“How do you mean?”
“Well, she’s encouraging you, I could see by her looks, and yours. But—she’s engaged to Denver Van Santen all the time.”
Gerard was startled.
“Are you sure?”
“Denver says so—so do the family. It’s looked upon as settled.”
Gerard laughed harshly; but he would not believe.
“They may think so, but they may make too sure,” he said.
Arthur Aldington threw at him a compassionate look, as one does at a man, once intelligent and amiable, who has just been declared a lunatic. But the words which rose to his lips, words of congratulation to Gerard on his escape, he thought it wiser not to utter.
CHAPTER XVIII
At the end of a week Gerard received a letter addressed in a hand-writing which he did not know, but which he felt sure was that of Rachel Davison. The very envelope and note paper seemed, he thought, to be characteristic of her.