of it and only I. Roddy _has_ got you here on false pretences,
grandmamma. If you'd rather go now...."

"Thank you," the Duchess said, "I'd much rather stay. It amuses me to
see you all together here."

"Then," said Rachel, "I'll say what I ought to have said
before. Roddy," turning passionately round to him, "you shall
have everything--everything--from the very beginning. Mr.
Breton--Francis--will agree that that's what we should have done--long
ago."

Breton made a movement as though he would rise, then stayed.

"Aren't we, my dear Rachel," said the Duchess, "making a great deal of a
very small affair?"

But Rachel, speaking only to Roddy, sinking her voice and bending a
little down to him, began, "Roddy, one thing you've got to know--it's
been from the beginning only myself that was to blame. Francis"--she
paused, for an instant, over the name--"Francis, please," as he moved
again from his corner, "let _me_ tell Roddy...."

She went on then more firmly, turning a little round to her grandmother
again: "Roddy, I don't want to defend myself--it's the very last thing I
can try to do--I only want to tell you--all three of you--exactly the
truth. You know, Roddy, that when I said I'd marry you it wasn't a
question of love between us at all. We had that out quite straight from
the beginning. I was awfully young: I wanted safety and protection and
so I took you. You rather wanted me, and grandmother wanted you to marry
me, and so there you were too. Then I met my cousin--I'd heard about him
since I'd been a baby and he'd heard about me. We had a lot in common,
tastes and dislikes--all kinds of things. We met and he stirred in me
all those things that you, Roddy, had never touched. I had found
marriage wasn't the freedom I had thought that it would be. I was fond
of you, you were fond of me, but there was something always there
jogging both of us--just putting us out of patience with one another.
Things got worse. You never could explain what you felt. I tried, but
the whole trouble wouldn't go into words somehow.

"Francis and I wrote to one another a little and then one day--as
grandmamma has so kindly told you--(here her voice was sharp for a
moment)--I went to his rooms." Rachel stopped. She was looking straight
in front of her, her hands clenched. She seemed to dive deep for
courage, to remain for an instant struggling, then to rise with it in
her hands. Her voice was strong and unfaltering. "We found that we lo