at she was daring
him to speak. After all to-morrow would be a better time--she was tired
now--he would speak then. His eyes fell, and after a pause and a word
about some indifferent matter, he said good night and went.

IV

Once, in some early hour of the morning when the candles were burning
low, the thought of Rachel came to her.

Even as she noticed that her hand shone magnificently with hearts she
was conscious that the girl stood opposite to her, there against the
green wall, straight and fierce, all black and white, looking at her.

Christopher? John?...

For a second her brain was clouded. Might she not have attempted some
relationship with the girl? Given her some counsel and a little
kindness? She must have been lonely there in that great house without a
friend. She was going now into a very perilous business.

She pushed the weakness from her. Her eyes were again upon the cards.

"Hearts," she said. The odd trick this game and it was her rubber. The
dying flame rose in the silver sconces and the four old heads bobbed,
wildly, fantastically, upon the wall.

CHAPTER XII

DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER--I

I

Rachel sat in the train with Aunt Adela and Uncle John: they were on
their way to Trunton St. Perth, Lord Massiter's country house. It was a
July day softened with cool airs and watered colours; trees and fields
were mingled with sky and cloud; through the counties there was the echo
of running streams, only against an earth fading into sky and a sky
bending and embracing earth, sharp, with hard edges, the walls and
towers that man had piled together showed their outlines cut as with a
sword.

Over all the country in the pale blue of the afternoon sky a great moon
was burning and the corn ran in fine abundance to the summit of the
hills.

Rachel, as the train plunged with her into the heart of Sussex, was
gazing happily through the window, dreaming, almost dozing, feeling in
every part of her a warm and grateful content. Opposite to her Aunt
Adela, gaunt and with the expression that she always wore in trains as
of one whose person and property were in danger, at any instant, of
total destruction, read a life of a recently deceased general whose
widow she knew. Uncle John, with three illustrated papers, was
interested in photographs of people with one leg in the air and their
mouths wide open; every now and again he would say (to nobody in
particular), "There's old Reggie Cutler with that