Christopher? John?...
For a second her brain was clouded. Might she not have attempted some relationship with the girl? Given her some counsel and a little kindness? She must have been lonely there in that great house without a friend. She was going now into a very perilous business.
She pushed the weakness from her. Her eyes were again upon the cards.
"Hearts," she said. The odd trick this game and it was her rubber. The dying flame rose in the silver sconces and the four old heads bobbed, wildly, fantastically, upon the wall.
CHAPTER XII
DEFIANCE OF THE TIGER—I
I
Rachel sat in the train with Aunt Adela and Uncle John: they were on their way to Trunton St. Perth, Lord Massiter's country house. It was a July day softened with cool airs and watered colours; trees and fields were mingled with sky and cloud; through the counties there was the echo of running streams, only against an earth fading into sky and a sky bending and embracing earth, sharp, with hard edges, the walls and towers that man had piled together showed their outlines cut as with a sword.