a sealed envelope, and in thata fuller confession than I shall have breath to make to you. Take itdownstairs and glance at it--then come back. "

"No, no, " said Langholm, hoarsely; "no, I believe you! Yes--it was myfirst idea!"

"I hardly knew what I was doing, " Severino whispered. "I was deliriousthen, if you like! Yet I remember it better than anything else in all mylife. I have never forgotten it for an hour--since it first came back!"

"You really were unconscious for days afterwards?"

"I believe it was weeks. Otherwise, you must know--she will be the firstto believe--I never could have let her--"

"My poor, dear fellow--of course--of course. "

Langholm felt for the emaciated hand, and stroked it as though it hadbeen a child's. Yet that was the hand that had slain Alexander Minchin!And Langholm thought of it; and still his own was almost womanly in thetender pity of its touch. 

"I want to tell you, " the sick lad murmured. "I wanted to tell her--Godknows it--and that alone was why I came to her the moment I could findout where she was. No--no--not that alone! I am too ill to pretend anymore. It was not all pretence when I let you think it was only passionthat drove me down here. I believe I should have come, even if I had hadnothing at all to tell her--only to be near her--as I was thisafternoon! But the other made it a duty. Yet, when she came thisafternoon, I could not do my duty. I had not the courage. It was too biga thing just to be with her again! And then the other lady--I thankedGod for her too--for she made it impossible for me to speak. But to youI must . . . Especially after what you say. "

The man came out in Langholm's ministrations. "One minute, " he said; andreturned in two or three with a pint of tolerable champagne. "I keep afew for angel's visits, " he explained; "but I am afraid I must light thecandle. I will put it at the other side of the room. Do you mind thetumbler? Now drink, and tell me only what you feel inclined, neithermore nor less. "

"It is all written down, " began Severino, in better voice for the firstfew drams: "how I first heard her singing through the open windows inthe summer--only last summer!--how she heard me playing, and howafterwards we came to meet. She was unhappy; he was a bad husband; but Ionly saw it for myself. He was nice enough to me in his way--liked tosend round for me to play when they had anybody there--but there wasonly one reason why I went. Oh, yes . . . The ground she trod on . . . Theair she breathed! I make no secret of it now; if I made any then, itwas because I knew her too well, and feared to lose what I had got. Andyet--that brute, that bully, that coarse--"

He checked himself by an effort that stained his face a sickly brown inthe light of the distant candle. Langholm handed him the tumbler, and afew more drams went down to do the only good--the temporary good--thathuman aid could do for Severino now. His eyes brightened. He lay stilland silent, collecting strength and self-control. 

"I was ill; she brought me flowers. I never had any constitution--trusta Latin race for that--and I became very ill indeed. With a man likeyou, a chill at worst; with me, pneumonia in a day. Then she came to seeme herself, saw the doctor, got in all sorts of things, and was comingto nurse me through the night herself. God bless her for the thoughtalone! I was supposed not to know; they thought I was unconsciousalready. But I kept conscious on purpose, I could have lived throughanything for that alone. And she never came!

"My landlady sat up instead. She is another of the kindest women onearth; she thought far more of me than I was ever worth, and it was shewho screened me through thick and thin during the delirium thatfollowed, and after that. She did not tell the whole truth at the trial;may there be no mercy for me hereafter if the law is not merciful tothat staunch soul! She has saved my life--for this! But that night--itwas her second in succession--and she had been with me the whole longday--that night she fell asleep beside me in the chair. I can hear herbreathing now. 

"Dear soul, how it angered me at the time! It made me fret all the morefor--her. Why had she broken faith? I knew that she had not. Somethinghad kept her; had he? I had hoped he was out of the way; he left her somuch. He was really on the watch, as you may know. At last I got up andwent to the window. And all the windows opposite were in darkness excepttheirs. "

Langholm sprang to his feet, but sat down again as suddenly. 

"Go on!"

"What is it that you thought, Langholm?"

"I believe I know what you did. That's all. "

"What? Tell me, please, and then I will tell you. "

"All those garden walls--they connect. "

"Yes? Yes?"

"You got through your window, climbed upon your wall, and ran along tothe lights. It occurred to you suddenly; it did to me when I went overthe house the other day. "

Severino lay looking at the imaginative man. 

"And yet you could suspect another after that!"

"Ah, there is some mystery there also. But it is strange, indeed, tothink that I was right in the beginning!"

"I did not know what I was doing, " resumed the young Italian, who, likemany a clever foreigner, spoke more precise English than any Englishman;that, with an accent too delicate for written reproduction, alone wouldhave betrayed him. "I still have very little recollection of whathappened between my climbing out of our garden and dropping into theirs. I remember that my feet were rather cold, but that is about all. 

"It was near midnight, as you know, and the room it happened in--thestudy--had the brightest light of all. An electric lamp was blazing onthe writing-table at the window, and another from a bracket among thebooks. The window was as wide open as it would go, the lower sash thrownright up; it was just above the scullery window, which is halfunderground, and has an outside grating. The sill was only the heightof one's chin. I can tell you all that now, but at the time I knew verylittle until I was in the room itself. Thank you, I will take anothersip. It does me more good than harm to tell you. But you will find itall written down. "

Langholm set down the glass and replenished it. The night had fallenwithout. The single candle in the farthest corner supplied the onlylight; in it the one man sat, and the other lay, their eyes locked. 

"I spilt the ink as I was creeping over the desk. That is an odd thingto remember, but I was looking for something to wipe it up with when Iheard their voices upstairs. "

"You heard them both?"

"Yes--quarrelling--and about me! The first thing I heard was my ownname. Then the man came running down. But I never tried to get away. Thedoors were all open. I had heard something else, and I waited to tellhim what a liar he was! But I turned out the lights, so that she shouldnot hear the outcry, and sure enough he shut both doors behind him (youwould notice there were two) before he turned them on again. So there westood. 

"'Don't let her hear us, ' were my first words; and we stood and cursedeach other under our breath. I don't know why he didn't knock me down, or rather I do know; it was because I put my hands behind my back andinvited him to do it. I was as furious as he was. I forgot that therewas anything the matter with me, but when I began telling him that therehad been, he looked as though he could have spat in my face. It was nouse going on. I could not expect him to believe a word. 

"At last he told me to sit down in the chair opposite his chair, and Isaid, 'With pleasure. ' Then he said, 'We'd better have a drink, becauseonly one of us is coming out of this room alive, ' and I said the samething again. He was full of drink already, but not drunk, and my ownhead was as light as air. I was ready for anything. He unlocked a drawerand took a brace of old revolvers from the case in which I put them awayagain. I locked up the drawer afterwards, and put his keys back in hispocket, before losing my head and doing all the rest that the police sawthrough at a glance. Sit still, Langholm! I am getting the cart beforethe horse. I was not so guilty as you think. They may hang me if theylike, but it was as much his act as mine. 

"He stood with his back to me, fiddling with the revolvers for a goodfive minutes, during which time I heard him tear his handkerchief intwo, and wondered what in the world he was going to do next. What he didwas to turn round and go on fiddling with the pistols behind his back. Then he held out one in each hand by the barrel, telling me to take mychoice, that he didn't know which was which himself, but only one ofthem was loaded. And he had lapped the two halves of his handkerchiefround the chambers of each in such a way that neither of us could tellwhen we were going to fire. 

"Then he tossed for first shot, and made me call, and I won. So he satdown in his chair and finished his drink, and told me to blaze across athim from where I sat in the other chair. I tried to get out of it, partly because I seemed to have seen more good in Minchin in those lastten minutes than in all the months that I had known him; he might be abrute, but he was a British brute, and all right about fair play. Besides, for the moment, it was difficult to believe he was serious, oreven very angry. But I, on my side, was more in a dream than not, or hewould not have managed me as he did. He broke out again, cursed me andhis wife, and swore that he would shoot her too if I didn't go throughwith it. You can't think of the things he was saying when--but Ibelieve he said them on purpose to make me. Anyhow I pulled at last, butthere was only a click, and he answered with another like lightning. That showed me how he meant it, plainer than anything else. It was toolate to get out. I set my teeth and pulled again . . . "

"Like the clash of swords, " whispered Langholm, in the pause. 

Severino moved his head from side to side upon the pillow. 

"No, not that time, Langholm. There was such a report as might haveroused the neighborhood--you would have thought--but I forgot to tellyou he had shut the window and run up some shutters, and even drawn thecurtains, to do for the other houses what the double doors did for hisown. When the smoke lifted, he was lying back in his chair as though hehad fallen asleep . . . 

"I think the worst was waiting for her to come down. I opened bothdoors, but she never came. Then I shut them very quietly--and utterlylost my head. You know what I did. I don't remember doing half. It wasthe stupid cunning of a real madman, the broken window, and the thingsup the chimney. I got back as I had come, in the way that struck you aspossible when you were there, and I woke my landlady getting in. Ibelieve I told her everything on the spot, and that it was the lastsense I spoke for weeks; she nursed me day and night that I might nevertell anybody else. "

So the story ended, and with it, as might have been expected, theunnatural strength which had sustained the teller till the last; he hadused up every ounce of it, and he lay exhausted and collapsed. Langholmbecame uneasy. 

Severino could not swallow the champagne which Langholm poured into hismouth. 

Langholm fetched the candle in high alarm--higher yet at what itrevealed. 

Severino was struggling to raise himself, a deadly leaden light upon hisface. 

"Raise me up--raise me up. "

Langholm raised him in his arms. 

"Another--hemorrhage!" said Severino, in a gasping whisper. 

And his blood dripped with the words. 

Langholm propped him up and rushed out shouting for Brunton--for Mrs. Brunton--for anybody in the house. Both were in, and the woman came upbravely without a word. 

"I'll go for the doctor myself, " said Langholm. "I shall be quickest. "

And he went on his bicycle, hatless, with an unlit lamp. 

But the doctor came too late. 

CHAPTER XXVIII

IN THE MATTER OF A MOTIVE

That was between eight and nine o'clock at night; before ten anoutrageous thought occurred to the man with the undisciplinedimagination. It closed his mind to the tragedy of an hour ago, to thedead man lying upstairs, whose low and eager voice still went on and onin his ears. It was a thought that possessed Langholm like an uncleanspirit from the moment in which he raised his eyes from the last wordsof the manuscript to which the dead man had referred. 

In the long, low room that Langholm lived in a fire was necessary indamp weather, irrespective of the season. It was on the fire that hiseyes fell, straight from the paper in his hand . . . 

No one else had read it. There was an explicit assurance on the point. The Chelsea landlady had no idea that such a statement was in existence;she would certainly have destroyed it if she had known; and furtherwritten details convinced Langholm that the woman would never speak ofher own accord. There were strange sidelights on the feelings which theyoung Italian had inspired in an unlikely breast; a mother could havedone no more to shield him. On the night of the acquittal, for example, when he was slowly recovering in her house, it had since come to thewriter's knowledge that this woman had turned Mrs. Minchin from her doorwith a lying statement as to his whereabouts. This he mentioned toconfirm his declaration that he always meant to tell the truth toRachel, that it was his first resolve in the early stages of hisrecovery, long before he knew of her arrest and trial, and that thiswoman was aware of that resolve as of all else. But he doubted whethershe could be made to speak, though he hoped that for his sake she would. And Langholm grinned with set teeth as he turned back to this passage:he would be diabolically safe. 

It was only an evil thought. He did not admit it as a temptation. Yethow it stuck, and how it grew!

There was the fire, as though lit on purpose; in a minute the writtenevidence could be destroyed for ever; and there was no other kind. Deadmen tell no tales, and live men only those that suit them!

It all fitted in so marvellously. To a villain it would have been less atemptation than a veritable gift of his ends. Langholm almost wished hewere a villain. 

There was Steel. Something remained for explanation there, but therereally was a case against him. The villain would let that case come on;the would-be villain did so in his own ready fancy, and the end of itwas a world without Steel but not without his wife; only, she would beSteel's wife no more. 

And this brought Langholm to his senses. "Idiot!" he said, and went outto his wet paths and ruined roses. But the ugly impossible idea doggedhim even there. 

"If Steel had been guilty--but he isn't, I tell you--no, but if he hadbeen, just for argument, would she ever have looked--hush!--idiot andegotist!--No, but _would_ she? And could you have made her happy if shehad?--Ah, that's another thing . . . I wonder!--It is worth wonderingabout; you know you have failed before. Yes, yes, yes; do you think Iforget it? No, but I must remind you. Are you the type to make womenhappy, women with anything in them, women with nerves? Are you notmoody, morbid, uneven, full of yourself?--No, of my work. It comes tothe same thing for the woman. Could you have made her happy?--yes or no!If no, then pull yourself together and never think of it. Isn't italways better to be the good friend than the tiresome husband, and, ifyou care for her, to show her your best side instead of all your sides?I thought so! Then thank your stars, and--never again!"

So the two voices, that are only one voice, within Langholm that night, in the heavy fragrance of his soaking garden, under the half-shut eye ofa waning moon; and, having conquered him, the voice of sense and sanityreminded him of his reward: "Remember, too, how you promised to serveher; and how, if less by management than good luck, you have, after all, performed the very prodigy you undertook. Go and tell her. I should goto-night. No, it is never too late to bring good news. I should jump onmy bicycle and go now!"

The old moon's eye drooped also over Normanthorpe House, out of theclearest sky that there had been for days. The Steels were strolling onthe sweep of the drive before the house, out for outing's sake for thefirst time that day, and together for the sake of being together for thefirst time that month. There was something untoward in the air. In fact, there was suspicion, and Rachel was beginning to suspect what thatsuspicion was. She could not say absolutely that she did not entertainit herself for a single instant. She had entertained and had dismissedthe thought a good many times. Why had he never told her his real motivein marrying her? Some subtle motive there had been; why could he nevertell her what it was? Then there was his intimacy with her firsthusband, which she had only discovered by chance, after the mostsedulous concealment on his part. And, finally, there was the defiantcharacter of his challenge to Langholm, as it were to do his worst (nothis best) as a detective. 

On the other hand, there was that woman's instinct which no wise womandisregards; and Rachel's instinct had never confirmed her fancies inthis matter. But within the last few hours her point of view had totallychanged. Her husband was suspected. He said so laughingly himself. Hewas in a certain danger. Her place was by his side. And let it beremembered that, before his absolute refusal to answer her crucialquestion about his prime motive for the marriage, Rachel had grownrather to like that place. 

They had been strolling quite apart, though chatting amiably. Rachel hadnot dreamt of putting her hand within his arm, as she had sometimes donetowards the end before their quarrel. Yet she did it again now, thevery moment his quicker vision descried the cyclist in the drive. 

"I hope they are not going to run me in to-night, " he said. "If they do, I shall run _them_ in for riding without a light. So it's Langholm!Well, Langholm, put salt on him yet?"

"On whom?"

"Your murderer, of course. "

"I have his confession in my pocket. "

It was the first time that Rachel had known her husband taken visiblyaback. 

"Good God!" he cried. "Then you don't think it's me any longer?"

"I know it is not. Nevertheless, Mrs. Steel must prepare for a shock. "

Rachel was shocked. But her grief and horror, though both were real andpoignant, were swept away for that hour at least by the full tide of herjoy. 

It was a double joy. Not only would Rachel be cleared for ever beforethe world, but her husband would stand exonerated at her side. The dayof unfounded suspicions, of either one of them, by the other or by theworld, that day at least was over once for all. 

Her heart was too full for many explanations; she lingered whileLangholm told of his interview with Abel, and then left him to one withher husband alone. 

Langholm thereupon spoke more openly of his whole case against Steel, who instantly admitted its strength. 

"But I owe you an apology, " the latter added, "not only for something Isaid to you this afternoon, more in mischief than in malice, which Iwould nevertheless unsay if I could, but for deliberately manufacturingthe last link in your chain. I happened to buy both my revolvers andMinchin's from a hawker up the country; his were a present from me; and, as they say out there, one pair was the dead spit of the other. Thismorning when I found I was being shadowed by these local heroes, itoccurred to me for my own amusement to put one of my pair in athoroughly conspicuous place, and this afternoon I could not resistsending you to the room to add it to your grand discoveries. You see, Icould have proved an alibi for the weapon, at all events, during my tripto town a year ago. Yes, poor Minchin wrote to me, and I went up to townby the next train to take him by surprise. How you got to know of hisletter I can't conceive. But it carried no hint of blackmail. I thinkyou did wonders, and I hope you will forgive me for that little trap;it really wasn't set for you. It is also perfectly true that I stayed atthe Cadogan and was out at that particular time. I went there because itwas the one decent hotel I knew of in those parts, which was probablyyour own reason, and I was out reconnoitring my old friend's housebecause I knew him for an inveterate late-bird, and he did not write asthough marriage had improved his habits. In fact, as you know, he hadgone to the dogs altogether. "

This reminded Langholm of the hour. 

"It is late now, " said he, "and I must be off. Poor Severino had not arelation in this country that I know of. There will be a great deal todo to-morrow. "

Steel at once insisted on bearing all expenses; that would be thelightest part, he said. "You have done so much!" he added. "By the way, you can't go without saying good-night to my wife. She has still tothank you. "

"I don't want to be thanked. "

"But for you the truth might never have come out. "

"Still I shall be much happier if she never speaks of it again. "

"Very well, she shall not--on one condition. "

"What is that?"

"Langholm, I thought last summer we were to be rather friends? I don'tthink that of many people. May I still think it of you?"

"If you will, " said Langholm. "I--I don't believe I ever should havebrought myself to give you away!"

"You behaved most fairly, my dear fellow. I shall not forget it, nor theway you scored off the blackmailer Abel. If it is any satisfaction toyou, I will tell you what his secret was. Nay, I may as well; and mywife, I must tell her too, though all these months I have hidden it fromher; but I have no doubt he took it to the police when you failed him. It is bound to get about, but I can live it down as I did the thingitself. Langholm, like many a better man, I left my country for mycountry's good. Never mind the offence; the curious can hunt up thecase, and will perhaps admit there have been worse. But that man and Iwere transported to Western Australia on the same vessel in '69. "

"And yet, " said Langholm--they were not quite his next words--"and yetyou challenged me to discover the truth! I still can't understand yourattitude that night!"

Steel stood silent. 

"Some day I may explain it to you, " he said. "I am only now going toexplain it to my wife. "

The men shook hands. 

And Langholm rode on his bicycle off the scene of the one real melodramaof a life spent in inventing fictitious ones; and if you ask what he hadto show for his part in it, you may get your answer one day from hiswork. Not from the masterpiece which he used to talk over with Mrs. Steel, for it will never be written; not from any particular novel orstory, much less in the reproduction of any of these incidents, whereinhe himself played so dubious a part; but perhaps you will find youranswer in a deeper knowledge of the human heart, a stronger grasp of therealities of life, a keener sympathy with men and (particularly) withwomen, than formerly distinguished this writer's books. These, at allevents, are some of the things which Charles Langholm has to show, if hewill only show them. And in the meantime you are requested not to pityhim. 

Steel went straight to his wife. Tears were still in her eyes, but suchtears, and such eyes! It cost him an effort to say what he had to say, and that was unusual in his case. 

"Rachel, " he said at length, in a tone as new as his reluctance, "I amgoing to answer the question which you have so often asked me. I amgoing to answer it with perfect honesty, and very possibly you willnever speak to me again. I shall be sorry for both our sakes if you doanything precipitate, but in any case you shall act as you think best. You know that I was exceedingly fond of Alec Minchin as a young man;now, I am not often exceedingly fond of anybody, as you may also know bythis time. Before your trial I was convinced that you had killed my oldfriend, whom I was so keen to see again that I came up to town by thevery first train after getting his letter. You had robbed me of the onlyfriend I had in England at the very moment when he needed me and I wason my way to him. I could have saved his ship, and you had sent both himand it to the bottom! That, I say candidly, was what I thought. "

"I don't blame you for thinking it before the trial, " said Rachel. "Itseems to have been the universal opinion. "

"I formed mine for myself, and I had a particular reason for formingit, " continued Steel, with a marked vibration in his usually unemotionalvoice. "I don't know which to tell you first. . . . Well, it shall be thatreason. On the night of the murder do you remember coming downstairsand going or rather looking into the study--at one o'clock in themorning?"

Rachel recoiled in her chair. 

"Heavens!" she cried. "How can you know that?"

"Did you hear nothing as you went upstairs again?"

"I don't remember. "

"Not a rattle at the letter-box?"

"Yes! Yes! Now I do remember. And it was actually you!"

"It was, indeed, " said Steel, gravely. "I saw you come down, I saw youpeep in--all dread and reluctance! I saw you recoil, I saw the face withwhich you shut those doors and put out the lights. And afterwards Ilearned from the medical evidence that your husband must have been deadat that time; one thing I knew, and that was that he was not shot duringthe next hour and more, for I waited about until half-past two in thehope that he would come out. I was not going to ring and bring you downagain, for I had seen your face, and I still saw your light upstairs. "

"So you thought I had come down to see my handiwork!"

"To see if he was really dead. Yes, I thought that afterwards. I couldnot help thinking it, Rachel. "

"Did it never occur to you that I might have thought he was asleep?"

"Yes, that has struck me since. "

"You have not thought me guilty all along, then?"

"Not all along. "

"Did you right through my trial?"

"God forgive me--yes, I did! And there was one thing that convinced memore than anything else; that was when you told the jury that theoccasion of your final parting upstairs was the last time you saw poorAlec alive. "

"But it was, " said Rachel. "I remember the question. I did not know howto answer it. I could not tell them I had seen him dead but fancied himonly asleep; that they would never have believed. So I told the simpletruth. But it upset me dreadfully. "

"That I saw. You expected cross-examination. "

"Yes; and I did not know whether to stick to the truth or to lie!"

"I can read people sometimes, " Steel continued after a pause. "I guessedyour difficulty. Surely you must see the only conceivable inference?"

"I did see it. "

"And, seeing, do you not forgive?"

"Yes, that. But you married me while you still thought me guilty. Iforgive you for denying it at the time. I suppose that was necessary. But you have not yet told me why you did it. "

"Honestly, Rachel, it was largely fascination--"

"But not primarily. "

"No. "

"Then let me hear the prime motive at last, for I am tired of trying toguess it!"

Steel stood before his wife as he had never stood before her yet, hiswhite head bowed, his dark eyes lowered, hands clasped, shoulders bent, the suppliant and the penitent in one. 

"I did it to punish you, " he said. "I thought some one must--I felt Icould have hanged you if I had spoken out what I had seen--andI--married you instead!"

His eyes were on the ground. When he raised them she was smiling throughunshed tears. But she had spoken first. 

"It was not a very terrible motive, after all, " she had said; "at least, it has not been such a very terrible--punishment!"

"No; but that was because I did the very last thing I ever thought ofdoing. "

"And that was?"

"To fall in love with you at the beginning!"

Rachel gave a little start. 

"Although you thought me guilty?"

"That made no difference at all. But I have thought it less and less, until, on the night you appealed first to me and then to Langholm--onthinking over that night--it was impossible to suppose it any more. "

Rachel rose, her cheeks divinely red, her lip trembling, her handoutstretched. 

"And you fell in love with me!" she murmured. 

"God knows I did, Rachel, in my own way, " said Steel. 

"I am so glad!" whispered his wife. 

THE END