Her voice was full of tender pity, not for the crouching unhappiness before her, but for the poor atrophied soul. Could she reach it? She would have given everything she possessed at that moment for one second of Christ's power to touch those blind eyes to sight.
"How can you say such things? I should not have brought it about. I did not even know of that dreadful drawing of lots till the thing was done. That was all his own doing."
Rachel sighed. The passionate yearning towards her companion shrank back upon herself.
"The fault is in me," she said to herself. "If I were purer, humbler, more loving, I might have been allowed to help her."
Lady Newhaven rose, and held Rachel tightly in her arms.
"I count the days," she said, hoarsely, shaking from head to foot. "It is two months and three weeks to-day. November the twenty-ninth. You will promise faithfully to come to me and be with me then? You will not desert me? Whatever happens you will be sure—to come?"
"I will come. I promise," said Rachel. And she stooped and kissed the closed eyes. She could at least do that.
CHAPTER XXII
Brother, thy tail hangs down behind.
—Song of the Bandar-log.