"I know, I know," he replied, in a low tone of emotion that had a touch of fierceness in it. "I saw how shocked you were, and I could have bitten my tongue out. But I should never have spoken of that if Mrs. Hale had not badgered me into it. If it had been one of the men—but they know better! A woman, though she may be the most prodigious fool, is privileged. I am very sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am."
"It is not hearing it that matters," stammered Rachel, stirring her tea with wild and tremulous splashes; "it is knowing—it is thinking—of its being true."
He paused for a moment, and looked at her with a look that she was afraid to meet, but which she felt through all her shrinking consciousness: and then he said quietly. "Drink your tea, and let us go into the conservatory for five minutes."
It was a bold proposal under the circumstances; but it did not occur to her to question it. She drank her tea hastily, and put down her cup; and Mr. Dalrymple opened the glass door, which swung on noiseless hinges, and passing out after her, coolly closed it behind them both. It was very dim and still out there. The steam of the warm air, full of strong earthy and piney odours, clung to the glass roofs through which the moon was shining, and made the light vague and misty. The immense brown stems of the tree ferns, barnacled with stag horns, and the great green feathers spreading and drooping above them, took all kinds of phantom shapes.
Rachel herself looked like a ghost in her white dress, as she flitted down the dim alleys by that tall man's side, tapping the tiled floor with her slippered feet with no more noise than a woodpecker.
"Is that the lapageria?" asked Mr. Dalrymple, when he thought they had gone far enough for privacy, pausing beside a comfortable seat, and pointing upward to a lattice-work of dark leaved shoots, from which hung clusters of dusky flower bells. "How well it grows here, to be sure!"
"Everything grows well here," responded Rachel, relieved from some restraint by this harmless opening of their clandestine tête-à-tête; "and that creeper is Mr. Thornley's favourite. The flowers are the loveliest red in daylight."
"Now I want to tell you a little about that story you heard just now," he proceeded gravely. "Sit down; it won't take long."
"You said you would rather not talk about it," murmured Rachel.
"I would much rather not. There is nothing I would not sooner do—except let you go away thinking so badly of me as you do now. I don't usually care what people think of me," he added; "I am sure I don't know why I should care now. But you looked so terribly shocked! It hurts me to see you looking at me in that way. And I should like to try if I could to make you believe that I am not necessarily a bad man, more than other men, though bad enough, because I fought a duel once and killed my adversary."