ummer, and Rachel occupied a room in the lowest house in
the street, looking right away upon the river, and her easy-chair had
been brought up to the window at which she sat, and looked out on the
tide of river life as it flowed by. She was covered at present with
a dressing gown, as sweet and fresh as the morning air. On her head
she wore a small net of the finest golden filigree, and her tiny
feet were thrust into a pair of bright blue slippers bordered with
swans-down. "Am I to come back?" her obedient father had asked. But
he had been told not to come back, not quite at present. "It is not
that I want your absence," she had said, "but he may. He can tell
me with less hesitation that he is going to set up a pig-killing
establishment in South Australia than he could probably you and me
together." So the father simply slapped him on the back, and bade him
walk upstairs till he would find No. 15 on the second landing. "Of
course you have heard," he said, as Frank was going, "of what she has
been and done to Mahomet M. Moss?"

"Not a word," said Frank. "What has she done?"

"Plunged a dagger into him," said Mr. O'Mahony,--in a manner which
showed to Frank that he was not much afraid of the consequences of
the accident. "You go up and no doubt she will tell you all about
it." Then Frank went up, and was soon admitted into Rachel's room.

"Oh, Frank!" she said, "how are you? What on earth has brought you
here?" Then he at once began to ask questions about poor Moss, and
Rachel of course to answer them. "Well, yes; how was I to help it? I
told him from the time that I was a little girl, long before I knew
you, that something of this kind would occur if he would not behave
himself."

"And he didn't?" asked Frank, with some little pardonable curiosity.

"No, he did not. Whether he wanted me or my voice, thinking that
it would come back again, I cannot tell, but he did want something.
There was a woman who brought messages from him, and even she wanted
something. Then his ideas ran higher."

"He meant to marry you," said Frank.

"I suppose he did,--at last. I am very much obliged to him, but it
did not suit. Then,--to make a short story of it, Frank, I will tell
you the whole truth. He took hold of me. I cannot bear to be taken
hold of; you know that yourself."

He could only remember how often he had sat with her down among the
willows at the lake side with his arm round her waist, and she had
never seemed to be imp