CHAPTER XI
RODDY IS MASTER
"I and my mistress, side by side, Shall be together, breathe and ride, So, one day more am I deified, Who knows but the world may end to-night?"
ROBERT BROWNING.
I
Introspection had been always to Roddy a thing unknown. He had neverregarded himself as in any way different from the other men whom he met,and he would have been greatly distressed had he thought that he _was_different.--"What you writin' fellers," he had once said to Garden, "canfind amusin' in inventin' people for I can't think; you've got to make'em odd for people to be interested in 'em and then they aren't likeanyone."
Now, however, for the first time in his life he would have been glad ofhelp from someone who knew a little about the motive of human beings. Hewas worried, distressed, perplexed; slowly his temper was rising--atemper roused by his irritation at not being able to deal with thesituation.
It was not his way to ask for help from anyone and he always had all theinarticulate self-confidence of the healthy Englishman, but now, as thedays crept towards Christmas he was increasingly aware that somethingmust soon happen to prevent his patience giving away.
He might as well not be married to Rachel at all--and that was anintolerable position for him as husband, as lover, as master of hishouse. Beyond doubt, he knew Rachel less now than he had known her whenhe married her. Her very kindness to him, her strange alternations ofsilence and affection perplexed him; for a long time he had toldhimself that he knew that she did not love him and that he must makecompanionship do, but ever since that quarrel about Nita Raseley thedivision between them had grown wider and wider.
Because he loved her he had been very patient with her--very patient forRoddy, who had always had what he wanted and shown temper if he wererefused.
But Roddy's character was of a very real simplicity. The men and womenand animals whom he had known had also been, for the most part, of asimple character and, in all his life, there had only been one horse andtwo women who had been too much for him, and even these, at the last, hehad beaten by temper and dogged determination.
Rachel was utterly beyond him. The strange way that she had of suddenlybecoming quite another woman baffled him; had he only not loved her hewas sure that it would have been easier, much easier.
But now, as the days passed at Seddon, his irritation thrived. Womenwere all the same. They _seemed_ obstinate enough, but there was nothinglike brute force to bring them to heel. He was growing surly--cross withthe servants and the animals. He didn't sleep. His discontent made himsilent so that, when they were alone, instead of talking to her andinteresting her and winning her, perhaps, in that way, he would sit andlook at her and answer her in monosyllables, and, afterwards, would befurious with himself for behaving so absurdly.
This trouble sent him out of doors and away over the Downs on his horse.Fiercely he hurled himself into his fields and lanes and farms, gettingup sometimes very early and riding out to some distant place, thinkingalways, as he rode, of Rachel and what he was to do.
His devotion for the country round Seddon, a devotion that had stirredhis heart since his first conscious sight of the outside world, noblynow rewarded him. The land seemed to understand that he was suffering,and drew closer to him and watched him with gentle and loving eyes, andsoothed his soul.
Before Christmas there came some sharp, frosty mornings; he would go outvery early and would see, first, the garden, the lawn crisp and white,the grey jagged wall that divided his land from the sweeping Downs, thegrey house behind him so square and solid and comfortable. At the end ofthe garden away from the road there was an old iron gate with stonepillars, and upon these pillars sat old stone gryphons. These gryphonshad been there since long ago and he liked the friendliness of theirfaces, the strength of their crouching bodies and the way that theywould look out so patiently, over a great expanse of fields and hedges,until their gaze rested on the white chalk hollows in the rising hillsaway behind Lewes.
Roddy, standing with the Downs so immediately behind him and this greenspread of land in front of him, was always conscious of happiness. Herehe was at home. He knew those fields, the streams that ran through them,the farmers, the labourers, the horses and dogs that lived upon them. Nofear here that "one of those clever fellers" would wonder at hisstupidity, no sudden "letting you down" or "showing you up." Behind himwas his house, before him the land that he had always known; here he wassafe.
He had, too, beyond this, some unformulated recognition of a service anda worship that here he was called on to pay. He had always declared thathe could understand those Johnnies who worshipped the sun and the earth."Damn it all--there's something to catch on to there."--He did not, inhis heart, believe in all this civilization, this preserving of the sickand tending of the maimed and halt. "You've got to clear out if you'rebroken up" was his opinion. "If you can't do your bit, can't see orsmell or anything, you're just in the way."--What he meant was that thehalt and maimed were simply insults to the vigour and vitality of hisfields and sky.
But indeed, what _would_ he have done during these days had he not hadhis riding, farms to visit, shepherds and farmers for company? At firstRachel had ridden with him and they had been closer together duringthose rides than at any other time, but lately she had refused, on oneexcuse or another, to come with him.
He went a good deal now to other houses, but it was awkward becauseRachel would not come with him. She asked people to Seddon and wascharming when they came, but she would not often go out with him whenthe country people invited them.
Since the Nita Raseley episode he had thought that she might showjealousy did he ride and drive with some girl in the country. He hopedthat she would be jealous, that would have filled him with tinglinghappiness--but no, she seemed to be glad that he should find someone whocould take her place.
Over all these things he brooded and brooded. He would look at his oldfriendly gryphons and feel, in some dumb confused way, that they werebeing insulted.--"Poor old beggars--I bet she doesn't know they'rethere"--And through all of this, he loved her more and more, and was,daily, more wretched and unhappy.
II
The coming of Miss Rand puzzled him. He had, of course, known of her fora long time--"Adela Beaminster's secretary, most capable woman, simplyruns the whole place."--As a human being she simply did not occur tohim.
Now she seemed to be the one person whom Rachel wished to know. Anotherinstance of Rachel's unexpectedness. When Lizzie came he was still moreastonished. This tidy, trim little woman looked as though she oughtalways to have a typewriter by her side; her sharp eyes were alwaysrestlessly discovering things that were out of order. Roddy foundhimself fingering his tie and patting his hair when she was withhim--not, he would have supposed, the sort of woman for whom Rachelwould have cared.
Then after a while he discovered another astonishing thing. Miss Randdid not like his wife, did not like her at all. He watched and fanciedthat Rachel soon discovered this and was doing her utmost to force MissRand to like her.
Miss Rand was always pleasant and polite; she was an immense help aboutdinners and this dance that was to be given early in the New Year, butshe yielded to none of Rachel's advances, was always reserved,unresponsive.
Roddy was afraid of her but believed in her. She liked animals and lovedthe house and the Downs and the country.--"She's all clean and brightand hard," he thought; "no emotion about her, no sentiment _there_. Aman 'ud have a stiff time love-making with her."
But it gradually appeared that, whatever her feelings might be towardsRachel, she was ready to like Roddy. She walked with him, asked himsensible questions, listened attentively to his rather lumberingexplanations. After a time, he almost forgot that she was a woman atall--"Damn sensible and yet she never makes you feel a fool."
He liked her very much, though she obviously preferred Jacob, themongrel, to all other dogs in the place. He wondered as the days passedwhether she might not help him with Ra
chel. He would not speak to anyoneliving about his own feelings for Rachel and his unhappiness, but hethought that, perhaps, in a roundabout way, he might obtain from MissRand some general wisdom that he could apply to his especial case.
The afternoon of Christmas Eve was cold and foggy and Roddy and Lizziesat over the fire in the hall waiting for Rachel, who had gone out for asolitary walk. Roddy looking at his companion approved of the sharpdelicate little face with the firelight touching it to colour andshadow; her dress was grey with a tiny brooch of old gold at her throat,and she wore one ring of small pearls; the look of her gave himpleasure.
"I wonder," Miss Rand said, "that you don't go where you'll get betterhunting--you don't hunt round here at all, do you?"
"A bit"--Roddy looked gravely at the fire--"I go very little though. Yousee, Miss Rand, it's a case of bein' born down here and likin' theplace, don't you know. _Of course_ I'd love to have been born in ahuntin' country, but bein' here I've got fond of it, you see, andwouldn't leave it for any huntin' anywhere."
She looked at him sharply: "You do love the place very much--I envy youthat."
Even as she spoke her consciousness of "the place" faced her; she hadalways known that she was more acutely aware of the personality of hersurroundings than were most of her friends, but her experience here wasdifferent from anything that she had ever known before.
She remembered that in the train she had been warned of some comingevent and now, sitting opposite to Roddy beside the blazing fire, shewas sharply and definitely frightened.
Rachel had already appealed to her; Roddy was appealing to her now, butstronger than either of these demands was some force in herself, warningher and raising in her the most conflicting, disturbing emotions.
The very silence of the house about them, the long green stretches ofthe level fields, came almost personally and presented themselves toher, and in her heart, growing with every moment of passing time, washer hatred of Rachel and, from that, tenderness for Roddy, who couldthus be left, so pathetically unhappy, so eloquently without words thatmight express his unhappiness.
Something she knew was soon to occur that would involve all three ofthem in a common crisis.
It was almost as though she must leap to her feet and cry to thestartled and innocent Roddy, "Look out!" her finger pointing at theclosed door behind him.
Meanwhile Roddy had been considering her. She said that she envied himthe place. That was pleasant of her, and he warmed to the urgency withwhich she had said it. If she felt in that way about such things, whythen, all the more, he thought, he could speak to her about his troublewith Rachel. Perhaps, too, although this he would not admit tohimself--his conviction that Lizzie disliked Rachel gave him morecourage.
Everyone thought Rachel so wonderful--wonderful of course she was, but acomplete sense of that wonder must blind the looker-on to Roddy's pointof view.
"Places," he said moodily, "ain't everythin'--course _I_ love this oldbit o' ground, but when you love anything a lot you're disappointedbecause every feller don't see it exactly as you do."
Lizzie looked at him.
"I should have thought, though, Sir Roderick, that you were a very, veryhappy person."
Roddy considered, then slowly shook his head--"No, Miss Rand, notexactly--no, you know, I shouldn't say that exactly--but then, Isuppose, no man on this earth is absolutely happy."
"Well," said Lizzie, "a great many people would envy you--your health,your home, your wife, you've got a good deal, Sir Roderick."
As she spoke her anxiety to help him seized and held her. He wantedadvice so badly, advice that she could give him, and this English strainin him prevented him from speaking. Had she gone more deeply into hermotives she would have known that her anger with Rachel, even moreactively prompted, it seemed, by the stones and the fields and the hillsaround her, was urging her interference.
"People envy me," said Roddy, "but then, Miss Rand, people don't know.It's all my own fault, mind you, that I'm not perfectly happy. It's allbecause I'm such a fool, not able to see what people are gettin' at,always blunderin' in at the wrong moment and blunderin' out again when Iought to be stayin' in, and that sort o' thing. I used to think," heconcluded, "that all the talk about people's feelin's, studying them andso on, was rot, but now I'm not so sure. I'd give anythin'--" he stoppedabruptly.
"It _is_ all rot," Lizzie said sharply--"I can only speak as a woman, ofcourse, but I know that what every woman ever born into this world haswanted is just to be taken by someone stronger than herself and bebeaten or kissed, loved or strangled as the case may be. Believe me, itis so."
Roddy looked at her, some new thought, perhaps a prologue to some newdetermination, shining from his eyes.
"By Jove!" he said. "I believe you're right, Miss Rand--I do indeed._Every_ woman, would you say?"
"Every woman," said Lizzie firmly.
Their eyes met. The sure steadiness of her gaze, the way that she satthere, her little body so sure and resolute, her very neat composure anargument against lightheaded reasoning, encouraged him beyond any helpthat he had yet found.
Their gaze seemed long and intimate; the colour rose and flushed hisbrown cheeks and into his eyes there crept that consciousness of avictory about to be won, although the odds were hard against him. Thedoor opened behind him and he turned at the sound and saw that Rachelhad come in.
Her entry gave him now, as it always did, a conviction that during herabsence he hadn't had the least idea as to how splendid she really was.She brought into that little stone hall a wild colour, a strong, finechallenge to anything small, or shackled or conventional.
Her walk had given her cheeks a flame, the black furs round her throat,the black coat falling below her knees, a red feather in her roundblack fur cap, all these things set off and accentuated the brilliantfire and energy of her eyes.
As she came towards them then so splendid was she that Lizzie washerself for an instant lost in admiration--She lit the hall, she lit thehouse, she lit the country and the evening sky.
To Roddy, as he looked at her, there stole the spirit of some paganancestor telling him that here was his capture, that this fine creaturewas his to bind, to burden, to chastise, as his lordly pleasure mightbe.
Rachel, meanwhile, had come in from her walk, unappeased, unsated; theexertion had only succeeded in stirring in her a deeper, more urgentuneasiness. During these last weeks she had known no moment of peace.She had come down to Seddon determined to do her duty to Roddy; she hadfound that at every turn her duty to Roddy involved more than anydetermination could force her to give.
She had not known what that last interview with Breton would do to everysituation that followed it. It seemed to her then that those last wordswith him would make her duty plain, they had only made her duty harder.
She could not now act, think, sleep, move but that last kiss, those lastwords of his, that last vision of him standing, struggling so finely forcontrol--these things pursued her, caught her eyes and held them.
All her duty to Roddy could not hide from her now that she had, at oneflaming instant, known what life at its most intense could be. She hadfelt the fire--how cold to her now these antechambers, these passages sochill, so far from that inner room. Lizzie had then occurred to her asthe strongest person she knew. She sent for Lizzie, found instantly thatLizzie disliked her, suspected then that Lizzie knew about Breton.
She knew Lizzie for her enemy.... During the last week also she haddetected a new attitude in Roddy; she had felt in him some activegrowing impatience that quite definitely threatened her safety. Thatwild lawlessness in Roddy that she had always known, that had producedthe Nita episode and others, was now turning towards herself.
But most of all did she fear her thoughts of Breton. She drove him againand again and again from her mind, she called all her strength, mental,moral, and physical, to her aid--always, with a smile, with one glancefrom his eyes he defeated her.
Day and night he was with her, and yet at her heart
she did not even nowknow whether it were Francis Breton whom she loved, or the life withRoddy, the whole Beaminster scheme of things that she hated. Every dayit seemed to her that Lizzie was more watchful, Roddy more impatient,Breton more insistent--but afraid of them all as she was, fear ofherself gave her the sharpest terror.
She rang for tea, reproached them because they had waited for her. Thenthey were--all three of them--silent.
One of the footmen brought in the five o'clock post with the tea andlaid Rachel's letters on the table at her side.
Lizzie had leant across the table for something and saw, as thoughflashed to her by some special designing Providence, that the letter onthe top of the pile was in Francis Breton's handwriting.
Rachel, busied with tea, had not looked down. Now she did so; thehandwriting rose, as though she had at that instant heard his stepbeyond the room, and filled first her eyes, then her cheeks, then herheart.
Her eyes met Lizzie's and for the barest moment of time their challengesmet. Rachel seemed to hesitate, then, gathering up her letters, lookedround at Roddy and said, "I think I'll just go up and take my thingsoff, this fire's hotter than I expected--I'll be back in a moment."
She walked slowly across the room and up the broad staircase.
III
She did not switch on the light. The evening dusk left the room cool anddim, but by the window, standing so that green shadows met the grey andthrough them both a pale light trembled before it vanished, she took theletter in her hand, allowing the others to drop and be scattered, white,on the floor at her feet.
She held the envelope; he had written and he had sworn to her that hewould not do so--she should have been furious at his broken word,scornful of him for his weakness, indignant at his treating her solightly.
But she could not think of that now, she could only think of the letter.The envelope was so precious to her that it seemed to return the caressthat his fingers gave it and to have of itself some especialindividuality. She traced his hand on the address, treasured every lineand mark, and then at last tore it open. It was not a very long letter.He had written to her:
"You will despise me for breaking my word. Perhaps you won't read this--but I _can't_ help it, I _can't_ help it, and even if I could I don't think that I would. I know that my writing to you is just another of the rash, foolish, silly weak things that I've gone on doing all my life, but let it be so. I don't pretend to be fine or brave and I have tried all these weeks, tried harder than you can know. I've written to you every day letter after letter, and torn them up--torn them all up. I've fancied that perhaps you've forgotten by now and then I've known that you've not and then I've known that it were better if you did.
I love you so madly that--(here he had scratched some words out)--I must tell you that I love you so that _you_ can hear me and not only my walls and furniture and my own self. I'm trying not to be selfish. I know that I'm doing something now that is hard on you, but my silence is eating me, thrusting, killing--I shall be better soon--I will be sensible--soon--I will be----
But now, oh, my darling! for a moment at least I have caught you and held you throbbing against me, and put my hands in your hair and stroked your cheeks and kissed your eyes.
Don't write to me if you must not, don't be angry with me for this.
I will try not to break my word again."
As the letter ended so silence came back into the room that had beenbeating and throbbing with sound.
The pale light had gone, only the Downs were dim grey shapes against adarker sky--the ripple of some water slipping and falling came from thegarden.
The letter fell from her hands and lay white with the others on thefloor.
She tumbled on to her knees by the window and her heart was thestrangest confusion of triumph and fear, exultation and shame.
For a little time she lay there and felt that she was in his arms andthat his lips were on her mouth and that her hand pressed his cheek.
She got up, turned on the lights, took off her walking things, brushedher hair and washed her hands, picked up the other letters, but put hisin the inside of her dress--then went down to the others.
IV
She found Lizzie sitting alone--"Where's Roddy?"
Lizzie looked up at her. "He had to go and see about a horse orsomething."
Rachel came down to the table and poured out some tea and then satsmiling at Lizzie; Lizzie smiled back.
"I hope you liked your walk."
"Yes, there's a storm coming up. You've no idea how deeply one gets tocare for these Downs--their quiet and their size."
They were silent for a little and then Rachel said:
"Miss Rand--I do hope--that this really has been something of a holidayfor you, being here, away from all your London work!"
Lizzie's eyes were sharp--"Yes--It's delightful for me. The firstholiday I've had for years...."
"Don't think it impulsive of me--but I've asked you here hoping thatwe'd get to know one another better. I've wanted to know you, to haveyou for a friend--for a long time. I've always admired so immensely theway that you've helped Aunt Adela--done things that I could neverpossibly have done----"
She stopped, but Lizzie said nothing--Then she went on moreuncertainly--
"You see, I hoped that perhaps you'd teach me a little order and method.I've married so young--I've hoped...." Then almost desperately--"But youknow, Miss Rand, I don't feel as though your coming here has helped usto know one another any better."
The storm had come up and the sky beyond the house was black. Lizzie'sface, lighted by the fire, was white, sharp and set--there was nokindness in her eyes.
"Perhaps, Lady Rachel," she said slowly, "I'm not a very emotional kindof woman. If one's worked, as I have, since one was small--had to earnone's living and fight for one's place--it makes one perhaps ratherself-reliant and independent of other people--Our lives have been sodifferent, I'm afraid," she added with a little laugh, "that I'm adried-up, unsatisfactory kind of person--I know that my mother andsister have always found me so."
"Yes," Rachel said, "our lives _have_ been different. Perhaps if minehad been a little more like yours--perhaps if _I_ had had to work for myliving--I...."
She broke off--a little catch was in her voice--she rose from her chairand went to the window and stood there, with her back to Lizzie, gazinginto the darkening garden.
She knew that Lizzie had repulsed her; she was hardly aware why she hadmade her appeal, but she was now frightened of Lizzie and to heroverstrung brain it seemed that she could now see Lizzie and Roddy inleague against her.
She heard a step and turning round found Peters, the butler, large,square, of an immense impassivity.
"Please, my lady, might I speak to you a moment?"
She went out.
* * * * *
Lizzie, left in the darkening room, could think now only of the letter.The sight of that handwriting had stirred in her passions that she hadnever before imagined as hers--that first pathetic appeal of Roddy andthen the sight of that letter!
Her brain, working feverishly, showed her the words that that letterwould contain--the passion, the passion! There in the very face of herhusband, Rachel was receiving letters from her lover, letters that shecould not wait a moment to read, but must go instantly and open _them_.
This hour brought to a crisis Lizzie's agony. Had such a letter beenwritten to her!
She tortured herself now with the picture of him as he sat there in hisroom in Saxton Square writing it! It appeared to her now as though theytwo--there in the very throne of their triumphant love--had plotted thisinsult, this snap of the fingers, to show her, Lizzie Rand, howdesolate, how lonely, how neglected and unwanted she was!
That then, after this, Rachel should appeal to her for friendship! Thecruel insult of it.
She felt as she heard the fast drops of rain lash the window-frames,
that no revenge that she could secure would satisfy her thirst for it.
V
Roddy, meanwhile, had gone out to the stables. That little talk withLizzie had determined a resolution that had been growing now within himfor many weeks.
That little woman, with her assured air and neat little ways, knew whatshe was about--knew moreover what others were about. She had watched andhad given him the tip--He would take it.
Roddy's mind was of far too simple an order to admit of more than onepoint of view at a time. He saw Rachel now as a dog or horse, of whom hewas very fond, who needed, nevertheless, stern discipline. He wonderednow how it was that he had allowed himself for so long to remainindecisive.
"London muddles a feller," he concluded; "the country's the place forclear thinkin'."
He looked at his horses with great satisfaction, they were in splendidcondition--he had never known them better. He also was in splendidcondition--never been better.
As he walked away from the stables and turned towards the end of thegarden bounded by the gryphons and the stone gate, he felt his body atits most supreme perfection. He thought, on that afternoon, that he wasstrong enough for anything, and perhaps never before in his life had hebeen so conscious of the glories of physical things; of all that itmeant to have fine muscles and a strong heart and lungs of the best andthews and sinews as good as "any feller's."
"I'm strong enough for anythin'----" He turned back his arm and felt hismuscle. He cocked his head with a little conceited gesture ofsatisfaction--"I was gettin' a bit fat in London--got rid of all that."
To walk, to ride, to fight, to swim, to eat and sleep, to love women anddrink strong drink! God! what a world!
And then, beyond it all, Rachel, Rachel, Rachel! He had her now--sheshould be under his hand, she should be his as she had never been sincethe first week of their marriage.
"No more nonsense, by God!" he said triumphantly to himself--"no morenonsense."
He leaned on the stone gate and looked out over the fields--The gryphonsregarded him benevolently.
He was conscious, as he stood there, of the Duchess--what was the oldlady doing? He'd like to see her. He felt more in sympathy with her thanhe had been for a long time past. "She's right after all. You've got tostand up and run people. No use just lettin' them handle you."
There was a storm coming up. The white lights of the higher sky werebeing closed down by black blocks of cloud that spread, from one toanother, merging far on the horizon above the hills into driving linesof rain. The white chalk hollows above Lewes stood out sharp and clear;the dark green of the fields was now a dull grey, the hedges were darkand a thin stream that cut the flat surface of the plain was black likeink.
Roddy welcomed the storm. Had he been superstitious the physical energythat now pervaded him might have frightened him. He felt as though withone raising of his arm he could hold up those black clouds and keep themoff. The rain and the wind had not more force than he--
Life was a vast paean of strength--"The weak must go"--He was, at thishour, Lord of Creation.
As he went back to the house the rain met him and whipped his cheek.
"By Gad, I'd like to find the old lady sittin' in the house, waitin' fora chat," he thought.
When he came down to dinner, he came as one who rules the world. Thatsimple clear light was in his eyes that was always there when he hadfound the solution to something that perplexed him. His expression toowas one that belonged to Rachel's earlier experience of him, one thatshe had not seen on his face for a long time past. His strong butrather stupid mouth had somewhere in its corners the suspicion of asmile. His chin stuck out rather obstinately--the light in the eyes, thesmile, the set lips, these things revealed the old Roddy.
After dinner Lizzie went off to her room.
For a while Roddy and Rachel sat there--She read some book, her eyesoften leaving the page and staring into the fire.
Then she got up and said good night. She came over and bent down andkissed him. He caught her arm and held her.
"I say, old girl, it's time we had the same room again--much moreconvenient." He heard her catch her breath and felt her tremble. Shetried to draw her arm away, but he held her.
"Oh! but soon, Roddy--Yes--but not just now--I----"
"Yes--now. I'll see about it to-morrow." She stepped back from him,dragging herself away, and then put her hand to her forehead with adesperate gesture.
"No, no--not----"
He got up and smiling, swaying a little, faced her--
"Yes--I've made up my mind--all this business has got to come to anend--Been goin' long enough."
"What business?"
"Seein' nothing of you--nothing from mornin' till night. You know, oldgirl, it isn't fair--if we didn't care about one another----"
"Yes, I know--but don't let's discuss it to-night. I'm tired,headachy--this storm----"
He said nothing--She looked at him and at the steady stare in his eyesand the smile at his mouth turned away.
She moved towards the door--He said nothing, but his eyes followed her.
"Good night," she said, turning round to him--but he still said nothing,only stood there very square and set.
For a long time he sat, looking into the fire--Then he went up to hisroom and very slowly undressed. Afterwards he came out, carefullyclosing the door behind him, then, in dressing-gown and pyjamas, wentdown the passage to Rachel's door.
The house was very still, but the storm was raging and the boughs ofsome tree hit, with fierce protesting taps, a window at the passage-end.
He knocked at her door, waited, then heard her ask who was there.
"It's I, Roddy," he said. There was a pause, then the door was opened.He came in and stood in the doorway. Rachel was sitting up in bed, herface very white, her eyes fixed on him.
"I'm sleepin' here to-night, Rachel," he said.
Her voice was a whisper--"No, Roddy--no--not--not----"
"Yes," he said firmly.
"No, not to-night."
"Yes--to-night--now."
He walked carefully across the room, took off his dressing-gown, andhung it over a chair. He looked about the room.
"Too much light"--he said and, going to the door, switched off all thelights save the one above the bed.