came to
know so much of a life of which they decided she could know nothing,
when suddenly Lady Susan Gresley died, and Hester went to live in the
country with her clergyman brother.

A few months later still, and on a mild April day, when the poor London
trees had black buds on them, Rachel brushed and folded away in the
little painted chest of drawers her few threadbare clothes, and put the
boots--which the cobbler, whose wife she had nursed, had patched for
her--under the shelf which held her few cups and plates and the faithful
tin kettle, which had always been a cheerful boiler. And she washed her
seven coarse handkerchiefs, and put them in the washhandstand drawer.
And then she raked out the fire and cleaned the grate, and set the room
in order. It was quickly done. She took up her hat, which lay beside a
bundle on the bed. Her hands trembled as she put it on. She looked
wistfully round her, and her face worked. The little room which had
looked so alien when she came to it six years ago had become a home. She
went to the window and kissed the pane through which she had learned to
see so much. Then she seized up the bundle and went quickly out, locking
the door behind her, and taking the key with her.

"I am going away for a time, but I shall come back," she said to the
cobbler's wife on the same landing.

"No one comes back as once goes," said the woman, without raising her
eyes from the cheap blouse which she was finishing, which kept so well
the grim secret of how it came into being that no one was afraid of
buying it.

"I am keeping on the room."

The woman smiled incredulously, giving one sharp glance at the bundle.
She had seen many flittings. She should buy the kettle when Rachel's
"sticks" were sold by the landlord in default of the rent.

"Well, you was a good neighbor," she said. "There's a-many as 'ull miss
you. Good-bye, and good luck to ye. I sha'n't say as you've left."

"I shall come back," said Rachel, hoarsely, and she slipped down-stairs
like a thief. She felt like a thief. For she was rich. The man who had
led her father into the speculations which had ruined him had died
childless, and had bequeathed to her a colossal fortune.

CHAPTER VII

Cure the drunkard, heal the insane, mollify the homicide, civilize
the Pawnee, but what lessons can be devised for the debauchee of
sentiment?--EMERSON.

A fortnight had passed since the drawing of lots, and Lady Newhaven