d
graciously consenting to fix a day when she and her friend would go to
tea with Miss Shenstone at the vicarage. The young man fairly beamed
under the unexpected change, and lingered at the gate as though unable to
tear himself away; till with a little peremptory nod, though still
smiling, Rachel dismissed him.

Janet Leighton meanwhile watched it all. She had seen Rachel treat a new
male acquaintance before as she had just treated the vicar. To begin
with, the manners of an icicle; then a sudden thaw, just in time to save
the situation. She had come with amusement to the conclusion that,
however really indifferent or capricious, her new friend could not in the
long run resign herself to be disliked, even by a woman, and much more in
the case of a man. Was it vanity, or sex, or both? Temperament perhaps;
the modern word which covers so much. Janet remembered a little niece of
her own who in her mother's absence entertained a gentleman visitor with
great success. When asked for his name, she shook her pretty head. "Just
a man, mummy," she said, bridling. Janet Leighton suspected that similar
tales might have been told of Miss Henderson in her babyhood.

And yet impressions recurred to her of another kind--of a sensitive,
almost fierce delicacy--a shrinking from the ugly or merely physical
facts of life, as of one who had suffered some torment in connection with
them.

Janet's eyes followed the curly brown head as its possessor came slowly
back from the gate. She was thinking of a moment when, one evening, while
they were both still at college, they had realized their liking for each
other, and had agreed to set up in partnership. Then Rachel, springing to
her feet, with her hands behind her, and head thrown back, had said
suddenly: "I warn you, I have a story. I don't want to tell you, to tell
anybody. I shan't tell you. It's done with. I give you my word that I'm
not a bad woman. But if you don't want to be my partner on these terms,
say so!"

And Janet had felt no difficulty whatever in becoming Rachel Henderson's
partner on these terms. Nor had she ever yet regretted it.

The light farm cart which had been sent to the station for stores drove
up to the yard gate as Rachel left it. She turned back to receive some
parcels handed out by the "exempted" man who drove it, together with some
letters which had been found lying at the village post office. Two of the
letters were for Janet. She sent them up to the house,