other day. Why, they are nothing to what I have
felt. I sometimes think if _I_ wrote a book--I don't mean that I have
any special talent--but if I really sat down and wrote a book with all
the deep side of life in it, and one's own religious feelings, and
described love and love's tragedy as they really are, what a sensation
it would make! It would take the world by storm."

"Any book dealing sincerely with one of those subjects could not fail to
be a great success."

"Oh yes. I am not afraid I should fail. I do wish you were not going,
Rachel. We have so much in common. And it is such a comfort to be with
some one who knows what one is going through. I believe you feel the
suspense, too, for my sake."

"I do feel it--deeply."

"I sometimes think," said Lady Newhaven, her face aging suddenly under
an emotion so disfiguring that Rachel's eyes fell before it--"I am
sometimes almost certain that Edward drew the short lighter. Oh! do you
think if he did he will really _act up to it_ when the time comes?"

"If he drew it he will certainly take the consequences."

"Will he, do you think? I am almost sure he drew it. He is doing so many
little things that look as if he knew he were not going to live. I heard
Mr. Carstairs ask him to go to Norway with him next spring, and Edward
laughed, and said he never looked more than a few months ahead."

"I am afraid he may have said that intending you to hear it."

"But he did not intend me to hear it. I overheard it." Rachel's face
fell.

"You did promise after you told me about the letter that you would never
do that kind of thing again."

"Well, Rachel, I have not. I have not even looked at his letters since.
I could not help it that once, because I thought he might have told his
brother in India. But don't you think his saying that to Mr. Carstairs
looks--"

Rachel shook her head.

"He is beyond me," she said. "There may be something more behind which
we don't know about."

"I have a feeling, it has come over me again and again lately, that I
shall be released, and that Hugh and I shall be happy together yet."

And Lady Newhaven turned her face against the high back of her carved
oak chair and sobbed hysterically.

"Could you be happy if you had brought about Lord Newhaven's death?"
said Rachel.

Her voice was full of tender pity, not for the crouching unhappiness
before her, but for the poor atrophied soul. Could she reach it? She
would have given everything sh