one another any better."

The storm had come up and the sky beyond the house was black. Lizzie's
face, lighted by the fire, was white, sharp and set--there was no
kindness in her eyes.

"Perhaps, Lady Rachel," she said slowly, "I'm not a very emotional kind
of woman. If one's worked, as I have, since one was small--had to earn
one's living and fight for one's place--it makes one perhaps rather
self-reliant and independent of other people--Our lives have been so
different, I'm afraid," she added with a little laugh, "that I'm a
dried-up, unsatisfactory kind of person--I know that my mother and
sister have always found me so."

"Yes," Rachel said, "our lives _have_ been different. Perhaps if mine
had been a little more like yours--perhaps if _I_ had had to work for my
living--I...."

She broke off--a little catch was in her voice--she rose from her chair
and went to the window and stood there, with her back to Lizzie, gazing
into the darkening garden.

She knew that Lizzie had repulsed her; she was hardly aware why she had
made her appeal, but she was now frightened of Lizzie and to her
overstrung brain it seemed that she could now see Lizzie and Roddy in
league against her.

She heard a step and turning round found Peters, the butler, large,
square, of an immense impassivity.

"Please, my lady, might I speak to you a moment?"

She went out.

* * * * *

Lizzie, left in the darkening room, could think now only of the letter.
The sight of that handwriting had stirred in her passions that she had
never before imagined as hers--that first pathetic appeal of Roddy and
then the sight of that letter!

Her brain, working feverishly, showed her the words that that letter
would contain--the passion, the passion! There in the very face of her
husband, Rachel was receiving letters from her lover, letters that she
could not wait a moment to read, but must go instantly and open _them_.

This hour brought to a crisis Lizzie's agony. Had such a letter been
written to her!

She tortured herself now with the picture of him as he sat there in his
room in Saxton Square writing it! It appeared to her now as though they
two--there in the very throne of their triumphant love--had plotted this
insult, this snap of the fingers, to show her, Lizzie Rand, how
desolate, how lonely, how neglected and unwanted she was!

That then, after this, Rachel should appeal to her for friendship! The
cruel insult of