So things were with him until the day of the Duchess's visit. His surprise at seeing her was confused with an assurance that "she had come for something." After her departure what she had come for was plain enough to see.
He had not taken her words about Breton at first with any credulity. His principal emotion at the time had been anger with the old woman, a great desire that she should go before he should forget himself and be disgraced by showing temper to anyone so old and feeble—But when she had gone, he found that peace had left him now once and for all.
He knew that the Duchess hated Rachel and he was ready to allow for the bias and exaggeration that spite would lend, but, when that was taken away, much remained.
Rachel knew Breton, that was certain; she had never told him. Breton's name had occurred sometimes in conversation and she had always spoken of him as though he were a complete stranger. Rachel knew Breton and she had never told him....
He might tell himself that she had not told him because she knew that he would instantly stop the acquaintance—It was, of course, simply a friendship that had sprung up because Rachel was sorry for his ostracism. Roddy thought that that was just like Rachel, part of her warm-hearted interest in anyone who seemed to be unfairly treated—yet—she had never told him.
Then, lying there all alone with no one in whom he could confide, there sprang before him suspicions. If she had known this scoundrel of a cousin of hers, if she had been so careful to keep from her husband all cognizance of her friendship, did not that very silence and deceit imply more than friendship? Was Breton the kind of man to abstain from snatching every advantage that was open to him? Did not this explain Rachel's avoidance of Roddy during the last year, her moods of restraint, repentance, her sudden silences?
Then upon this came the thought, how much of all this did the world know? Perhaps it was true once again that the husband was the last to be informed, perhaps during the last year all London Society had mocked at Roddy's blindness.
The Duchess, he might be sure, had not spared her tongue—The Duchess ... he cursed her as he lay there and then wondered whether he should not rather thank her for opening his eyes, then cursed himself for daring to allow such suspicions of Rachel to gain their hold upon him.
In Roddy there was, strong beyond almost any other principle, a sturdy hereditary pride. He was proud of his stock, proud of his ancestors and all their doings, worthy and unworthy, proud of his own pluck and standing—"Different from all these half-baked fellers with only their own grandmothers to go back to." It had been this arrogance, with other things somewhat closely allied, that had endeared him to the Duchess. Now it was that same pride that suffered most terribly. Here was some disaster hanging over his head that threatened most nearly the honour of his family—Let Breton touch that....
He was alone on that evening after the Duchess's visit; Rachel had gone out to a party; she went, he had noticed, reluctantly, protested again and again that she wished she could stay with him, seemed to hang about him as though she would speak to him, looked, oh! too adorably, too adorably beautiful!