ristopher on the afternoon of the
Duchess's visit flung, at an instant, her whole life into crisis. Even
as the words left him she knew that it was up to this that all her days
had been leading, that at last she was, in very truth, face to face with
her grandmother, that the battle between the two of them had commenced.

She knew, in those few minutes whilst she stood there, motionless, in
that room, other things. She knew--and this was the first sharp
conviction that struck her heart--that, at all costs, whatever else
might come to her, she must not now lose Roddy's love. Strangely, as she
stood there facing her danger, some warm glow heightened her colour as
she felt from this what Roddy really meant to her. She thought then of
Francis Breton, of his danger if her family understood how implicated he
was with her. It was true that she had, not very long ago, contemplated
running away with him, and surely nothing could have implicated him
more than that, but now that he should suffer and yet not have her,
secured, as his reward for his suffering--that, at all pain to herself,
she must prevent.

Her first impulse after Christopher had left her was to go down
instantly to Roddy and confess everything. Then she paused.

Perhaps, after all, her grandmother had not spoken? In that case how
cruel to make Roddy miserable with something that was dead and already
remote. In her heart too was terror lest she should precipitate Breton
into some peril. On every side it seemed to her better that she should
wait and discover, perhaps through Christopher, perhaps by her own
intelligence, what exactly had occurred.

Four days afterwards, on the afternoon of that day that brought Breton
to dine with Christopher, she had not yet spoken. She had taken no steps
at all; despising herself, afraid for Breton, feeling at one instant
that Roddy knew everything, at another that he knew nothing, ill with
this same lassitude that had hung about her now for so many weeks,
determining at one moment that she would confront her grandmother, at
another that she would go instantly and confess to Roddy.

Yet Rachel hesitated and did nothing.

On this close and heavy afternoon Rachel sat up in her little
drawing-room, wondering whether she would wait there for possible
callers, or go down to Roddy, who was being entertained at the moment by
Lord Massiter, or, complete confession of surrender to nerves and
general catastrophe, go up to her bedroom, p