re you shall have all the rest and quiet
possible.

Yours sincerely,

RACHEL SEDDON."

A funny little letter--stiff and then suddenly impulsive and friendly.

Of course she would go--she had never doubted that. Here at last was
some food for the burning restlessness that was always at her
breast--Through these months she had longed for some step that would
help to kill the pain.

Now she would watch Rachel and discover her heart and perhaps find from
that discovery some way for her own release. For her shame, night and
day, was that she still cared, cared, yes, as deeply as she had ever
done--that caring must die.

Perhaps the sight and knowledge of this other woman would kill it.

At least here at last was action after the terrible silence and
remoteness of those many months.

She would go to Seddon and she would not leave it without finding some
way by which she might still make some use of life.

II

She had really stayed at very few houses before. The anticipation at any
other time would have excited her, now nothing mattered except that she
would meet Rachel.

Her mother and sister had watched her during these past months with a
dismay stirred by the sudden absence of her genial friendliness.

They had taken so much of her kindliness for granted and now when she
refused them the sympathy that they had always demanded for a thousand
unimportant incidents they, clamorously, missed it.

At first it was easy to say that Lizzie was callous and selfish,
afterwards that she was ill and overworked, finally they hailed with
relief the promise of a three-weeks' holiday. "She'll come back," said
Mrs. Rand, "as fresh as paint, and taken out of herself."

Meanwhile no solution of Lizzie's trouble occurred to them; that she
should ever feel the tyranny of love, like more sentimental mortals,
was, at this time of day, impossible. "We know Lizzie, thank you," said
Mrs. Rand.

They watched her, on the afternoon of the 23rd of December, depart in a
cab for Seddon Court. She was grave and pale and beautifully neat. "I do
admire Lizzie, you know," said Daisy, returning with her mother into the
house. "I can't get that kind of tidiness. Her things go on for years,
looking as good as new."

"Men like a bit of disorder," said Mrs. Rand. "It seems more agitated.
All the same I'd like to know what is worrying Lizzie."

It was a wet and gusty day and the wind blew the rain with hard
impatient spurts a