and Rachel
did not mention it. She went on from one day into the next, proud,
self-satisfied, sure of her strength and her position, indifferently
scornful of Louis, and yet fatally stricken; she knew not in the least
what was to be done, and so she waited for Destiny. Louis had to stop
in bed for five days. His relapse worried Dr. Yardley, who, however,
like many doctors, was kept in complete ignorance of the truth;
Rachel was ashamed to confess that her husband had monstrously taken
advantage of her absence to rise up and dress and go out; and Louis
had said no word. On the Friday he was permitted to sit in a chair
in the bedroom, and on Saturday he had the freedom of the house.
It surprised Rachel that on the Saturday he had not dashed for the
street, for after the exploit of the previous Saturday she was ready
to expect anything. Had he done so she would not have interfered; he
was really convalescent, and also the number of white stripes over
his face and hair had diminished. In the afternoon he reclined on the
Chesterfield to read, and fell asleep. Then it was that Rachel set out
upon her enterprise. She said not a word to Louis, but instructed Mrs.
Tams to inform the master, if he inquired, that she had gone over to
Knype to see Mr. Maldon.

"Are you a friend of Mester Maldon's?" asked the grey-haired slattern
who answered her summons at the door of Julian's lodgings in Granville
Street, Knype. There was a challenge in the woman's voice. Rachel
accepted it at once.

"Yes, I am," she said, with decision.

"Well, I don't know as I want any o' Mester Maldon's friends here,"
said the landlady loudly. "Mester Maldon's done a flit from here,
Mester Maldon has; and," coming out on to the pavement and pointing
upward to a broken pane in the first-floor window, "that's a bit o'
his fancy work afore he flitted!"

Rachel put her lips together.

"Can you give me his new address?"

"Can I give yer his new address? Pr'aps I can and pr'aps I canna,
but I dunna see why I should waste my breath on Mester Maldon's
friends--that I dunna! And I wunna!"

Rachel walked away. Before she reached the end of the frowsy street,
whose meanness and monotony of tiny-bow-windows exemplified intensely
the most deplorable characteristics of a district where brutish
licence is decreasing, she was overtaken by a lanky girl in a
pinafore.

"If ye please, miss, Mester Maldon's gone to live at 29 Birches
Street, 'anbridge."

Having mad