Lady Newhaven's voice rose half strangled, hardly human, in a shrill grotesque whimper above the sobs which were shaking her. There was no affectation about her now.

Rachel's heart went out to her the moment she was natural. She knelt down and put her strong arms round her. The poor thing clung to her, and, leaning her elaborate head against her, wept tears of real anguish upon her breast.

"And which drew the short lighter?" said Rachel at last.

"I don't know," almost shrieked Lady Newhaven. "It is that which is killing me. Sometimes I think it is Edward, and sometimes I think it is Hugh."

At the name of Hugh, Rachel winced. Lady Newhaven had mentioned no name in the earlier stages of her story while she had some vestige of self-command; but now at last the Christian name slipped out unawares.

Rachel strove to speak calmly. She told herself there were many Hughs in the world.

"Is Mr. Hugh Scarlett the man you mean?" she asked. If she had died for it, she must have asked that question.

"Yes," said Lady Newhaven.

A shadow fell on Rachel's face, as on the face of one who suddenly discovers, not for the first time, an old enemy advancing upon him under the flag of a new ally.

"I shall always love him," gasped Lady Newhaven, recovering herself sufficiently to recall a phrase which she had made up the night before. "I look upon it as a spiritual marriage."

Chapter VIII

*

A square-set man and honest.
—TENNYSON.

"Dick," said Lord Newhaven, laying hold of that gentleman as he was leaving Tattersall's, "what mischief have you been up to for the last ten days?"

"I lay low till I got my clothes," said Dick, "and then I went to the Duke of —. I've just been looking at a hack for him. He says he does not want one that takes a lot of sitting on. I met him the first night I landed. In fact, I stepped out of the train on to his royal toe travelling incog. I was just going to advise him to draw in his feelers a hit and give the Colonies a chance, when he turned round and I saw who it was. I knew him when I was A.D.C. at Melbourne before I took to the drink. He said he thought he'd know my foot anywhere, and asked me down for — races."

"And you enjoyed it?"

"Rather. I did not know what to call the family at first, so I asked him if he had any preference and what was the right thing, and he told me how I must hop up whenever he came in, and all that sort of child's play. There was a large party and some uncommonly pretty women. And I won a tenner off his Royal Highness, and here I am."

"And what are you going to do now?"

"Go down to the city and see what Darneil's cellars are like before I store my wine in them. It won't take long. Er!—I say, Cack—Newhaven?"