He on his side had made no pretense of hiding the fact that he did not mean to do so, and while more bewildered than ever by what he had seen and heard that day, he maintained his determination to try every means in his power to get at the root of the mystery, and to find out the secret which was poisoning her life.
For that Rachel was unhappy he was sure. He remembered her face as he had first seen it a year ago at the Aldingtons’ house, how bright her eyes were, how ringing her voice was. Now, although she was handsomer than ever in his eyes, with that sort of suggestion of thought and care underlying her beauty, which made it pathetic and haunting, now that the outline of her face had sharpened and grown more refined than ever, there was a look in her face which had never been in it before, a sort of defiant expression, as if she had made up her mind to a certain distasteful course of action, and meant to persevere in it in spite of everything.
Gerard was aware that this view of the change in the beauty might be a somewhat fanciful one; but fancy is generally very busy in the brain of a young man in love, and that he was still in love with Rachel Davison in the face of all he knew and all that he suspected, he had to acknowledge.
Was she a thief? That he would not believe. Was she a kleptomaniac? That was even more difficult to admit, since it was plain that, if kleptomania were a disease, it could not pay, whereas the occupation followed by Rachel certainly appeared to pay very well.
If she had really been the heroine of the scene at the stores that day, she must, he knew, have found someone ready to stand by her, and to tell some story which found acceptance in the eyes of the persons concerned in the charge, and saved her from prosecution.
For it was impossible to believe that, worried and worn out as she was when he left her, she would not have been infinitely more distressed if she had known that a police prosecution was hanging over her.
Who was the man who had beckoned her out of the tea-shop, who had accompanied her to the police-station, and put her into the cab afterwards?
That was the one question, Gerard felt, upon which the whole mystery hinged. And he was conscious, absurd as he felt the sensation to be, that he was not only curious concerning that important personage, but actually jealous of him.
Was she in the power of some man who exercised over her an overwhelming and sinister influence? Was she under the power of hypnotic suggestion?
He could not but feel sure that the man he had so dimly seen would prove to have an important bearing upon the matter, and made up his mind that, at all hazards, he would find out who he was.