'No, Stanley; you know me too well. Ah! No, you sha'n't be lost if I can help it.' Rachel shook her head as she spoke, with a bitter smile and a dreadful sigh.
Then they whispered together for three or four minutes, and Rachel clasped her jewelled fingers tight across her forehead, quite wildly, for a minute.
'You'll come then?' said Stanley.
She made no answer, and he repeated the question.
By this time she was standing; and without answering, she began mechanically to get on her cloak and hat.
'You must drink some wine first; he may frighten you, perhaps. You must take it, Rachel, or I'll not go.'
Stanley Lake was swearing, in his low tones, like a swell-mobsman to-night.
Rachel seemed to have made up her mind to submit passively to whatever he required. Perhaps, indeed, she thought there was wisdom in his advice. At all events she drank some wine.
Rachel Lake was one of those women who never lose their presence of mind, even under violent agitation, for long, and who generally, even when highly excited, see, and do instinctively, and with decision, what is best to be done; and now, with dilated eyes and white face, she walked noiselessly into the kitchen, listened there for a moment, then stole lightly to the servants' sleeping-room, and listened there at the door, and lastly looked in, and satisfied herself that both were still sleeping. Then as cautiously and swiftly she returned to her drawing-room, and closed the window-shutters and drew the curtain, and signalling to her brother they went stealthily forth into the night air, closing the hall-door, and through the little garden, at the outer gate of which they paused.
'I don't know, Rachel—I don't like it—I'm not fit for it. Go back again—go in and lock your door—we'll not go to him—you need not, you know. He may stay where he is—let him—I'll not return. I say, I'll see him no more. I'll get away. I'll consult Larkin—shall I? Though that won't do—he's in Wylder's interest—curse him. What had I best do? I'm not equal to it.'