ers to whom it had been of most
worth was gone--he would not be doing good to himself or to any one else
by going on with it. He would be defrauding no one by letting the
darkness cover it for ever. And another reason yet lay like cold lead at
the bottom of his heart--the real, cruel, crushing reason--he could not
write the book, he was not capable of writing it. That was the truth.
And he desperately thrust the stray leaves into the cover, and the whole
thing away from him, hopelessly, finally; there was nothing that would
help him. That curtain would never lift again. And he covered his face
with his hands as though trying to shut out the deadly knowledge.

But of all this Rachel, as she sat waiting for her father at breakfast,
was utterly unconscious. She did not realise the unendurable
complications that had piled one misery on another to him. To her the
wound had been terrible, but clean. The greatest loss she could conceive
had stricken her life, but there were no secondary personal problems to
add to it, no preoccupations of self apart from the one great
desolation.

Sir William turned over his letters listlessly as he sat down, opened
them, and looked through them.

"What am I to say to that?" he said, throwing one over to Rachel.

The colour came into her cheeks as she saw that it was from Rendel.

"I have one from him too," she said.

"Oh! well, I don't ask to see that," Sir William said, with an attempt
at cheerfulness. "I know better."

"I would rather you saw it, really, father," and she handed him Rendel's
letter to herself--a straightforward, dignified, considerate letter, in
which he assured her that he did not mean to intrude himself upon her
until she allowed him to come, and that all he asked was that she should
understand that he was waiting, and would be content to wait, as long as
there was a chance of hope.

"Well, when am I to tell him to come?" Sir William said.

"Father, what he wants cannot be," Rachel said.

"Cannot be?" said Sir William. "Why not?"

"Oh!" Rachel said, trying to command her voice, "I could not at this
moment think of anything of that kind."

"At this moment, perhaps," Sir William said. "But you see he is not in a
hurry. He says so, at any rate, though I am not sure that it is very
convincing."

"How would it be possible," said Rachel, "that I should go away? What
would you do if I left you alone?"

"Well, as to that," Sir William replied, speaking slowly in o