g rather
larger than ordinary.

"My darling, my charmer, my own one, come to my arms!"

And he did succeed in getting his hand round on to Rachel's waist,
and getting his lips close to her head. She did save her face so that
Mr. Moss could not kiss her, but she was knocked into a heap by his
violence, and by her own weakness. He still had hold of her as she
rose to her feet, and, though he had become acquainted with her
weapon before, he certainly did not fear it now. A sick woman, who
had just come from her bed, was not likely to have a dagger with her.
When she got up she was still more in his power. She was astray,
scrambling here and there, so as to be forced to guard against her
own awkwardness. Whatever may be the position in which a woman may
find herself, whatever battle she may have to carry on, she has first
to protect herself from unseemly attitudes. Before she could do
anything she had first to stand upon her legs, and gather her dress
around her.

"My own one, my life, come to me!" he exclaimed, again attempting to
get her into his embrace.

But he had the knife stuck into him. She had known that he would do
it, and now he had done it.

"You fool, you," she said; "it has been your own doing."

He fell on the sofa, and clasped his side, where the weapon had
struck him. She rang the bell violently, and, when the girl came,
desired her to go at once for a surgeon. Then she fainted.

"I never was such a fool as to faint before," she told Frank
afterwards. "I never counted on fainting. If a girl faints, of course
she loses all her chance. It was because I was ill. But poor Mr. Moss
had the worst of it."

Rachel, from the moment in which she fainted, never saw Mr. Moss any
more. Madame Socani came to visit her, and told her father, when she
failed to see her, that Mr. Moss had only three days to live. Rachel
was again in bed, and could only lift up her hands in despair. But to
her father, and to Frank Jones, she spoke with something like good
humour.

"I knew it would come," she said to her father. "There was something
about his eye which told me that an attempt would be made. He would
not believe of a woman that she could have a will of her own. By
treating her like an animal he thought he would have his own way. I
don't imagine he will treat me in that way again." And then she spoke
of him to Frank. "I suppose he does like me?"

"He likes your singing,--at so much a month."

"That's all done now