my
favour. "Nothing venture, nothing have," the old gentleman resumed. "You
have a chance in your favour which I don't possess--and you shall be the
first to try the experiment."

"A chance in my favour?" I repeated, in the greatest surprise.

Mr. Bruff's face softened, for the first time, into a smile.

"This is how it stands," he said. "I tell you fairly, I don't trust your
discretion, and I don't trust your temper. But I do trust in Rachel's
still preserving, in some remote little corner of her heart, a certain
perverse weakness for YOU. Touch that--and trust to the consequences for
the fullest disclosures that can flow from a woman's lips! The question
is--how are you to see her?"

"She has been a guest of yours at this house," I answered. "May I
venture to suggest--if nothing was said about me beforehand--that I
might see her here?"

"Cool!" said Mr. Bruff. With that one word of comment on the reply that
I had made to him, he took another turn up and down the room.

"In plain English," he said, "my house is to be turned into a trap to
catch Rachel; with a bait to tempt her, in the shape of an invitation
from my wife and daughters. If you were anybody else but Franklin Blake,
and if this matter was one atom less serious than it really is, I should
refuse point-blank. As things are, I firmly believe Rachel will live
to thank me for turning traitor to her in my old age. Consider me your
accomplice. Rachel shall be asked to spend the day here; and you shall
receive due notice of it."

"When? To-morrow?"

"To-morrow won't give us time enough to get her answer. Say the day
after."

"How shall I hear from you?"

"Stay at home all the morning and expect me to call on you."

I thanked him for the inestimable assistance which he was rendering to
me, with the gratitude that I really felt; and, declining a hospitable
invitation to sleep that night at Hampstead, returned to my lodgings in
London.

Of the day that followed, I have only to say that it was the longest day
of my life. Innocent as I knew myself to be, certain as I was that the
abominable imputation which rested on me must sooner or later be cleared
off, there was nevertheless a sense of self-abasement in my mind which
instinctively disinclined me to see any of my friends. We often hear
(almost invariably, however, from superficial observers) that guilt can
look like innocence. I believe it to be infinitely the truer axiom of
the two that innocence c