She hurried away without finishing the sentence, and was presently taking a lesson from old Halsey, in what is fast becoming one of the rarest of the rural arts. But in little more than half an hour, Janet bringing in the cows, saw her return and go into the house. The afternoon was still lovely--the sky, a pale gold, with thin bars of grey cloud lying across it, and the woods, all delicate shades of brown and purple, with their topmost branches clear against the gold. The old red walls and tiled roofs of the farm, the fields, the great hay and straw stacks, were all drenched in the soft winter light.

Rachel went up to her room, and sat down before the bare deal dressing-table which held her looking-gla.s.s, and the very few articles of personal luxury she possessed; a pair of silver-backed brushes and a hand-gla.s.s that had belonged to an aunt, a small leather case in which she kept some modest trinkets--a pearl brooch, a bracelet or two, and a locket that had been her mother's--and, standing on either side of the gla.s.s, two photographs of her father and mother.

There was a clock on the mantelpiece. "Nearly four o'clock--" she thought--"I'll give it an hour. He'd send--if he couldn't come, and he wanted to come--but if nothing happens--I shall know what to think."

As this pa.s.sed through her mind, she opened one of the drawers of the dressing-table, in which she kept her gloves and handkerchiefs. Suddenly she perceived at the back of the drawer a small leathern case. The colour rushed into her face. She took it out and ran quickly down the stairs to the kitchen. Janet and the girls were busy milking. The coast was clear.

A bright fire which Janet had just made up was burning in the kitchen.

Rachel went up to it and thrust the leathern case into the red core of it. Some crackling--a disagreeable smell--and the little thing had soon vanished. Rachel went slowly upstairs again, and locked the door of her room behind her. The drawer of the dressing-table was still open, and there was visible in it the object she was really in search of, when the little leathern case caught her eye--a small cloth-bound book marked "Diary."

She took it out, and sat with it in her hand, thinking. How was it she had never yet destroyed that case? The Greek cameo brooch it held--d.i.c.k Tanner's gift to her--how vividly she recalled her first evening alone at the farm, when she had dropped it into the old well, and had listened to the splash of it in the summer silence. She remembered thinking vaguely, and no doubt foolishly, that the cameo would drop more heavily and more certainly without the case, which was wood, though covered with leather, and she had therefore taken the brooch out, and had probably put back the case absently into her pocket. And thence it had found its way back among her things, how she did not know.

The little adventure had excited and unnerved her. It seemed somehow of evil omen that she should have come across that particular thing at this moment. Opening the diary with a rather trembling hand, she looked through it. She was not orderly or systematic enough to keep a diary regularly, and it only contained a few entries, at long intervals, relating mostly to her married life--and to the death of her child. She glanced through them with that strange sense of unreality--of standing already outside her life, of which she had spoken to Janet. There were some blank pages at the end of the book; and, in her restlessness, just to pa.s.s the time and to find some outlet for the storm of feeling within, she began to write, at first slowly, and then very rapidly.

"He must have got my letter by now. I sent it by Janet this morning. He wasn't there--but by now he must have got home--he is probably reading it at this moment. Whatever happens to me--I want just to say this--to write it down now, while I can--I shall never blame George, and I shall always love him--with all my heart, with all my soul. He has the right to say he can't trust me--I told him so in my letter this morning--that I am not fit to be his wife. He has the right--and very likely he will say it.

The terrible thing is that I don't trust myself. If I look forward and ask myself--shall I always feel as I do now?--I can't honestly be sure.

There is something in me that wants change--always something new--some fresh experience. I can't even imagine the time when I shouldn't love George. The mere thought of losing him is awful--unspeakable. But yet--I will write it down frankly!--nothing has ever lasted with me very long.

It is like the farm. I used to love every minute of the day, every bit of the work, however dull and dirty it was; and now--I love it still--but I seem already--sometimes--to be looking forward to the day when I shall be tired of it.

"Why am I made like that? I don't know. But I can't feel that I am responsible.

"Perhaps if George forgives me, I shall be so happy that everything will change--my own character first of all. That is my hope. For though I suppose I am vain--though I like people to admire me and make much of me--I am not really in love with myself at all. If I were, I couldn't be in love with George--we are so different.

"I don't feel yet that I know him. Perhaps now I never shall. I often find myself wishing that he had something to confess to me. I would hardly let him--he should never humble himself to me. But to feel that I _could_ forgive him something, and that he would owe me something--would be very sweet, very heavenly. I would make it so easy for him. Is he feeling like that towards me? 'Poor child--she was very young--and so miserable!'

"I mustn't write like this--it makes me cry. There is a beautiful yellow sunset outside, and the world seems very still. He must be here soon--or a messenger. Janet asked him not to wait.

"After all, I don't think I am so changeable. I have just been running myself down--but I don't really believe I could ever change--towards him.

Oh, George!--George!--my George!--come to me!--don't give me up. George, darling, you could do anything with me you liked--don't despair of me!

In the Gospel, it was the bad women who were forgiven because they loved 'much.' Now I understand why. Because love makes new. It is so terribly _strong_. It is either a poison--or life--immortal life. I have never been able to believe in the things Janet believes in. But I think I do now believe in immortality--in something within you that can't die--when once it has begun to live."

And then she laid her pencil down--and sat with the book on her knee--looking towards the gold and grey of the sky--the tears running quietly down her cheeks.

Meanwhile, Hastings had come hurriedly into the shippen, where Janet and the two girls were milking. He came to stand beside her, silent, but fidgeting so, that she presently looked up in astonishment.

"Did you want me?"

"I wanted to tell you something," he said in a low voice, stooping over her--"Don't let the girls hear. But that man's been seen again. The tramp."

Janet started. She jumped up, asked Betty, who had finished, to take her place, and went with Hastings out of the barn.

"There are two or three people think they've seen him lately," he said hurriedly. "A man from Dobson's farm"--(the farm which lay between Great End and the village)--"who was on the hill yesterday evening, just before dark, was certain he saw somebody hanging about the back of the farm in a queer way--"

"Last night?" echoed Janet.

"Yes. And there are two people who remember meeting a man on the X--road who said he was going to Walton End. And the police have been inquiring, but n.o.body at Walton End knows anything about such a man. However, they have a description of him at last. A tall, dark fellow--gentlemanly manners--seems delicate. I don't like the look of it, Miss Janet. Seems to me as though it weren't just a tramp, hanging about for what he can steal. Do you know of anybody who has a down on Miss Henderson--who'd like to frighten her, or put blackmail on her?"

Janet considered. She was tempted to take the faithful fellow to some extent into her confidence, but she rapidly decided against it. She suggested that he should himself sleep for a few nights at the farm, and carefully examine the neighbourhood of it, last thing; and that she should bicycle over to Millsborough at once, and have some further talk with the Superintendent of Police there.

"Besides--I'd like to be out of the way," she thought. "They won't want anybody hanging round!"

For there was steadily growing up in her a blissful confidence that all would be once more settled and settled for good, before the night fell.

Spectators were entirely out of place! Nor would she disturb Rachel's mind by any talk just then of what seemed to be a fresh attempt at terrorism on the part of her wretched husband. Hastings would be in charge for the moment, and Ellesborough would be on the spot for consultation before darkness had really set in.

So as before, she told Hastings not to alarm Miss Henderson. But he was not to leave the farm-buildings, and possibly the Superintendent of Police would return with her. "And then--either Rachel or the Captain will have to tell the police the truth!" Just as she was starting, Rachel came downstairs in some surprise.

"Where are you off to?"

"I have forgotten something I wanted from Millsborough. I shall be back in an hour or so."

Rachel abstractedly nodded a.s.sent. The golden light from the west transfigured her, as she stood in the doorway. She was pale, but it seemed to Janet that she was no longer excited--that there was in her too something of the confidence which had sprung up in the heart of her friend. She had the look of one for whom the Valley of the Shadow is past, and her beauty had never struck Janet as it struck her at that moment. Its grosser elements seemed all refined away. The girlish look was quite gone; she seemed older and graver; but there breathed about her "a diviner air."

Janet, who was much the shorter, mounted on the step to kiss her.

Caresses were not at all common between them, but Rachel returned it, and their eyes met in a quiet look which said what her lips forbore. Then Janet departed, and Rachel waved to her as she pa.s.sed through the gate.

Hastings crossed the yard, and Rachel called to him.

"Are you off soon?"

"No, Miss. I shall sleep over the stable. That horse wants looking after."

Rachel acquiesced, with a vague feeling of satisfaction, and Hastings disappeared within the stable opposite.

She went back into the sitting-room, which was still flooded with the last reflections from the western sky beyond the fields, though the light was fading rapidly, and the stars were coming out. What a strange effect it was--she suddenly noticed it afresh--that of the two large windows exactly facing each other in so small a room! One had an odd sense of being indoors and out, at the same time; the down on one side, the farm-yard on the other, and in the midst, the fire, the table and chairs, the pictures, and the red carpet, seemed all parts of the same scene.

She made up the fire. She brought in a few Xmas roses, from a border under the kitchen window, and arranged them in a gla.s.s on the table. It was then time to draw the blinds. But she could not make up her mind to shut out the saffron sky, or the view of the road.

Something in the distance!--an approaching figure, and the noise of a motor-bicycle. She caught at a chair a moment, as though to steady herself; and then she went to the window, and stood there watching. He saw her quite plainly in the level light, and leaving his bicycle at the gate, he came towards her. There was no one in the yard, and before he entered he stood a moment, bare-headed, gazing at her, as she stood framed in the window. Everything that she wished to know was written in his face. A little sob broke the silence of the sitting-room.

Then he opened the doors and closed them behind him. Without a word she seemed to glide over the room towards him; and now, she was on his breast, gathered close against the man's pa.s.sionately beating heart.

Neither spoke--neither was able to speak.

Then--suddenly--a crash of breaking gla.s.s--a shot. The woman he was holding fell from Ellesborough's arms; he only just caught her. Another shot--which grazed his own coat.

"Rachel!"

It was a cry of horror. Her eyes were closing. But she still smiled at him, as he laid her on the floor, imploring her to speak. There was a stain of blood on the lips, and through them came a few shuddering gasps.

Hastings rushed into the room--

"Good G.o.d, Sir!"

"A doctor!--Go for a doctor!" said Ellesborough hoa.r.s.ely--"No--she's gone!"

He sank down beside her, putting his ear to her lips. In vain. No sound was there. The smiling mouth had settled and shut. Without a murmur or a sigh, Rachel had pa.s.sed for ever from this warm world and the arms of her lover, at the bidding of the "fierce workman Death."