e it," said Rendel doubtfully.

"I wouldn't tell her," said the doctor, "till it's all settled. That's
the way to deal with wives, I assure you."

And with a cheery laugh, Dr. Morgan, who had no wife, went out.

CHAPTER XIX

Rachel, however, even after the move abroad so strongly recommended by
her doctor had been made, did not all at once regain her normal
condition. She appeared to be better in health; she was calmer, her
nerves seemed quieter; but a strange dull veil still hung between her
mind and the days immediately preceding the great catastrophe. To what
had happened the day before her father's death she never referred; she
had not asked Rendel anything more about the accusation brought against
him. Once or twice she had spoken of her father as if he were still
there, then caught herself up, realising that he was gone. Was this how
it was always going to be? Rendel asked himself. Would he not again be
able to share with her, as far as one human being can share with
another, his hopes and his fears, or rather his renunciations? Would she
never be able to take part in his life with the sweet, smiling sympathy
which had always been so ineffably precious to him? Those days that she
had lost were just those that had branded themselves indelibly into his
consciousness: the afternoon that Stamfordham had come with the map,
the morning following when it had appeared in the newspaper, the scenes
with Gore, with Stamfordham,--all those days he lived over and over
again, and lived them alone. There was some solace in the thought that
if that time were to be to Rachel for ever blurred, she would never be
able to recall what had passed between herself and her husband after
Rendel had brought on Gore's illness by taxing him with what he had
done. And while he struggled with his memories--would he always have to
live in the past now instead of in the future?--Rachel, who had been
told to be a great deal in the fresh air, passed her time quietly,
peacefully, languidly, lying out of doors. They had deemed themselves
fortunate in securing in the overcrowded town a somewhat primitive
little pavilion belonging to one of the big hotels, of which the charm
to Rachel was that it had a shady garden. Rendel, whose time even during
the period in which he had had no regular occupation had always been
fully occupied, reading several hours a day, making notes on certain
subjects about which he meant to write later, became conscio