and no service, no
sacrifice, was too stern or too difficult. Meanwhile subtly, almost
unconsciously, she was influenced by Lizzie Rand. It was not strange to
her that Lizzie should have changed so swiftly from hatred to friendship
and affection. Rachel was passionate enough herself to understand that a
woman will go, instantly, to the person who needs her most, even though
she has hated that same person five minutes before. No, the thing that
was wonderful to her was that Lizzie Rand should combine such feeling
with such discipline.

To watch her as she moved about Roddy's rooms was to deny to her the
possibility of emotion, of anything that could disturb that efficiency.
And yet Rachel knew ... she had seen depths of feeling in Lizzie that
made her own desires and regrets small and puny things.

But it did not need Lizzie's power to abase Rachel before Roddy. It
would have been enough for her to have remembered what her thoughts and
intentions had been on that day to have brought her on her knees to beg
his pardon, but when she saw the fashion in which he bore his sentence,
his endurance, his stubborn will beating down any temptation to despair,
she recognized that it was very little of Roddy that she had known
before this crisis.

Then as the weeks passed and the world settled into this new shape and
form, thoughts of Francis Breton returned to her. She had written to him
soon after the accident, but that was for herself, that she might clear
her mind of anything except her husband, rather than for Breton. She had
considered him whilst she wrote that letter, had seen him as someone in
her old, old life, someone who had stirred her then but possessed now no
power to move her. She wanted him to be happy, but wished never to see
him again; once, long ago, there had been a scene in a room and she had
been carried up to strange and dangerous heights and the world had
tossed and stormed about her--but oh! how long ago that was! How younger
she had been then!

But, as the weeks passed, that scene drew closer to her and life crept
back into its heart. Sometimes, when Roddy was sleeping and she was
sitting there beside him, and, about her, the house slumbered and the
very birds were still, her heart would beat, beat thickly, her cheeks
would flush, and she would remember that, had it not been for a horse
that stumbled, she might be now far away, leading a life that might be
tragedy, but that was, at any rate, Life!

Sh