el reached the little garden again which he had left in the company
of Wentworth a few hours before, he knew quite well that he was going to
do nothing, that he might do nothing, that he must simply again wait.
Wait for what? There was nothing to come.

CHAPTER XXIII

Two of the occupants of the carriages that Rendel had seen going rapidly
along the road knew the meaning of the scene that had taken place under
their eyes; the others were in a state of simmering curiosity.

"I should be glad," said Stamfordham, as they approached Schleppenheim,
"if nothing could be said about what happened."

He was sitting opposite to Lady Chaloner and Lady Adela in a landau.
There was no need, of course, to explain to what he was referring.

"Of course, of course," said Lady Chaloner, not quite knowing what to
say.

In the meantime Wentworth had got back, had been to see Rachel, and had
told her that Rendel was going to extend his walk a little further and
that he would be back without fail in time for dinner. He himself, he
added, had been obliged to come back for an engagement. Rachel accepted
quite placidly the fact that her husband would return later than she
expected; she thanked Wentworth with the same sweet smile of old, asked
where they had been, said the woods must have been delightful. Then,
feeling that he could do nothing, Wentworth, with some misgiving, left
her.

Rachel still felt the languor which succeeds illness,--not an unpleasant
condition when there is no call for activity,--a physical languor which
made her quite content to sit or lie out of doors most of the day,
sometimes walk a little way, and then come back to rest again. She had
accepted Rendel's unceasing solicitude for her with love and gratitude,
she clung to his presence more than ever now that both her parents being
gone she felt herself entirely alone: but for the rest she was strangely
content to let the days go by in a sort of luxury of sorrow, while she
recalled the happy time passed with those other two beloved ones who had
made up her life. But there was no bitterness in the recollection; there
was a sort of tender mystery over it still. At times she felt as if
there were something more; she had some dim, confused recollection of
her husband being connected with it all, and with Gore's illness; how,
she could not remember. And she did not try. Deep down in her mind was
the feeling that with a great effort it might all come back to her