"Oh, no, I won't indeed," Rachel said. "He ought not to have anything to
excite him to-day," and she went rapidly upstairs.

Rendel, as the door closed behind her, felt for the moment like a man
who, shipwrecked alone, has seen a vessel draw near to him and then pass
gaily on its way without bringing him help. What was to be done? Again
he took hold of the situation and looked it in the face. But now a new
light had been thrown upon it by Rachel. If a paper could be taken out
in the way that she had shown him, it was possible that Gore might have
obtained the map in the same way, though it still seemed to Rendel
exceedingly unlikely that, granted he had done so, he would have been
able, given the condition he was in, to act upon it soon enough for it
to appear this morning. He hesitated a moment, then he made up his mind
to wait no longer. He took up the _Arbiter_ and went upstairs to Sir
William's room. He met Rachel coming out.

"Oh, thank you," she said, as she saw the paper. "I was just coming down
to fetch that. Father would like to see it."

"I thought I would bring it up," Rendel said. "I want to speak to him a
moment."

Rachel looked alarmed.

"Frank, you will be careful, won't you?" she said. "He really is not in
a fit state to discuss anything this morning."

"I am afraid what I have to say won't wait," Rendel said. "I think I had
better speak to him alone." And he quite unmistakably waited for Rachel
to go her way before he went into Sir William's room and shut the door.
Sir William, wrapped in his dressing-gown, was sitting up in an easy
chair. On the table near him were sheets of foolscap paper covered with
figures, and lying beside them a letter with a bold, splotchy writing,
which he quickly moved out of sight as Rendel came in, a letter that had
told him of certain successful financial operations undertaken in the
City on his behalf. His face was pale and haggard. He looked up, as he
saw Rendel come into the room, with an expression almost of terror,
dashed however with resentment. In his mind at that moment, his
son-in-law was the embodiment of the fate that, in some incredible way,
had, as it were, turned him, Sir William Gore, who had hitherto spent
his life in the sunshine of position, of dignity, of the deserved
respect of his fellow-creatures, out into a chill storm of
circumstances, absolutely alone, into some terrible world where, instead
of walking upright among his fellow-men, he was, by