CHAPTER IV

THE MAN IN THE TRAIN
Racuet fought her weakness with closed eyes, and was complete mistress of herself when those about her thought that consciousness alone was returning. She recognised the chamber at a glance ; it was the one in which generations of metropolitan malefactors, and a few innocent persons like herself, had waited for the verdict of life or death. For her it was life, life, life! And she wondered whether any other of the few had ever come back to life with so little joy.
The female warders were supporting her in a chair ; the prison doctor stood over her with a medicine-glass,
“ Drink this,” said he, kindly.
‘But I have been conscious all the time.”
“Never mind. You need it.”
And Rachel took the restorative without more words.
It did its work. The colour came back to her face. The blood ran hot in her veins. In a mimate she was standing up without assistance,
“And now,” said Rachel, “I shall not trespass
86
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THE MAN IN THE TRAIN 87
further on your kindness, and I am sure that you will not wish to detain me.”
“We cannot,” said the doctor, with a broad smile and a bow; “you are as free as air, and will perhaps allow me to be the first to congratulate you. At the same time, my dear madam, and quite apart from your condition—which is wonderful to me after what you've been through—at the same time, and even with your fortitude, I think it would be advisable to—to wait a little while.”
The doctor raised his eyes, and all at once Rachel heard. Overhead—outside—in the world—there was the brutal hooting of a thoughtless mob.
“So that is for me!”
Rachel set her teeth.
“On the contrary,” said the kindly doctor, “it may be for the witnesses; but crowds are fickle things; and I should strongly urge you not to court a demon- stration of one sort or the other. You are best where you are for the time being, or at all events some- where within the precincts. And meanwhile your solicitor is waiting to add his congratulations to mine.”
“Is he, indeed!” cried Rachel, in a voice as hard as her eye.
“ Why, to be sure,” rejoined the other, taken some- what aback. “There must be many matters for dis-
¢ cussion between you, and he at least seems very “== anxious to discuss them. In fact, I may say that he
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38 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
is only awaiting my permission for an. immediate interview.” .
“Then let him await mine!” exclaimed Rachel, in @ vindictive voice for which she was apologising in the next breath. “I owe you much,” she added, “if only for your kindness and sympathy during these few minutes. But to him I owe nothing that I can- not pay in cash. He tried to keep me from telling my own story in the box—they all did—but he was the worst of all. So I certainly do not owe him my life. He came to me and he said what he liked ; he may haye forgotten what he said, but 1 never shall.”
“ He would be the first to admit his error now.”
“Perhaps; but he believed me guilty to the very end ; and I utterly refuse to see him to-night.”
“Then I shall tell him so.”
And the good doctor disappeared for the nonce, but was back in a couple of minutes, full of the lawyer's expostulations. What did Mrs. Minchin intend to do? Where did she propose to go? There were a hundred matters for explanation and arrangement. Her solicitor said she had no friends, and seemed himself most anxious to act in that capacity. Rachel's lips curled at the thought.
“At least,” said she, “I have the friends who guaranteed his bill, if that has anything to say to his anxiety! But what I mean to do, and where ] may go, are entirely my own affair. And as for the
THE MAN IN THE TRAIN 89
hundred matters he mentions, he might have spoken of them during the week. Perhaps he thought it would be waste of breath, but I should have appre- ciated the risk.”
So her solicitor was beaten off, with all the spirit which was one of Rachel's qualities, but also with the rashness which was that quality’s defect. The man was indeed no ornament to his profession, but a police-court practitioner of the pushing order, who had secured the case for notoriety and nothing else, Rachel's soul sickened when she thought of her inter- views, and especially her most recent interviews, with one whom she had never seen before her trouble, and whom she devoutly hoped never to see again. She did not perceive that the time had come when the lawyer mig’. have been really useful to her. Yet his messages left her more alive to the difficulties that lay before her as a free woman, and to the immediate necessity of acting for herself once more.
After all there had been a silver lining to the cloud under which she had lain so long. Others had acted for her. It had been a rest. But, conscious of her innocence, and serene in that consciousness, she had prepared herself rather for another life than for a new lease of this one; and, while seeking to steel her soul to the awful sequel of a conviction, in the other direction she had seldom looked beyond the con- summate incident of an acquittal. Life seems a royal road when it is death that stares one in the
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40 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
face; but already Rachel saw the hills and the pit- falls; for indeed they began under her nose... :
She had no plans, nor a single soul to help her to make any. In all the world she had no real friend. And yet, with the very independence to which this isolation was largely due, she must pick and choose, and reject, in the hour when any friend would have been better than none!
In the first ten minutes of the new life which Rachel Minchin began with her acquittal, she had refused to see her own solicitor, and an unknown gentleman whose card was brought to her by the Chief Warden himself. With the card was a message which might have inspired confidence, and the same might be said of the address. But it was enough for Rachel that she knew no one of the name. The Chief Warder, one of the kindliest mortals, displayed no little irritation under her repeated refusals; but it was the agent, and not the principal, who was so importunate ; and the message was not repeated once the former could be induced to bear Mrs. Minchin’s answer. The Chief Warder did indeed return, but it was not to make any further reference to the mysterious Mr. Steel who had craved an interview with Mrs. Minchin. And now the good fellow was all smiles.
“Feeling more yourself?” said he; and, when Rachel said she was, he asked her to listen now; and there was nothing to listen to. “The coast’s as
THE MAN IN THE TRAIN 41
clear as the Criminal Court,” explained this pleasant official. “A closed cab did it, with an officer on the box; and I'll call you another as soon as you like.”
Rachel rose at once.
“It was kind of you to let me stay so long,” she said. “But I don’t think I will take a cab, thank you, if there’s an underground station within reach, and you will kindly tell me the way.”
“‘There’s Blackfriars Bridge within five minutes. But you will have more than you can carry——” ;
“TI have nothing worth taking away with me,” said Rachel, “except the things I stand up in; but you mey give what I leave to any poor /oman who cares to have them. And I hope you will accept this trifle for yourself, with my deep gratitude for all your kindness.”
Indeed, the man had been kind, and his kindness would have continued to the last had the trial ended differently. Nevertheless, Rachel’s trifle was a piece of gold, and one of her last. Nor was this pure gene- rosity. There was an untold joy in being able to give again. It was the first real taste of freedom; and in another minute Rachel was free.
Oh, but what a miracle to hear her feet on the now deserted pavement, to see her breath in the raw November night, and the lights of Ludgate Hill beyond! Rachel raised her veil to see them better. Who would look for her afoot so near the scene of her late ordeal? And what did it matter who saw her and who knew her now? She was innocent; she
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42 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE could look the whole world in the face ence more, Oh, to rub shoulders with the world again! ~
A cab came tinkling up behind her, and Rachel half thought of hailing it, and driving through the lighted town after all; but the hansom was occupied, and the impulse passed. She put down her veil and turned into the stream without catching a suspicious eye. Why should they suspect her? And again, what did it matter if they did?
did; in the reaction that had come upon her with the first mouthful of raw air, in the intoxication of treading the outer world again, she thought herself che luckiest woman in London, and revelled rather than otherwise in the very considerations which had appalled her in the precincts of the court. How good, after all, to be independent as well as free | How great to drift with the tide of innocent women and law-abiding men, once more one of themselves, and not even a magnet for morbid curiosity! That would come soon enough; the present was all the more to be enjoyed ; and even the vagueness of the immediate future, even the lack of definite plans, had a glamour of their own in eyes that were yet
THE MAN IN THE TRAIN 43
to have their fill of street-lamps and shop-windows and omnibuses and hansom cabs,
The policeman under the bridge was a joy in him- self; he refreshed Rachel's memory as to the way, without giving her an unnecessary look; and he called her “madam” into the bargain! After all, it was not every policeman who had been on duty at the Old Bailey, nor one in many thousands of the population who had gained admission to the court.
Yet if Rachel had relieved the tedium of her trial by using her eyes a little more; if, for example, she had condescended to look twice at the handful of mere spectators beyond the reporters on her right ; she could scarcely have failed to recognise the ~ood- looking elderly man who was at her heels when she took her ticket at Blackfriars Bridge. His white hair was covered by his hat, but the face itself was not one to be forgotten, with its fresh colour, its smal] grim mouth, and the deep-set glitter beneath the bushy eyebrows. ‘Rachel, however, neither recognised nor looked again.
In a few minutes she had a better chance, when, having entered an empty compartment in the first class, she was joined by this gentleman as the train began to move.
Rachel hid herself behind the newspaper which she had bought, not that she had looked twice at her com- panion, but because at such close quarters, and in the comparatively fierce light of the first-class compartment,
44 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
she was terribly afraid that he might look once too often at her. But this fear passed from her-in the matchless fascination of reading and re-reading five words in the stop-press column :— MINCHIN CASE —Verdict, Not guilty.”
Not guilty! Not guilty! And to see it in print! . Her eyes filled at the sight, and she dried them to gloat again. There were columns and columns about the case, embellished with not unskilful sketches of counsel addressing the jury, and of the judge in the act of summing up. But Rachel had listened to every word from all three; and the professional report was less full and less accurate than the one which she carried in her brain and would carry to her grave. Not that the speeches mattered now. It was no speech that had saved her; it was her own story, from her own lips, that the lawyers would have closed ! Rachel forgave them now; she was almost grateful to them for having left it to her to save herself in spite of them all: sc should her perfect innocence be impressed upon the whole country as on those twelve fair minds. And once more she pored upon the hurriedly-added and ill-printed line which gave their verdict to the world, while the train stopped and started, only to stop and start again.
“ And what do you think of it, madam?”
The voice came from the opposite corner of the com- partment, and Rachel knew it for that of the gentleman who had jumped in at the last moment at Blackfriars
THE MAN IN THE TRAIN 45
Bridge. It was Charing Cross that they were leaving now, and the door had not opened at that station or the last. Rachel sat breathless behind her evening paper. Not to answer might be to fasten suspicion upon her widow's weeds ; and, for all her right to look mankind in the face, she shrank instinctively from immediate recognition. Then in a clap came the temptation to discuss her own case with the owner of a voice at once confident and courtly, ‘and subtly reminiscent of her native colony, where it is no affront for stranger to speak to stranger without introduction or excuse,
Rachel’s hesitation lasted perhaps a couple of seconds, and then her paper lay across her lap,
“Of what ?” she asked, with some presence of mind, for she had never an instant’s doubt that the question teferred to the topic of the hour.
“We were reading the same paper,” replied the questioner, with perfect courtesy ; “it only struck me that we might both be reading the same thing, and feeling equally amazed at the verdict,”
“You mean in the Minchin case,” said Rachel steadily, and without the least interrogation in her tone. “Yes, I was reading it, as I suppose everybody is. But I disagree with you about the verdict.”
The young widow's manner was as downright as her words. There was a sudden raising of the bushy eyebrows in the opposite corner, a brief opening of the black eyes underneath.
46 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
“Pardon. me,” said the gentleman, breaking into @ smile; “I was not aware that I had expressed an opinion on that point.”
_“T understood you were amazed,” said Rachel, dryly.
“And are not you?” cried the other point-blank. “Do you mean to tell me that you were prepared for an acquittal ?”
“I was prepared for anything,” replied Rachel, returning a peculiarly penetrating stare with one at least as steady, and yet holding her breath for very fear lest this stranger had found her out, until his next words allayed the suspicion.
“ Madam, have you followed the case?”
“ Indeed I have,” sighed honest Rachel.
“And as a woman you believe this woman inno- cent ?”
“T do.”
It was hard enough to say no more than that; but Rachel was very fresh from her great lesson in self-control.
“It is easy to see that you do not,” she merely permitted herself to add.
“On the contrary,” said he, with great precision ; “on the contrary, my dear madam, I believe this poor lady to be as innocent as yourself.” _
Again their eyes were locked; again Rachel drew the only inference from so pointed a pronouncement, and yet again was the impression shaken by her come panion’s next words.
THE MAN IN THE TRAIN 47
“ But I really have no right to an opinion,” said he; “since, unlike you, I cannot claim to have read the case. Nor is that the interesting thing now.” The stations had come and gone, until now they were at Victoria. The speaker looked out of the window until they were off again, and off by themselves as before. “The interesting thing, to me, is not what this poor lady has or has not done, but what on earth she is going to do now !”
He looked at her again, and now Rachel was sure. But there was a kindness in his look that did away both with resentment and regret.
“They say she has literally no friends in England,” he went on, with unconcealed concern. “That is in- credible; and yet, if there be any truth in it, what a terrible position! I fear that everybody will not share your conviction, and, I may add, my own. If one can judge thus early, by what one has heard and seen for oneself, this verdict is a personal dis: ppointment to the always bloodthirsty man in the atriet. Then God help the poor lady if he spots her ! £ only hope she will not give him a chance.”
And now Rachel not only knew that he knew, but that he wished to apprise her of his knowledge without confessing it in so many words. So he would spare her that embarrassment, and would help her if he could, this utter stranger! Yet she saw it in his face, she heard it in his voice; and becoming gradually alive to his will to help, as she instinctively was to his
48 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
power, she had herself the will to consult one whose good intention and better tact were alike obvious. Mystery there was in her meeting with this man; something told her that it was no accident on his side ; she began to wonder whether she had not seen him before; and while she wondered he came and sat opposite to her, and went on speaking in a lower voice, his dark eyes fixed on hers.
“If Mrs. Miachin wants a friend—and to-night I think she must—if ever she did or will! Well, if | she does, I for one would be her friend—if she would trust me!”
The last ‘words were the lowest of all; and in the tone of them there was a timbre which thrilled Rachel as the dark eyes fascinated her. She “began to feel a strange repugnance—a yet more strange attraction. But to the latter her independence gave instant battle —a battle the easier to fight since the next -*‘ation was Rachel's destination.
“Do you think she would trust me’” he almost whispered, leaning towards her. “As a woman—don’t you think she might ?”
As Rachel hesitated the carriages began to groan beneath the brake; and her hesitation was at an end. So also was her limited capacity for pretence. She sat mor upright in her corner, her shoulders fell in angles, and beneath the veil, which she had raised to read her paper, her eyes:carried the war of interro- gation into the enemy’s country.
THE MAN IN THE TRAIN 49
tonstm, to have seen you befor,” said Rachel, coo of tongue but hot at heart,
“I think it very possible that you have,”
“Were you at the trial ?”
“From first to last!”
The pause that followed was lights of Sloane Square station,
“You know me,” said Rachel hurriedly; «7 have seen that for some time. May I ask if you are
really broken by the
“The Mr. Steel who sent me his card after the trial >"
Steel bowed,
“ As a perfect stranger ?”
“ As @ perfect stranger who had watched you for a whole long week ia court.”
ignored the relative clause.
“And because I would not see you, Mr, Steel, you have followed me, and forced yourself upon me!”
The train stopped, and Rachel rose,
“You will gather my motives
should fee]
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50 THE SHADOW OF THE .ROPE “ Better give him a trial,” said Steel, coldly enough in his turn.’ ; =s “I should prefer to,” rejoined Rachel, getting out ; and there was no little sting in the intonation of the
verb; but Mr, Stee! was left smiling and nodding very confidently to himself,
CHAPTER y
THE MAN IN THE STREET
Racuet's Perturbation was only the greater from her success in concealing, or at least suppressing it, during the singular interview, You ut moving a muscle, but
make up for it when their turn
and it was so with
52 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
with a tithe of her personal attractions; and yet upon reflection she could conceive but one explanation of such conduct in an elderly man,
“There is no fool like an old fool,” quoted Rachel to herself; and it was remarkable that until thic moment she had never thought of Mr. Steel as either elderly or - old. His eyes were young; his voice was young ; she could hear him and see him still, so the strong impres- sion was not all on one side. No more, it would seem, was the fascination. Rachel, indeed, owned to no such feeling, even in her inmost heart. But she did begin to blame herself, alike for her reception of advances which might well have been dictated by mere eccentric benevolence, and for her readiness now to put another construction upon them. And all this time she was threading the streets of Chelsea at a pace suggestive of a destination and a purpose, while in her mind she did nothing but iook back.
Impulsive by rature, Ractel had also the courage of each impulse while it lasted ; on the other hand, if quick to act, she was only too ready to regret. Like many another whose self-reliance is largely on the surface, an achievement of the will and not the gift of & temperament, she usually paid for a display of spirit with the most dispiriting reaction; and this was pre- cisely the case in point. Rachel was ashamed alike of her rudeness and her vanity; the latter she traced to its source. It was inspired by vague memories of other women who had been through the same ordeal as
card, he dogged What was she to think ?
he had offered her his aj
themselves, were evidences of sympathy and
54 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
wished. It was Mrs. Carrington, however, who-had found the Minchins their furnished house, while her husband certainly interested himself in Rachel’s defence. Carrington was a barrister, who never himself touched criminal work, but he had spoken to a friend who did, to wit the brilliant terror of female witnesses, and _ caustic critic of the police, to whom Rachel owed so little. But to Carrington himself she owed much— more indeed than she cared to calculate—for he was not a man whom she liked. She wished to thank him for his kindyess, to give certain undertakings and to ask his advice, but it was Mrs, Carrington whom she really hoped to see. There was a godd heart, or Rachel was much mistaken. They would have seen more of each other if Mrs. Carrington had had her way. Rachel remembered her on the occasion of the solitary visit she had received at Holloway—for Mrs, Carrington had been the visitor.
“Don't tell Jim,” she had said, “when you get off and come. to see us.”
And she had kissed her captive sister in a way that made poor Rachel sometimes think she had a friend in ‘England after all; but that was before her committal; and thereafter from that quarter not a ‘word, It was not Mrs. Carrington whom Rachel blamed, however, and ihose last words of hers implied an invitation which had never been withdrawn. But invitation or no invitation, friend or no friend, Mrs, Carrington she would have to see. And even he would
THE MAN IN THE STREET 55
be different now that he knew she was innocent ; and if it was easy to see what he had believed of her before, well, so much the more credit to him for what he had done.
So Rachel had decided before quitting the precincts of the Old Bailey ; but her subsequent experiences in street and train so absorbed her that she was full of the interview that was over when she ought to have been preparing for the one still before her. And, in her absence of mind, the force of habit had taken advantage of her; instead of going on to Tite Street, she turned too soon, and turned again, and was now appalled to find herself in the very street in which her husband had met his death.
The little street was as quiet as ever; Rachel stood quite still, and for the moment she was the only person in it. She stole up to the house. The blinds were down, and it was in darkness, otherwise all was as she remembered it only too well. Her breath came quickly. It was a strange trick her feet had played her, bringing her here against her will! Yet she had thought of coming as a last resort, The furnished house should be hers for some months yet; it had been - taken for six months from July, and this was only the end of November, At the worst—if no one would take-her in——
She shuddered at the unfinished thought; and yet there was something in it that appealed to R hel. To go back there, if only for the shortest time—to
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56 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
show her face openly where it was known—not to
slink and hide as though she were really guilty! That
Rachel felt tremulously in her pocket; there had been more keys than one, end that which had been in
her possession when she was arrested was in it still,
Nobody had ssked her for it; she had kept it for this ; dare she.use it.after all? ‘The street was still empty ; it is the quietest little street in Chelsea, There would never be a better chance,
Rachel crept up the steps, If she should be seen |
She was not ; but a footstep rang somewhere in the night, and on that the key was fitted and the door opened without another moment's hesitation, Rachel cutered, the door shut noisily behind her, and then her own step rang in turn upon the floor. It was bare boards; and es Rachel felt. her way to the electri.
. Switches, beyond the dining-room door
not a stick in the rooms, not 20 much as a stair
rod on the stairs, nor a blind to the window at thei, head.
The furniture removed while the use of it belonged legally to her! Had they made so sure of her conviction
F CSE a oe AEE oe nes ses EMDR sD see
58 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE .__
have explained, but it existed in her mind; she must see the room again. And the first thing she saw was that the window was broken still.
Rachel looked at it more closely than she had done _ on the morning when she had given her incriminating opinion to the police, and the longer she looked the less reason did she see to alter that opinion. The broken glass might have been placed upon the sill in . order to promote the very theory which had been so gullibly adopted by the police, and the watch and chain hidden in the chimney for the same purpose. They might have hanged the man who kept them; and surely this was not the first thief who had slunk away. empty-handed after the committal of a crime infinitely greater than the one contemplated.
Rachel had never wavered in these ideas, but neither had she dwelt on them to any extent, and now they came one instant only to go the next. Her husband was dead—that was once more the paramount thouglit —and she his widow had been acquitted on a charge of murdering him. But for the moment she was thinking only of him, and her eyes hung over the spot where she had seen him sitting dead—once without dreaming it— and soon they filled. Perhaps she was remembering all that had been good in him, perhaps all that had been evil in herself; her lips quivered, and her eyes filled. But it was hard to pity one who was at rest, hard for her with the world to face afresh that night, without a single friend. The Carringtons? Well, she would see;
THE MAN IN THE STREET 59
and now she had a very definite point upon which to consult Mr. Carrington. That helped her, and she went, quietly and unseen as she had come.
There was still a light in the ground-floor windows of the Tite Street house, strong lights and voices; it was the dining-room, for the Minchins had dined there once ; and the voices did not include a feminine one that Rachel could perceive. If there were people dining with them, ‘the ladies must have gone upstairs, and Mrs. Carrington was the woman to see Rachel for five minutes, and the one woman in England to whom she could turn. It was an opportunity not to miss— she had not the courage to let it pass—and yet it required almost as much to ring the bell. And even as she rang—but not until that moment—did Rachel -Tecognise and admit to herself the motive which had brought her to that door. It was not to obtain the advice of a clever man ; it was the sympathy of another woman that she needed that night more than anything else in all the world.
She was shown at once into the study behind the dining-room, and immediately the voices in the latter ceased. ‘This was ominous ; it was for Mrs. Carrington that Rachel had asked; and the omen was instantly fulfilled. It was Mr. Carrington who came into the room, dark, dapper, and duskily flushed with his own hospitality, but without the genial front which Rachel had liked best in him. His voice also, when he had
carefully shut the door behind him, was unnaturally stiff.
60 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE’
“I congratulate you,” he said, with a bow but nothing more; and Rachel saw there and then how it was to be; for with her at least this man had never been stiff before, having indeed offended her with his familiarity at the time when her husband and he were best friends,
“TI owe it very largely to you,” faltered Rachel, “How can I thank you?”
Carrington said it was not necessary,
“Then I sony hope,” said Rachel, on one of her
*} didn’t read the case,” replied Carrington, glibly, ad with neither more nor less of the contemptuous superiority with which he would have referred to any other Old Bailey trial ; but the man himself was quick to see the brutality of such statement, and quicker yet to tone it down.
“It wasn't necessary,” he added, with a touch of the early manner which she had never liked; “ you see, I knew you.”
The insincerity was so obvious that Rachel could scarcely bring herself to confess that she had come to ask his advice. “What was the point?” bh. aid to that, so crisply that the only point which Raci, could think of was the fresh, raw grievance of the empty house, :
“ Didn't your solicitor tell you?” asked Carrington, “He came to me about it; but T suppose—— ” Rachel knew well what he supposed. :
“He should have told you to-night,” added Car- rington, “at any rate, The rent was only paid for half the term—quite right—the usual way, The per- manent tenant wanted to be done with the house altogether, and that entitled her to take her things out. No, I'm afraid you have no grievance there, Mrs. Minchin.”
= pray,” demanded Rachel, “where are my things ?”
“Ah, your solicitor will tell you thét—when you give him the chance! He very properly would not care to bother you about trifles until the case against you was satisfactorily disposed of, By the way, I hope you don't mind my cigar? We were smoking in the next room.”
“T have taken you from your guests,” said Rachel, miserably. “I know I ought not to have come at such an hour.”
Carrington did not contradict her.
“But there seemed so much to speak about,” she went desperately on. “There are the money matters and—and——”
“Tf you will come to my chatubers,” said Carrington, ““T shall be delighted to go into things with you, and to advise you to the best of my ability, If you could manage to come at half-past nine on Monday morn- ing, T'would bbe there early and could give you twenty minutes.” .
He wrote down the addrem, and, handing it to
THE MAN IN THE STREET 61
Rae as ait sal ts ie ase
i aici awssbcbaibcibcStbaiibaR acca tte ee eptenests
eh Ce tee eerie
Ses
sib as eh: ol: Best sie Ra deat tite ae
62 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE.
Rachel, rang the bell. This drove her to despair ; evidently it never occurred to him that she was faint with weariness and hunger, that she had nowhere to go for the night, and not the price of a decent meal, much less a bed, in her purse. And even now her pride prevented her from telling the truth; but it would not silence her supreme desire.
“Oh!” she cried; “oh, may I not speak to your wife ?”
“Not to-night, if you don't mind,” replied Car- rington, with his bow and smile. “We can't both desert our guests.”
“Only for 4 minute!” pleaded Rachel. “I wouldn't keep her more !”
“ Not to-night,” he repeated, with a broader smile @ clearer enunciation, and a decision so obviously irrevocable that Rachel said no more. But she would not see the hand that he could afford to hold out to her now; and as for going near his chambers, never, never, though she starved !
“No, I wouldn't have kept her,” she sobbed in the street ; “but she would have kept me! I know her! I know her! She would have had pity on me, in spite of him; but now I can never go near either of them again !”
Then where was she to go? God knew! No re. spectable hotel would take her in without luggage or & deposit. What was she to do?
But while she wondered her feet were carrying her
once more in the old direction, and as she walked an idea came. She was very near the fatal little street at the time. She turned about, and then to the left. In & few moments she was timorously knocking at the door of a house with a card in the window,
“It's you!” cried the woman who came, almost shutting the door in Rachel's face, leaving just space enough for her own.
“You have a room to let,” said Rachel, steadily,
“But not to you,” s-id the woman, quickly ; and Rachel was not surprised, the other was so pale, so strangely agitated.
“But why?” she asked. “TI have been acquitted— thanks partly to your own evidence—and yet you of all women will not take me in ! Do you mean to tell me that you actually think I did it still >”
Rachel fully expected an affirmative. She was prepared for that opinion now from all the world ; but for once a surprise was in store for her, The pale woman shifted her eyes, then raised them doggedly, and the look in them brought a sudden glow to Rachel's heart.
“No, I don’t think that, and never did,” said the one independent witness for the defence. “ But others do, and I am too near where it happened ; it might empty my house and keep it empty.”
Rachel seized her hand.
“Never mind, never mind,” she whispered. “It is better, ten thousand times, that you should helieve in
THE MAN IN THE STREET 68
64 THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE
me, that any woman should! Thank you, and God bless you, for that !”
She was turning away, when she faced about upon the steps, gazing past the woman who believed in her, along the passage beyond, an unspoken question beneath the tears in her eyes,
“He is not here,” said the landlady, quickly,
“ But he did get over it?”
“So we hope; but he was at death’s door that morning, and for days and weeks. Now he’s abroad again—I'm spre I don’t know where.”
Rachel said good-night, and this time the door not only shut before she had time to change her mind again, but she heard the bolts shot as she reached the pavement. The fact did not strike her, She was thinking for a moment of the innocent young foreigner who had brought matters to a crisis between her husband and herself. On the whole she was glad that he was not in England—yet there would have been one friend.
And now her own case was really desperate ; it was late at night; she was famished and worn out in body and mind, nor could she see the slightest prospect of a lodging for the night. |
And that she would have had in the condemned cell, with food and warmth and rest, and the blessed certain of a speedy issue out of all her afflictions, It was a bitter irony, after all, this acquittal ! There was but one place for her now. She would
on'y felt since excitement had given place to despair, But now it was making her faint and ill. And she hurried weory though she was,
But in the little street itself she stood aghast. A crowd filled it; the crowd stood before the empty of sorrow and of crime ; and in 4 moment Rachel
saw the cause
It was her own fault. She had left the
light burn- ing in the upper room, the bedroom floor,
on the second
* She’s up there, I tel] yer,” said one,
“Not her! It’s a ghost.”
“ Her ‘usband’s ghost, then.”
“But vere’s in the next
a chap ‘ere wot sore "er fice to fice street ; an’ followed ‘er and ‘eard the door
F
go; an’ w'en ’e come back wiv ‘is pals, vere was vat light.”
* Let's ‘ave “er aht of it.”
“ Yuss, she ain’t no right there.”
“No; the condemned cell’s the plice for ‘er ! ”
“Give us a stone afore the copper comes!”
And Rachel saw the first stone flung, and heard the first glass break ; and within a very few minutes there was not a whole pane left in the front of the house’; but that was all the damage which Rachel herself saw done.
A hand touched her lightly on the shoulder. —
“Do you still pin your faith to the man in the street ?” said a voice.
And, though she had hesr4 it for the first time that very evening, it was a voicc «'.at Rachel seemed to have known all her life.
THE SHADOW OF THE ROPE