You shall believe it. Ask him to deny it, if he can."

"You need not trouble to deny it," said Rachel, looking full at Hugh.

The world held only her and him. And as Hugh looked into her eyes his
soul rose up and scaled the heights above it till it stood beside hers.

There is a sacred place where, if we follow close in Love's footsteps,
we see him lay aside his earthly quiver and his bitter arrows, and turn
to us as he is, with the light of God upon him, one with us as one with
God. In that pure light lies cease to be. We know them no more, neither
remember them, for love and truth are one.

Hugh strode across to Lady Newhaven, took the letter from her, and threw
it into the heart of the fire. Then he turned to Rachel.

"I drew the short lighter," he said. "I meant to take the consequences
at first, but when the time came--I did not. Partly I was afraid, and
partly I could not leave you."

If Lady Newhaven yearned for revenge she had it then. They had both
forgotten her. But she saw Rachel's eyes change as the eyes of a man at
the stake might change when the fire reached him. She shrank back from
the agony in them. Hugh's face became pinched and thin as a dead man's.
A moment ago he saw no consequences. He saw only that he could not lie
to her. His mind fell headlong from its momentary foothold. What mad
impulse had betrayed him to his ruin?

"You drew the short lighter, and you let me think all the time he had,"
said Rachel, her voice almost inaudible in its fierce passion. "You drew
it, and you let him die instead of you, as any one who knew him would
know he would. And when he was dead you came to me, and kept me in
ignorance even--that time--when I said I trusted you."

The remembrance of that meeting was too much.

Rachel turned her eyes on Lady Newhaven, who was watching her
terror-stricken.

"I said I would not give him up, but I will," she said, violently. "You
can take him if you want him. What was it you said to me, Hugh? That if
you had drawn the short lighter you would have had to abide by it. Yes,
that was it. Your whole intercourse with me has been one lie from first
to last. You were right, Violet, when you said he ought to marry you. It
will be another lie on the top of all the others."

"It was what Edward wished," faltered his widow. "He says so in the
letter that has just been burned."

"Lord Newhaven wished it," said Rachel, looking at the miserable man
between them. "Poor Lord Newhaven