s authority and decided inflexibly that such and such a course
was the one to pursue; but here he felt it was impossible. It would not
be consistent with his dignity to use his authority to insist upon a
course which, though it might be to his own advantage, was undeniably an
infringement of the tacit compact that he had accepted when he married.
With the letter in his hand he went slowly out of the study. Rachel was
coming swiftly down the stairs into the hall, dressed for walking,
looking perturbed and anxious.
"Frank," she said hurriedly, "I have just had a message from Prince's
Gate, my father is ill."
"I am very sorry," Rendel said with concern.
"I must go there directly," she said.
"Have you breakfasted?" asked Rendel.
"Yes," she said. "At least I have had a cup of tea--quite enough."
"No," said Rendel, "that isn't enough. Come, it's absurd that you should
go out without breakfasting."
"I couldn't really," Rachel said entreatingly. "I must go."
"Nonsense!" Rendel said decidedly. "You are not to go till you have had
some breakfast." And he took her into the dining-room and made her eat.
But this, as he felt, was not the moment for further discussion of his
own plans. He saw how absolutely they had faded away from her view.
"I shall follow you shortly," he said, "to know how Sir William is."
"Oh, do," she said. "You can't come now, I suppose?"
"I have a letter to write first. I must write to Lord Belmont."
"Oh yes, of course," she said, with a sympathetic inflection in her
voice. "Oh, Frank, how terrible it would have been if you had been going
away now!" And she drew close to him as though seeking shelter against
the anxieties and troubles of the world.
"But I am not," said Rendel quietly. And she looked back at him as she
drove off with a smile flickering over her troubled face.
Rendel turned back into the house. There was nothing more to do, that
was quite evident. He fastened up the letter to Belmont and sent it
round to his house, also writing to Stamfordham a brief letter of thanks
for his good offices and regrets at not being able to avail himself of
them.
Later he went to Prince's Gate. Sir William was a little better. It was
a sharp, feverish attack brought on by a chill the night before. It
lasted several days, during which time Rachel was constantly backwards
and forwards at Prince's Gate, and at the end of which she proposed to
Rendel that her father should, for the moment
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