He kissed the hand he held, and, as he did so, he knew for the first time that she loved him. But he could not speak of love after what he had just told her. He looked back when he reached the door, and saw her standing where he had left her. She had raised the hand he had kissed to her lips.

That was three days ago. Since then he had not dared to go and see her. He could not ask her to marry him when he was within a few days of the time when he was bound in so-called honor to give Lord Newhaven satisfaction. He certainly could not be in her presence again without asking her. The shadows of the last weeks had suddenly become ghastly realities once more. The roar of Niagara drowned all other sounds. What was he going to do? What was he going to do in the predicament towards which he had been drifting so long, which was now actually upon him? Who shall say what horror, what agony of mind, what frenzied searching for a way of escape, what anguish of baffled love crowded in on Hugh's mind during those last days? At the last moment he caught at a straw, and wrote to Lord Newhaven offering to fight him. He did not ask himself what he should do if Lord Newhaven refused. But when Lord Newhaven did refuse his determination, long unconsciously fostered, sprang full-grown into existence in a sudden access of passionate anger and blind rage.

"He won't fight, won't he! He thinks I will die like a rat in a trap with all my life before me. I will not. I offered him a fair chance of revenging himself—I would have fired into the air—and if he won't take it is his own look-out, damn him! He can shoot me at sight if he likes. Let him."

Chapter XXXII

*

On ne peut jamais dire.
"Fontaine je ne boirai jamais de ton eau."

If we could choose our ills we should not choose suspense. Rachel aged perceptibly during these last weeks. Her strong white hands became thinner; her lustreless eyes and haggard face betrayed her. In years gone by she had said to herself, when a human love had failed her, "I will never put myself through this torture a second time. Whatever happens I will not endure it again."

And now she was enduring it again, though in a different form. There is an element of mother-love in the devotion which some women give to men. In the first instance it had opened the door of Rachel's heart to Hugh, and had gradually merged, with other feelings, and deepened into the painful love of a woman not in her first youth for a man of whom she is not sure.

Rachel was not sure of Hugh. Of his love for her she was sure, but not of the man himself, the gentle, refined, lovable nature that mutely worshipped and clung to her. She could not repulse him any more than she could repulse a child. But through all her knowledge of him—the knowledge of love, the only true knowledge of our fellow-creatures—a thread of doubtful anxiety was interwoven. She could form some idea how men like Dick, Lord Newhaven, or the Bishop would act in given circumstances, but she could form no definite idea how Hugh would act in the same circumstances. Yet she knew Hugh a thousand times better than any of the others. Why was this? Many women before Rachel have sought diligently to find, and have shut their eyes diligently, lest they should discover what it is that is dark to them in the character of the man they love.