coming.... It will mean shames and
law-courts and newspapers, losses of friends, losses of money and
freedom.... My mother and my people!... And you and all the work you
do!... People will never forget it, never forgive it. They will say you
promised.... If she had never written, if she had kept to her
bargain----"

"We should still have met."

"Stephen!... Stephen, you must bear with me...."

"This is a thing," I said, "that falls as you say out of the sky. It
seemed so natural--for her to write.... And the meeting ... it is like
some tremendous disaster of nature. I do not feel I have deserved it. It
is--irrational. But there it is, little Rachel of my heart, and we have
to face it. Whatever happens we have to go on. It doesn't alter the work
we have to do. If it clips our wings--we have to hop along with clipped
wings.... For you--I wish it could spare you. And she--she too is a
victim, Rachel."

"She need not have written," said Rachel. "She need not have written.
And then if you had met----"

She could not go on with that.

"It is so hard," I said, "to ask you to be just to her--and me. I wish I
could have come to you and married you--without all that legacy--of
things remembered.... I was what I was.... One can't shake off a thing
in one's blood. And besides--besides----"

I stopped helplessly.

Sec. 10

And then Mary came herself to tell me there would be no divorce.

She came to me unexpectedly. I had returned to town that evening, and
next morning as I was sitting down in my study to answer some
unimportant questions Maxwell Hartington had sent me, my parlormaid
appeared. "Can you speak," she asked, "to Lady Mary Justin?"

I stood up to receive my visitor.

She came in, a tall dark figure, and stood facing me in silence until
the door had closed behind her. Her face was white and drawn and very
grave. She stooped a little, I could see she had had no sleep, never
before had I seen her face marked by pain. And she hesitated.... "My
dear!" I said; "why have you come to me?"

I put a chair for her and she sat down.

For a moment she controlled herself with difficulty. She put her hand
over her eyes, she seemed on the verge of bitter weeping....

"I came," she said at last.... "I came. I had to come ... to see you."

I sat down in a chair beside her.

"It wasn't wise," I said. "But--never mind. You look so tired, my dear!"

She sat quite still for a little while.

Then she moved her arm as