-the last possibility of clearing
himself was put behind him, and the darkness fell again--"he is beyond
reach of it. It is I who must suffer now."

Rachel had walked to the other side of the garden, pressing her
handkerchief to her eyes and trying to control herself. Now she came
swiftly back, a sudden determination in her heart.

"Frank," she cried, "why must you suffer? We must find out who really
did it."

"I can't," said Rendel.

"But have you tried?"

"Yes," he said. "As much as was possible."

"But it must be possible," she cried. And she came to him, her eyes and
face glowing with resolve. "If the whole world came to me and said that
you had done this I should not believe it. I remember so well my mother
saying, the day that I came back from Maidenhead," and their eyes met in
the recollection of that happy, cloudless time, "'what a man needs is
some one to believe in him,' and I thought to myself that when--if--I
married I would believe in my husband as she believed in my father."

At this moment one of the Swiss waiters came quickly through the
pavilion into the garden.

"Monsieur Pateley," he said, "wishes to know if Madame is at home."
Rachel and her husband looked at each other in consternation.

"I can't see him at this moment," Rendel said, going to the gate.

"Can't we send him away?" said Rachel, anxiously.

"Where is he?" addressing the waiter. But it was too late. The question
answered itself, as Pateley's large form appeared behind that of the
waiter, distinctly seen on every side of it. Rachel, trying to control
her face into a smile of welcome, went forward to meet him as Rendel
disappeared amongst the trees, from whence he could get round into the
house another way.

CHAPTER XXV

We do not move unfortunately all in one piece. It would be much simpler
if we did, and if our actions could be accounted for by saying, "He did
this, being a generous man, or a forgiving man, or a curious man, or a
remorseful man." Unhappily, and it makes our actions more difficult to
account for, we are more complicated than this, and Pateley, when he
finally felt impelled to make his way into Rachel's presence so soon
after parting from her in the promenade, could not probably have said
exactly what motive prompted him to seek her. To Rachel he arrived as
the complement, the consolidation, of the resolve that she had made. She
hardly tried to conceal her agitation as she shook hands with him and