CHAPTER XXV
We do not move unfortunately all in one piece. It would be much simplerif we did, and if our actions could be accounted for by saying, "He didthis, being a generous man, or a forgiving man, or a curious man, or aremorseful man." Unhappily, and it makes our actions more difficult toaccount for, we are more complicated than this, and Pateley, when hefinally felt impelled to make his way into Rachel's presence so soonafter parting from her in the promenade, could not probably have saidexactly what motive prompted him to seek her. To Rachel he arrived asthe complement, the consolidation, of the resolve that she had made. Shehardly tried to conceal her agitation as she shook hands with him andlooked in his face. Her own wore an expression that had not been therean hour ago. Something new had come to life in it. So conscious werethey both of something abnormal, overmastering, between them that theredid not seem anything strange in the fact that for a moment, after thefirst greeting, they stood without thinking of any of the commonplacesof intercourse. Then Pateley, more accustomed to overlay the realitiesof life by the conventional outside, recovered himself and said in anordinary tone, looking round him--
"What a delightful oasis! What charming quarters you are in here!"
"Yes, we like them very much," said Rachel, recovering herself; and theywent towards the little table and sat down.
"No tea for me, thank you," said Pateley. "I have just been made todrink a liquid distantly resembling it at the bazaar."
"At the bazaar?" said Rachel. "It was German tea, I suppose?"
"I imagine so. It has been well said," said Pateley, "that no nation hasyet been known great enough to produce two equally good forms ofnational beverage. We have good tea, but our coffee is abominable: theGermans have good coffee, but their tea is poison. The Spaniards, Ibelieve, have good chocolate, but that I have to take on hearsay. I havenever been to Spain. I mean to go some day, though."
"Do you?" Rachel said, dimly hearing his flow of words while she made upher mind what her own were to be. She had had so little time to form herplan of action, to piece together all that she had been hearing duringthe afternoon, that it was not yet clear to her that from thecircumstances of the case Pateley must necessarily be concerned in it;and at the moment she began to speak she simply looked upon him as someone who knew Rendel in London, who had known her father and mother, whohad a general air of bluff and hearty serviceability, and had presentedhimself at a moment when she had no one else to turn to.
"Mr. Pateley," she said, and at the sudden ring of resolution in hertone Pateley's face changed and his smiling flow of chatter aboutnothing came to a pause. "There is something I want very much to ask youabout," she went on, "something I want your help in."
"I am at your orders," said Pateley, with a smile and bow that concealedhis surprise.
"It is something that matters very, very much," Rachel went on."Something you could find out for me."
Pateley said nothing.
"I don't know if you know," she went on hurriedly--"if you heard, ofwhat happened to me in London just before my father died? I had anaccident. It seemed a slight one at the time. I fell down on the stairsone evening that he was worse when I ran down quickly to fetch myhusband, and I had concussion of the brain afterwards and wasunconscious for forty-eight hours. And since, I have not been able toremember anything of what happened during those days."
Pateley made a sort of sympathetic sound and gesture.
"But," Rachel said, "I have heard to-day--not until to-day--of somethingthat happened during that time, something terrible. I am going to tellit to you, in the greatest confidence. You will see when I tell youthat it matters very, very much. First of all,--this I remember--on theday my father began to be worse, Lord Stamfordham brought my husbandsome papers to copy for him in which was the Agreement with Germany, andtold him no one was to know about them, and my husband told no one, andsent them back, when they were done, to Stamfordham, in a sealedpacket."
Pateley, as he listened, sat absolutely impenetrable, with his eyesfixed on the ground.
"But somebody got hold of them," she went on--"somebody must have stolenthem, because they were published the next morning in the paper, in the_Arbiter_." And as the words left her lips she suddenly realised thatthe man in front of her was the one of all others in the world who mustknow what had happened. The _Arbiter_ was embodied in Pateley, it wasPateley: that, everybody knew, everybody repeated. Pateley would, hemust, be able to tell her.
"Oh," she cried, "the _Arbiter_ is your paper!"
"Yes," said Pateley, looking at her.
"Then," she said, "you know--you must know."
"Know what?" he said calmly.
"You must know," she said, "who it was told the _Arbiter_ what was inthose papers."
Pateley sat silent a moment. Then he said--
"It can and does happen occasionally that things are brought to the_Arbiter_ of which I don't know the origin, in fact of which the originis purposely kept a secret."
She waited for him to add something to this sentence, to add a _but_ toit, but he remained silent. Being unversed in diplomatic evasions, sheaccepted his words as a disclaimer.
"But still," she said, "even if you don't know this you could find itout. It matters terribly. I don't want to say to any one else, it is nota thing to be told, how horribly it matters, but I must tell _you_, thatyou may see. Lord Stamfordham thought that my husband had betrayed thesecret--he told him so then. And to-day--it was too terrible!--he was ata luncheon to which Frank and Mr. Wentworth went, not knowing----" Asudden involuntary change in Pateley's face made her stop and say, "Butperhaps you were there? Were you at the luncheon?"
"No," said Pateley. "I was not there."
"But you heard about it?" she said.
"Yes," he said after a pause. "I heard about it."
"It's too horrible!" said Rachel, covering her face with her hands. "Ofcourse you heard about it--everybody will hear about it: how LordStamfordham insulted him and refused to sit down with him, because ofthe unjust accusation that was brought against him. Now do you see," shesaid excitedly, and Pateley, as he looked at her, was amazed at the firethat shone from her eyes, at the glow of excitement in her wholebeing--"now do you see how much it matters? how if we don't find out thetruth, if we don't get to know who did it, this is the kind of thingthat will happen to him? You see now, don't you? You will help me?"
Pateley had got up and restlessly paced to the end of the garden andback, his eyes fixed on the ground, Rachel breathlessly watching him. Hewas moved at her distress, he felt the stirrings of something likeremorse at the fate that had overtaken Rendel. But in Pateley'sJuggernaut-like progress through the world he did not, as a rule, stopto see who were the victims that were left gasping by the roadside. Aslong as the author of the mischief drives on rapidly enough, the evil hehas left behind him is not brought home to him so acutely as if he iscompelled to stop and bend over the sufferer. But a brief moment ofreflection made him pretty clear that neither himself nor the _Arbiter_had anything to fear from the disclosure. He had nothing particularlyheroic in his composition; he would not have felt called upon for thesake of Francis Rendel, or even for the sake of Rendel's wife, tosacrifice his own destiny and possibilities if it had been a question ofchoosing between his own and theirs; but fortunately this choice wouldnot be thrust upon him. He looked up and met Rachel's eyes fixed uponhim.
"Yes," he said. "I will help you."
"Oh, thank you!" she cried, her heart swelling with relief. "Will you,can you find out about it?"
"Yes," said Pateley again. He paused a moment, then came back and stoodin front of her. "I have no need to find out," he said slowly. "I knowwho did it."
Rachel sprang up.
"What?" she cried, quivering with anxiety. "Do you mean that you knownow, that you can tell Frank, that you can tell Lord Stamfordham? Oh,why didn't you say so?"
Pateley paused.
"I didn't know," he said, "that Stamfordham had accused your husband ofit, a
nd so I kept--I was rather bound to keep--the other man's secret."
"The other man?" Rachel repeated, looking at him.
"Yes," said Pateley. "The man who did it."
Rachel started. Of course, yes--if her husband had not done it some oneelse had, they were shifting the horrible burden on to another. But thatother deserved it, since he was the guilty man.
"Yes," she said lower, "of course I know there is some one else!--it isvery terrible--but--but--it's right, isn't it, that the man who has doneit should be accused and not one who is innocent?"
"Yes," said Pateley, "it is right."
"You must tell me," she said, "you must!--you must tell me everythingnow, as I have told you. Is it some one to whom it will matter verymuch?"
Pateley waited.
"No," he said at length, "it won't matter to him."
Rachel looked at him, not understanding.
He went on, "Nothing will ever matter to him again. He is dead."
"Dead, is he?" said Rachel, but even in the horror-struck tone thererang an accent of glad relief. "Then it can't matter to him. And it isright, after all, that people should know what he did. It is right, itis justice, isn't it?" she repeated, as though trying to reassureherself, "not only because of Frank?"
"Yes," said Pateley, "I believe that it is right, that it is justice."Then as he looked at her he suddenly became conscious of an unwonteddifficulty of speech, of an almost unknown wave of emotion rising withinhim, of shrinking from the words he was now clear had to be said.
"Mrs. Rendel," he said at last, "I am afraid it will be very painful toyou to hear what I am going to say."
She looked at him bewildered. He waited one moment, almost hoping thatthe truth might dawn upon her before he spoke, but she was a thousandmiles from being anywhere near it. "Those papers which I published inthe _Arbiter_ the next morning were shown to me on the afternoon yourhusband had them to copy, by--" again the strange unfamiliarperturbation stopped him, and he felt he had to make a distinct effortto bring the name out--"your father, Sir William Gore."
Rachel said absolutely nothing. She looked at him with dilated eyes,incredulous amazement and then horror in her face, as she saw in histhat he was telling her the truth.
"My father?" she said at last, with trembling lips.
"Yes," Pateley said. The worst was over now, he felt, and he hadrecovered possession of himself.
"No, no, it can't be!" she said miserably. "It's not possible...."
"I fear it is," said Pateley. "They were shown to myself, you see, so itis an absolute certainty."
"But when was it?" said Rachel, bewildered. "When did he have them?"
"They were left," Pateley said, "in the study where he was, when yourhusband went down to speak to Lord Stamfordham. During that time Ihappened to go in."
And as Rachel listened to his brief account of what had taken place sheknew that there was no longer any doubt as to the culprit. For themoment, as the idol of her life fell before her in ruins the discoveryshe had made swallowed up everything else. Pateley made a move.
"Wait, wait!" she said. "Don't go away. Only wait till I see what I mustdo. It is all so horrible! I see nothing clearly yet."
He walked away to the other end of the little garden.
She leant back in her chair, her eyes fixed, seeing nothing, trying tomake up her mind. Gradually what she must do became more and moredistinct to her, more and more inevitable. The sheer force of heragitation and emotion were carrying her own. If she acted at once,within the next half-hour, anything, everything might be possible. Shewould not wait to think, she would do it now, while it was stillpossible to pronounce the name, the dear name that she had hardly beenable to bring to her lips during these last weeks in which every day,every hour, she had been conscious of her loss. She would go to theperson who must be told, and who alone could remedy the great evil thathad been done. She got up, a despairing determination in her face.
Pateley looked at her, his face asking the question which he did not putin words.
"I am going to Lord Stamfordham," she said. "I am going to tell him."
"You?" said Pateley. "Are you going to tell him yourself?"
"Yes," she said, "it is I who must tell him. I have quite made up mymind." She turned to him appealingly as though taking for granted hewould help her. "I want to go now, while I feel I can, and before Frankknows anything about it. Can you help me--would you help me to find LordStamfordham?"
"Certainly," said Pateley, with a new admiration for Rachel risingwithin him, but with some misgivings, however, as to the possibility orthe desirability of running Stamfordham to earth among his presentsurroundings.
"Do you know where he is?" Rachel said.
"I should think probably at the bazaar," said Pateley, and as hereflected on the scene he had just left, Stamfordham surrounded by abevy of attractive ladies beseeching him to give them an autograph, tobuy a buttonhole, to drink their tea, to put into their raffles, and tohave his fortune told, he felt still more dubious as to the mission hewas engaged upon. Fortunately Rachel realised none of these things.
"Come, then, let us go," she said, with a vibrating anxiety andexcitement, at strange variance with the usual atmosphere thatsurrounded her, and he followed her out of the garden in the directionof the Casino.
CHAPTER XXVI
Pateley, who had been caught up in some measure into the excitement ofRachel's emotion, was brought back to earth again with a run, as hepassed with her through the brightly coloured hangings which droopedover the portals of the bazaar and found themselves in the gay crowdwithin. His misgivings grew as he felt more and more the incongruity ofthe errand they were bent upon to the preoccupations of the people whosurrounded them. There was no doubt that, whatever the ultimate resultas far as Mrs. Birkett and the needs she represented were concerned, thebazaar, that subsidiary consideration apart, was being very successfulindeed. The sound of voices and laughter filled the air, and the gloomyprevisions Lady Chaloner had felt as to the lack of buyers wereapparently not realised, since the whole of the available spacesurrounded by the stalls was filled with people engaged in some sort ofvery active and voluble commercial transactions with one another which,financial result or not, were of a most enjoyable kind, to judge by thebursts of laughter they necessitated. Rachel, pale, strung up, with thelook of determination in her face called up in the usually timid by anunwonted resolve, was making her way, or rather trying to do so, inPateley's wake, bewildered by the sights and sounds around her. Pateleyat each step was beset by some laughing vendor from whom he had much adoto escape, and indeed in most cases did not succeed in doing so withouthaving paid toll. By the time he had gone half along the room he was thepossessor of three tickets for raffles, for each of which he had paid asum he would have grudged for the unneeded article that was beingraffled. He had bought several single flowers, each one on terms whichshould have commanded an armful of roses, and he had had three dips intoa bag from which fortunately he had emerged with nothing more permanentthan sawdust. Rachel also had been accosted by a vendor as soon as shecame in, a moment of poignant embarrassment for all partiesconcerned--herself, her escort, and the fascinating seller who hadoffered her wares, for Rachel, looking at her with startled eyes, feltin her pocket as though at last seeing what was wanted of her, and thenstammered, "I'm so sorry, I have no money with me." Pateley knew thevendor; it was no other than Mrs. Samuels, who had emerged from behindher stall, and was making the round of the bazaar with a basket of mostattractive-looking cakes. His eye met hers in hurried and involuntarymisgiving, mutely telling her that Rachel was not a suitable customer,and that she had better carry her wares elsewhere. She at once respondedto the unconscious confidence and returned to himself.
"Now, Mr. Pateley," she said ingratiatingly, "you, I know, never refusea cake. Look, these are what you had when you came to tea with me theother day. Now, I'll choose you the very best."
"Of course, if you will choose one for me," said Pateley gallan
tly.
"Oh, but one is not enough," she said, "you must have two--you reallymust. Five marks. Thank you so much!" and she tripped off.
Pateley, who had already, as we have seen, spent a good deal of time andof the money which is supposed to be its equivalent in the bazaar beforegoing to see Rachel, began to be conscious that before he got round itagain he would have spent a sum large enough to have kept him anotherweek in Schleppenheim. "However," he said to himself with a sigh, "it isall part of the story, I suppose." In his inmost soul he felt theconviction that he was altogether, in his strange progress through thejoyous crowd with that pale, anxious companion, going through asufficient penance to make amends for the misfortune of which he was theprimary cause.
"Where is Lord Stamfordham?" whispered Rachel anxiously. "Do you seehim?"
"Not at this moment," said Pateley, looking vainly in every direction.The difficulties of his quest, and the still worse difficulties thatwould certainly face him when the object of that quest should beattained, loomed with increased terror before him.
The names of the stallholders, of the performers, waved above theirrespective quarters. In the corner of the great tent was amysterious-looking enclosure, of which the entrance was closed by acurtain, and above which hung the legend, "Oriental Fortune-telling.Lady Adela Prestige." Lady Adela Prestige! That was probably the mostlikely place to try for. "I think he may be over there," he said, andwithout a word, hardly conscious of the people who were passing through,Rachel followed him.
"Hallo, Pateley, is that you?" said a cheery voice. He turned round andsaw Wentworth, a packet of tickets in his hand. "Would you like to havea ticket for the performing dog?" said Wentworth, not seeing whoPateley's companion was.
"No," said Pateley, almost savagely, thankful to be accosted by some onewhom he need not answer by a smile and a compliment. "I don't want anyfooling of that sort now."
"My dear fellow," said Wentworth, amazed, "what have you come here for,then?" and as he spoke he saw Rachel behind Pateley, and realised thatsomething was happening that had no connection with the business of thebazaar.
"Look here," Pateley said aside to him, "do you know where Stamfordhamis?"
"Over there," said Wentworth, with some inward wonder, pointing towardsLady Adela's corner. "I saw him there just now."
"Ah!" said Pateley, "all right," hardly knowing if he was relieved ornot, but desperately threading his way in the direction indicated, stillfollowed by Rachel.
Wentworth looked after them in surprise.
"What is that you are saying, Mr. Wentworth?" said a voice in his ear,and he turned quickly and found himself face to face with Mrs. Samuels."A performing dog? Where? I am quite sure it must be performing betterthan Princess Hohenschreien."
Wentworth replied by eagerly offering a ticket.
"Let me offer you a ticket, Mrs. Samuels, and then you shall see foryourself."
"Well, I will take a ticket," she said, "on condition that you will tellme honestly what the performance is."
"Certainly," said Wentworth, with a bow, offering the ticket andreceiving a gold piece in exchange. "It is Lady Chaloner's Aberdeenterrier. He sits up and begs with a piece of biscuit on his nose whilesomebody says 'Trust!' and 'Paid for!'"
"That is a most extraordinary and novel trick," said Mrs. Samuelsgravely.
"It is unique," said Wentworth; "and sometimes he tosses the biscuit inthe air when they say 'Trust,' sometimes when they say 'Paid for,' butgenerally he drops on all fours and eats it before they have begun."
"Thank you," said Mrs. Samuels. "I am afraid Princess Hohenschreien'sperformance will be best after all." Then Wentworth suddenly saw fromher face that some other attraction was approaching from behind him, andturned quickly round as Mrs. Samuels, with her most beguiling air,advanced and offered her basket of cakes to Lord Stamfordham.
"Now, milord," she said. "I am sure you must be hungry."
"And what makes you think that?" said Stamfordham, whose air of willingresponse and admiration made it quite evident that Mrs. Samuels'sblandishments were not usually exercised in vain. "Do I look pale, orhaggard, or weary?"
"None of these," said Mrs. Samuels; "but I am sure it is a long timesince I had the privilege of offering you a cup of tea at my stall.Quite half an hour, I should think."
"Quite possible," said Stamfordham. "All I can say is that it seems tome an eternity since I last had the pleasure of receiving anything atyour hands. Pray give me a bag of those cakes. You baked them yourself,of course?"
"Of course," Mrs. Samuels said, with a little rippling laugh. And thenin answer to Stamfordham's smile of incredulity, "All is fair in ...bazaars and war, you know."
In the meantime, Wentworth, enlisted, he himself did not understand howor why, in the anxious quest in which he saw Pateley and Rachel engaged,had hurried after Pateley, whose broad back he saw disappearing, to tellhim of Lord Stamfordham's whereabouts. Pateley turned quickly round.Lord Stamfordham was coming towards them, with Mrs. Samuels, wreathed insmiles, at his side.
"I think," she was saying, "when you have eaten those cakes you candrink some more tea, don't you think so?"
"It is not improbable," Stamfordham replied. "But was our bargain that Iwas to eat them all myself?"
"Certainly," Mrs. Samuels replied.
"My dear lady," Stamfordham said, "I will engage to eat every one ofthem that you have baked, I can't say more. And in the meantime I ambound on a very foolish errand. I have sworn to go and have my fortunetold," and as Mrs. Samuels's eye, with a careless and ingenuous air,rested upon Lady Adela's name above the tent, she smiled inwardly at thethought that what that astute lady might possibly prophesy would alsoperhaps come true if, as well as prophesying, she eventually brought herintelligence to bear upon its accomplishment.
"Wait one moment," Pateley said, almost nervously, to Rachel. "There isStamfordham, he is coming this way," and as Stamfordham drew near thedoor of the tent Pateley accosted him.
Lady Adela, it may be presumed, had some occult means of discoveringfrom inside who was drawing near her fateful quarters, or else she hadthe simpler methods more usually employed by mortals, of looking tosee. At all events, as Stamfordham came towards her enclosure, sheappeared on the threshold and winningly lifted the mysterious curtain,burlesquing a low curtsey in reply to Stamfordham's bow.
"Lord Stamfordham!" Pateley said hurriedly. Stamfordham, in somesurprise, looked round. He had been seeing Pateley on and off during theday. Why did he accost him in this way? But the urgent note in his voicearrested his attention. Then, as he looked up, he saw an anxiouspale-faced, girlish figure standing by Pateley, looking at him withlarge brown eyes filled with indescribable anxiety. It was a face thathe knew, that he had seen somewhere. Who was it? For one puzzled momenthe tried to remember. Pateley took the bull by the horns.
"Lord Stamfordham," he said, "Mrs. Rendel wants to speak to you."
Mrs. Rendel! Of course it was Mrs. Rendel. He had last seen her that dayat Cosmo Place. Again a wave of indignation rushed over him. Racheladvanced desperately, looking as though she were going to speak.Stamfordham, involuntarily looking round him at the crowd of observersand listeners, said quickly in a low voice, "I am very sorry, it is nogood. It is impossible." And then to Pateley, "It is no good, I can't doanything. You must tell her so," and he passed through the curtain whichLady Adela let drop behind him. Rachel looked at Pateley, then to hisamazement and also to his involuntary admiration she lifted the curtainand passed in too.
The two people inside stood aghast at her appearance. She had followedso quickly upon Stamfordham's steps that he was still standing lookinground him at his strange surroundings, Lady Adela facing him with asmile of welcome. The apparatus of the fortune-teller apparentlyconsisted in certain cabalistic properties--wands, dials with signs uponthem, and the like--arranged round a table. Stamfordham spoke first. Hewas absolutely convinced that Rachel had come to appeal to him formercy, and was as absolutely clear that it was an appeal to whic
h hecould not listen.
"Mrs. Rendel," he said, "I am afraid I am obliged to tell you that Icannot listen to anything you may have to say. I can guess, of course,why you have come here, and I am sorry for _you_," he said, leaning onthe pronoun. "But I can do nothing," and he spoke slowly and inexorably,"I can do nothing for either you or your husband." But Rachel had nowlost all fear, all misgiving.
"I don't think," she said, unconsciously drawing herself up and lookingstraight at him, "you know what I have come to say, and I must ask youto listen for a moment."
"I think I do know," Stamfordham said sternly, and she saw he meant togo out.
"I have come to tell you," she said, quickly standing between him andthe door, "that my husband was wrongfully accused of the thing that youbelieved he did." Stamfordham shook his head: this was what he expectedto hear. "I know who did it, I have found out to-day," and she grew moreand more assured as she went on. Stamfordham started, then lookedincredulous again. "I have come to tell you who did it, that you mayknow my husband is innocent." Then she became aware of Lady Adela, who,having at first been much annoyed at her brusque intrusion, was nowsuddenly roused to interest, even to sympathy. Rachel turned to her. "Imust say this," she said. "Don't you see, don't you understand, what itis to me?"
"Yes, yes, you must," the other woman said, with a sudden impulse ofhelp and sympathy. "Go on," and she went outside. Stamfordham felt aslight accession of annoyance as Lady Adela passed out; he felt it wasgoing to be very difficult for him to deal as cruelly as he was bound todo with the anxious, quivering wife before him. He stood silent andabsolutely impenetrable. Rachel went on quickly in broken sentences.
"I didn't know about this at the time. I have been ill since. I couldnot remember. You brought some papers for my husband to copy, and helocked them up so that no one should see them, and while he went down tospeak to you they were pulled out of his writing-table from outside, bysomebody else who was there, and who showed them to Mr. Pateley. Mr.Pateley came in and went out again. Frank didn't know he had beenthere." Stamfordham stopped her.
"They were taken out by 'somebody,' you say; do you mean--in fact I mustgather from your words--that it was--do you mean by yourself?"
"Oh no, no," Rachel cried, as it dawned upon her what interpretationmight be put upon her words. "Oh no, not myself! I wish it had been, Iwish it had!"
"You wish it had?" Stamfordham said, surprised. "Who was it, then? Whowas it?" he said again, in the tone of one who must have an answer. "Whogot the paper out and showed it to Pateley?"
Rachel forced herself to speak.
"It was--my father," she said, "Sir William Gore." And with an immenseeffort she prevented herself from bursting into tears.
"Sir William Gore!" said Stamfordham, "did _he_ do it?"
"Yes," said Rachel; "I only knew it to-day, and I am telling you toprove to you that it wasn't my husband."
Stamfordham stood for a moment trying to recall Rendel's attitude at thetime, and then, as he did so, he made up his mind that Rendel must haveknown.
"But," he said, after a moment, still somewhat perplexed, "you say youdidn't know about this?"
"No," said Rachel, "I didn't. My father," and again her lips quiveredand told Stamfordham what that father and his good name probably were toher, "was taken very ill, and I had an accident at the time and did notknow anything that had happened. Frank told me nothing. Then my fatherdied, and I was ill, and we came here and I did not know it at all tillmy husband came in and told me"--and her eyes blazed at thethought--"told me what had happened to-day..." She stopped. Stamfordhamfelt a stab as he thought of it.
"But," he said, "did he know? Did he tell you then? Did he know that itwas Sir William Gore?"
"Oh no, no," Rachel said; "it was Mr. Pateley, and he brought me here totell you that you might know." Then Stamfordham began to understand.
"Mrs. Rendel," he said, with a change of voice and manner that made herheart leap within her. "Where is your husband?"
"He is at our house, the little pavilion behind the Casino garden."
"Will you take me to him?" Stamfordham said.
Rachel looked at him, unable to speak, her face illuminated withhope--then she covered her face in her hands, saying through the tearsshe could no longer restrain, "Oh, thank you, thank you!"
"Come," said Stamfordham gently, but with decision. "You must dry yourtears," he added with a smile, "or people will think I have beenill-treating you." And to the speechless amazement of Lady Adela, whowas standing outside the curtain waiting until, as she expressed it toherself, she too should have her "innings," Stamfordham passed outbefore her eyes with Rachel, saying to Lady Adela as he passed, "Willyou forgive me? I am going to take Mrs. Rendel back." Then looking roundhim at the jostling crowd he said to Rachel, offering her his arm, "Willyou think me very old-fashioned if I ask you to take my arm to getthrough the crowd?" And, leaning on his arm, hardly daring to believewhat had happened or might be going to happen, Rachel passed back alongthe room through which she had just come with Pateley, the crowd thistime opening before them with some indescribable tacit understandingthat something had happened concerned with the incident which, as Rendelhad foreseen, nearly everybody at the bazaar had heard of. They did notspeak again until they reached the pavilion.
Latchkeys were unknown at Schleppenheim, and the inhabitants of thelittle summer abodes walked in by the simple process of turning thehandle of the front door. Rachel and Stamfordham went straight in out ofthe sunlight into the cool little room into which, in long low rays, thesetting sun was sending its beams. Rendel had been trying to read: thebook that lay beside him on the floor showed that the attempt had beenin vain. He looked up, still with that strange, hunted expression thathad come into his face since the morning--the expression of the man towhom every door opening, every figure that comes in may mean some freshcause of apprehension. Rachel came into the room without speaking,something that he could not read in the least in her face, then hisheart stood still within him as he saw Stamfordham behind her. What,again? What new ordeal awaited him? He made no sign of recognition, butstood up and looked Stamfordham straight in the face. Stamfordham cameforward and spoke.
"I have come," he said, "to apologise to you for what took place to-day,to beg you to forgive me." Rendel was so utterly astounded that hesimply looked from one to the other of the people standing before himwithout uttering a sound.
"I have just learnt," Stamfordham went on, "the name of the person whodid the thing of which I wrongfully accused you." Rendel made a hurriedmovement forward as if to stop him.
"Wait, wait one moment!" he cried, "don't say it before my wife--shedoesn't know." In that moment Rachel realised what he had done for her.
"Do you know?" asked Stamfordham.
"Yes," Rendel answered.
With the old friendliness, and something deeper, in his face and voice,Stamfordham said--
"Mrs. Rendel knows also. It was she told me."
"Rachel!" cried Rendel, turning to her. "Do you know?"
"Yes," said Rachel, trying to command her voice. "I know--now--that itwas--my father," and the eyes of the two met.
Stamfordham advanced to Rendel.
"Will you forgive me," he said again, "and shake hands?" Rendel held outhis hand and pressed Stamfordham's in a close and tremulous grasp, whichthe other returned. "I must see you," he said. "Will you come to myrooms some time? I shall be here for a week longer." He held out hishand to Rachel. "Thank you," he said, "for what you have done." And hewent out.
Rendel turned towards Rachel, his arms outstretched, his facetransformed by the knowledge of the great love she had shown him. Hisheart was too full for speech: in the closer union of silence that newprecious compact was made. The veil that had hung between them so longwas lifted for ever.
THE END.
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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:
The author's name on the original title page was "Mrs. Hugh Bell".Every e
ffort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible, including obsolete and variant spellings and otherinconsistencies. Typographical errors in punctuation (misplaced quotesand the like) have been fixed. Text that has been changed to correct anobvious error by the publisher is noted below:
page 125: "Rendal" corrected to "Rendel"
"Of course," he said, after listening to what Rendal[Rendel] had to say
page 303: "toward's" corrected to "towards"
Wentworth, with some inward wonder, pointing toward's[towards] Lady Adela's corner.
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