trial?"

"From first to last!"

The pause that followed was really broken by the lights of Sloane Square
station.

"You know me," said Rachel, hurriedly; "I have seen that for some time.
May I ask if you are Mr. Steel?"

"I am."

"The Mr. Steel who sent me his card after the trial?"

Steel bowed.

"As a perfect stranger?"

"As a perfect stranger who had watched you for a whole long week in
court."

Rachel ignored the relative clause.

"And because I would not see you, Mr. Steel, you have followed me, and
forced yourself upon me!"

The train stopped, and Rachel rose.

"You will gather my motives when you recall our conversation," observed
Steel; and he opened the door for her. But Rachel turned to him before
alighting.

"Mr. Steel," said she, "I am quite sure that you mean kindly and well,
and that I above all women should feel supremely grateful; but I cannot
help thinking that you are unjust to the man in the street!"

"Better give him a trial," said Steel, coldly enough in his turn.

"I should prefer to," rejoined Rachel, getting out; and there was no
little sting in the intonation of the verb; but Mr. Steel was left
smiling and nodding very confidently to himself.

CHAPTER V

THE MAN IN THE STREET

Rachel's perturbation was only the greater from her success in
concealing, or at least suppressing it, during the actual process of
this singular interview. You may hold your breath without moving a
muscle, but the muscles will make up for it when their turn comes, and
it was so with Rachel and her nerves; they rose upon her even on the
platform, and she climbed the many stairs in a tremor from head to foot.
And at the top, in the open night, and at all the many corners of a
square that is nothing of the kind, from hoarse throat and on fluttering
placard, it was "Trial and Verdict," or "Sensational Verdict at the Old
Bailey," here as at the other end of the town.

But now all Rachel's thoughts were of this mysterious Mr. Steel; of his
inexplicable behavior towards her, and of her own attitude towards him.
Yet, when all was said, or when all that had been said could be
remembered, would his behavior be found so very inexplicable? Rachel was
not devoid of a proper vanity, albeit that night she had probably less
than most women with a tithe of her personal attractions; and yet upon
reflection she could conceive but one explanation of such conduct in an
elderly man.

"There is no fool like