Roddy. "It isn't anythin' that I myself have taken,
don't you know, for a second, seriously. I have only arranged that we
three should come like this because--for all our sakes--if people are
sayin' those things it ought to be stopped. It's hard for me, you see,
bein' like this to know quite _how_ to stop it, so I thought we'd just
meet and talk it over."

Roddy drew a deep breath. He hated explaining things, he disliked
intensely having to say much about anything. He looked round at Rachel
with a reassuring smile to tell her that she need not really be alarmed.

She had left the table and stood facing both the men. Full at her heart,
was a deep, glad relief that, at last, at last, the moment had come when
she could tell everything, when she might face Roddy with all
concealment cleared, when she might, above all, meet her grandmother's
definite challenge and withstand it.

But, indeed, she was to meet it, more immediately and more dramatically
than she had expected. Even as she prepared to speak, she caught, beyond
the door, strange shuffling sounds.

The door, rather clumsily, as though handled with muffled fingers,
slowly opened.

Framed in it, leaning partly upon Peters, and partly upon a footman,
staring at the room and its occupants from beneath the sinister covering
of a black high-peaked bonnet, was the Duchess.

The old lady caught, for a second, the vision of her grandchildren, beat
down from her face the effect that their presence had upon her, then
moved slowly, between her supporters, towards the nearest chair.

CHAPTER VIII

A QUARTETTE

"Her dignity consisted, I do believe, in her recognition,
always sure and prompt, of the dramatic moment."--HENRY
GALLEON.

I

Rachel came forward: Roddy from his sofa said something.

She was, it seemed, unconscious of them all, fixing her eyes upon a
large black-leather arm-chair, settling slowly down into it, dismissing
Peters and the footman with "Thank you--That is very kind": then, at
last leaning her hands upon her ebony cane, raised her eyes and smiled
grimly, almost triumphantly, at Roddy.

He had been aware, at that first glimpse of her in the doorway, that he
was ashamed of himself. He should not have done it.

She was older, feebler, more of a victim than he had ever conceived her
possibly to be, and in some way the situation that awaited her changed
her entirely from the old tyrant who had sat there talking to him only