The immense strength of her love—always an incalculable "unknown quantity" in the elements of human character and the factors of human destiny—had already given force and point, and meaning and dignity, to her whole personality and her relations with life; but now the magnitude of her wrongs and misfortunes, and still more of his, seemed to dwarf and crush every feeble trait and sentiment in her.
She went back to the ball-room, very white and silent, on Mr. Gordon's arm; and the first person of her own party whom she met there was Mr. Reade, under whose protection she placed herself, dismissing her late escort with a quiet "good-night."
She asked to be taken to Beatrice; and Ned, who never knew from whom he had received her, piloted her through the crowd until he found his small wife, whose bright eyes no sooner rested on Rachel's face than they recognised a new calamity.
"Has she heard anything, I wonder?" she asked herself in dismay. "Are you ill?" she inquired aloud.
"I want to go home," said Rachel.
The little woman did not waste time asking useless questions. She took her cousin to the cloak-room, sent Ned for a cab, and in a few minutes the three were driving to the Kingstons' hotel.
When they reached Rachel's drawing-room, and Ned had been sent downstairs to see if her maid was on the premises, Mrs. Reade put her arms round her tenderly, and begged to know what was the matter with her.
But Rachel, singularly unresponsive to the rare caress, would not tell—would not talk at all. She would not betray the mother's crime to the daughter, and she would not mention the name of her beloved, even to her dearest friend, in these married days.
"I am not well," she said, gently but with an odd harshness in her face and voice. "I could not dance—I could not stay in that place. I shall be better here. Go back, Beatrice, and make excuses for me. Say I was not well."
"I shall do no such thing," said Beatrice bluntly. "I shall not leave you until Graham comes home."