noticed little shops--little bakers and little shoemakers and little
tailors and little sweetshops--and they were all furtive and dark and
shabby.

And these little shops led to the growth in her mind of an especial
picture of her square of London life, Portland Place white and shining
in the middle, with the Circus like a fair at one end of it, the park
like a mystery at the other end of it, and, on either side, little
secret shops and little dim squares hanging about it, and Harley Street
sinister and ominous by its side.

Every element of Life and Death was there, the whole History of Man's
Journey Through This World to the Next.

Behind all the joy and overflowing happiness of these weeks this sudden
setting of London about her was consciously present.

II

Since that meeting with Miss Rand on the day before the ball Rachel had
often spoken to her. They met at first by accident and then Rachel had
gone to Lizzie's neat little sitting-room to ask for something and,
after that, had looked in for five minutes or so, and they had talked
very pleasantly about the hot weather and the theatres and the ways of
the world.

Behind all the splendour there was, for Rachel, the dark shadow of
suspense. Was it going to last? What was to follow it? When would those
awkward uncertainties that had once kept her company return to her? Now
whatever else might be doubtful about Miss Rand, one thing was certain,
that she _would_ last, would remain to the end the same clean, reliable,
honest person that she was now.

Imagine Lizzie Rand unreliable and she vanishes altogether! Rachel
welcomed this and she also admired the wonderful manner in which Miss
Rand accomplished her gigantic task. To run a house like this one and at
the end of it all to remain as composed and safe as though nothing had
been done!

Rachel herself might carry off a difficult situation by riding
desperately at it, stringing her resources to their highest pitch, but
afterwards reaction would claim its penalty.

The penalties were never claimed from Miss Rand.

So, gradually, without any definite words or events, almost without
active consciousness, they became friends.

Rachel, suddenly, on one afternoon early in July, determined to go and
pay Lizzie Rand a visit in her house.

That house in Saxton Square had acquired a new romantic interest since
Rachel had learnt that the abandoned, abominable cousin, who defied
Grandmamma and whose name one was n