hand and that man had gone down ... Yes, she was
grateful.... Her eyes had shone.

And what of the candles, his business? Why had he allowed that to drop
when he had made, already, so good a start? He would be in the City
early to-morrow. Business was humming just now.

And Rachel? Rachel!

Let him be content to have her as his ideal, his fine beacon to light
him on, to hold him to his work and do the best that was in him!

After all, things were for the best. They would always have their fine
memories, one of the other. Nothing to spoil that idyll.

He arrived, soaked to the very skin, at his door. "Funny," he thought,
"how that thunder depresses one. I've been moody for weeks. Air's ever
so much clearer now. God, didn't that old beast tumble?--Poor little
girl--she _was_ grateful though!"

Then as he opened the door, he remembered what Christopher had, that
evening, told him.

"To-morrow," he said to himself, in a fine glow of hope and confidence,
"to-morrow I'll get to work and soon stop that wicked old woman's mouth.
Rachel--God bless her--I'll show her what I'm like...."

He climbed the dark stairs as though he were storming a town.

CHAPTER V

MARCH 13th: RACHEL'S HEART

"When God smote His hands together, and struck out the soul at a
spark,
Into the organized glory of things, from drops of the dark,--
Say, didst thou shine, didst thou burn, didst thou honour the power
in the form,
As the star does at night, or the fire-fly, or even the little
ground-worm?
'I have sinned,' she said."

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

I

Meanwhile Rachel had not spoken to Roddy. Bad though the months had been
since that terrible afternoon at Seddon these days that followed the
Duchess's visit were the worst that she had ever known.

During the weeks that immediately followed Roddy's accident she was
allowed no line for thought. She discovered--and she never forgot the
sharpness of the discovery--that she was the poorest of nurses.
Everything that she did was clumsily and slowly done; she watched Lizzie
Rand with admiration and wonder. Dimly through the absorption that held
her, thoughts of Francis Breton pierced, but always to be instantly
dismissed.

Before her was simply the amazing, incredible fact that Roddy, the most
active, the most vigorous of human beings, would never stand upon his
feet again. She could see nothing but Roddy,