"Don't you think," said Lizzie, "a little of your husband?"

"I'm thinking of him all the time--It's for his sake--that he should
have a better chance with someone who cared----"

"No, that isn't true," said Lizzie--"It's because you love someone
else----"

Rachel, with her head down, whispered, "Yes--it's because ... someone
else."

"Francis Breton."

"Yes, Francis Breton."

That whisper of his name had in it confidence, worship, defiance ... all
these things were torture to Lizzie sitting there, very composed, very
stern, very quiet. _She_ should have been able to say that name with
just that precious intimacy, and she saw, in Rachel's eyes, beyond her
trouble the glad pride that the pronouncing of the name had given her.

"You know?" Rachel asked at length.

"Yes----"

"You've known a long time."

"Yes--a long time."

"Oh! If you'd only spoken to me!--All this time I've been wanting you
to--You _must_ have known."

"Yes--I knew." Then Lizzie brought out slowly, letting her grave eyes
wander over Rachel's face--

"You yourself insisted on telling me. You have brought it upon yourself
if I say what I must...."

Rachel caught the hostility.

"Yes?" she said sharply.

"I'm older than you--older in every way. You know so little yet, the
harm that you can do.... You must leave Francis Breton alone, Lady
Seddon."

Rachel laughed--"Of course I knew that you--that it was the kind of way
that you must look at it. But don't you see, we've got past all that
first stage--It isn't, in the very least, any good looking at it from
any general point of view. It's simply the individual happiness of the
three of us, my husband, Francis Breton, myself--It's better for all of
us that I should go."

"No ... not better for Francis Breton."

Rachel moved impatiently--"He--he and I--can judge that, Miss Rand----"

"No--You can't--you're too young. You don't know--I have a right to
speak here, I know him--I have known him all this time----"

Lizzie broke off. Rachel, suddenly looking up, gazed at her--Lizzie,
fiercely, also proudly as though she were guarding something very
precious that they were trying to take from her, returned her gaze.

"All this time," Rachel said slowly. "You've known him--of course ... at
Saxton Square...."

Then, as though the revelation had suddenly broken upon her, "Why
you--you----!"

"Yes," said Lizzie, now fiercely indeed, hurling back at the girl the
_naivete_ of her surprise.