The letter itself was very short.
“Dear Mr. Buckland,—I have kept my word to you. I have tried, and I have failed, as I said I should. Burn this, please.—Rachel.”
Gerard looked long at the words, which seemed to burn into his brain. He knew what misery of effort and failure they recorded. But he did not comply with her command and burn the letter. He folded it carefully again, and treasured it as he might have done a communication from a dear friend. It seemed to him to be the knell of all his hopes.
But in spite of the despair with which the letter and his knowledge of some of the facts of Rachel’s position inspired him, he did not cease to think about her, and to wonder if there were no possible means of freeing her from the unseen hands which were holding her prisoner. If he had believed Denver to be an honorable man, he would have stifled his own feelings, and would have found consolation in knowing that, by marrying him, she would free herself at once from the thraldom in which she was held.
But unhappily, he could not feel sure that Denver himself was honest, and his memories of the day spent at the Priory were by no means of a sort to leave upon his mind an impression of unmixed innocence and bliss.
Was Denver one of the guiding spirits of a conspiracy, of which the man with the white mustache was a member? And was Denver anxious to marry Rachel in order to make stronger the bonds in which she was held?
Against this notion there stood out the remembrance of the rest of the Van Santen family; his knowledge that the father was a man of wealth and good repute; the mother a good creature incapable of guile; the daughters charming women, of whom it was difficult to suspect anything wrong; the two brothers indeed were not so satisfactory, but there was this to be said of Denver, that he boasted openly of his skill at cards, and was ready to challenge all comers. Of the plain-featured Harry, with the hard, sunless smile, Gerard knew nothing. Whether he won or lost at cards he did not talk about his luck, and his manner was as quiet and reticent as that of his brother was swaggering and loud.
Somehow Gerard did not trust him the more on that account.
While Gerard was still smarting from the blow of Rachel’s letter, he was much surprised on reaching home to his chambers one afternoon at about five o’clock, to hear that a lady had called to see him, and not finding him, had said that she would call again between five and six.
While he was still asking questions about this mysterious lady, with certain absurd but undefined hopes in his heart, he was informed that she had come back again, and there was ushered into his presence, to his intense astonishment, the homely figure of Mrs. Van Santen.