"Oh! Frank," she said, with a face of alarm, "he's very ill. I'm sure he is. I've sent for Dr. Morgan to come at once. He fainted after you left, and he's only just come round again. Oh! I am terribly anxious," and she looked at him, her lips quivering, then put her hands before her eyes and burst into tears.
Rendel's heart smote him. Everything else, as he looked at her, faded into the background. The thing that mattered was Rachel was the woman he loved. It was he who had brought this grief upon her.
"Darling," he said, "I'm so sorry."
She shook her head and tried to smile.
"Oh," she said, trying to suppress her tears, "I ought not to have left him. I daresay you didn't know, but it has done him the most terrible harm. Did you tell him, then, about—about—the thing you told me of, that you had been suspected—of telling something—what was it?" and she passed her hand over her forehead as if unable to think.
"No," said Rendel, "I didn't tell him that I had been accused of it. I daresay he guessed I had. I told him it had happened."
"But, Frank, why did you?" she said. "I implored you not."
"Rachel," he said, "do you realise what it means to me that I should be accused of a thing like this?"
"Of course, yes, of course," she said, evidently still listening for any sound from upstairs. "But still a thing like that, that can be put right in a few minutes, cannot matter so much as life and death...."