"You spoke of your own country," she began. "Do you live abroad?"

There was the least suspicion of eagerness in the question. Rachel
herself was unaware of it; not so Mr. Steel, and he sighed.

"A mere figure," he said; "what I meant was my own country-side."

"And where is that?"

"In the north," he replied vaguely. "Did you look twice at my card?
Well, here is another, if you will do me that honor now. The initials
J. B. stand for no very interesting names--John Buchanan. A certain
interest in the Buchanan, perhaps; it comes out in the flesh, I fancy,
though not on the tongue. As for the address, Normanthorpe House is the
rather historic old seat of the family of that name; but they have so
many vastly superior and more modern places, and the last fifty years
have so ruined the surroundings, that I was able to induce the Duke to
take a price for it a year or two ago. He had hardly slept a night there
in his life, and I got it lock-stock-and-barrel for a song. The
Northborough which, you will observe, it is 'near'--a good four miles,
as a matter of fact--is the well-known centre of the Delverton
iron-trade. But you may very well have spent a year in this country
without having heard of it; they would be shocked at Northborough, but
nowhere else."

Rachel had dropped the card into her lap; she was looking straight at
Mr. John Buchanan Steel himself.

"You are very rich," she said gravely.

"I am nothing of the kind," he protested. "The Duke is rich, if you
like, but I had to scrape together to pay him what would replenish his
racing-stud, or stand him in a new yacht."

But Rachel was not deceived.

"I might have known you were very rich," she murmured, as much to
herself as to him; and there was a strange finality in her tone, as
though all was over between them; a still more strange regret,
involuntary, unconscious, and yet distinct.

"Granting your hypothesis, for the sake of argument," he went on, with
his simplest smile; "is it as difficult as ever for the poor rich man to
get to heaven?"

Rachel spent some moments in serious thought. He was wonderfully honest
with her; of his central motive alone was she uncertain, unconvinced. In
all else she felt instinctively that he was telling her the truth,
telling her even more than he need. His generous candor was a challenge
to her own.

"It may be very small of me," she said at length, "but--somehow--if you
had been comparatively poor--I should have been