"I can prove it," said Lady Newhaven, holding out the letter in her shaking hands. "You may read it, Rachel. I can trust you. Not him, he would burn it. It is from Edward; look, you know his writing, written to tell me that he," pointing at Hugh, "had drawn the short lighter, but that, as he had not killed himself when the time came, he, Edward, did so instead. That was why he was late. We always wondered, Rachel, why he was two days late. Read it! Read it!"
"I will not read it," said Rachel, pushing away the paper. "I do not believe a word of it."
"You shall believe it. Ask him to deny it, if he can."
"You need not trouble to deny it," said Rachel, looking full at Hugh.
The world held only her and him. And as Hugh looked into her eyes his soul rose up and scaled the heights above it till it stood beside hers.
There is a sacred place where, if we follow close in Love's footsteps, we see him lay aside his earthly quiver and his bitter arrows, and turn to us as he is, with the light of God upon him, one with us as one with God. In that pure light lies cease to be. We know them no more, neither remember them, for love and truth are one.
Hugh strode across to Lady Newhaven, took the letter from her, and threw it into the heart of the fire. Then he turned to Rachel.
"I drew the short lighter," he said. "I meant to take the consequences at first, but when the time came—I did not. Partly I was afraid, and partly I could not leave you."
If Lady Newhaven yearned for revenge she had it then. They had both forgotten her. But she saw Rachel's eyes change as the eyes of a man at the stake might change when the fire reached him. She shrank back from the agony in them. Hugh's face became pinched and thin as a dead man's. A moment ago he saw no consequences. He saw only that he could not lie to her. His mind fell headlong from its momentary foothold. What mad impulse had betrayed him to his ruin?
"You drew the short lighter, and you let me think all the time he had," said Rachel, her voice almost inaudible in its fierce passion. "You drew it, and you let him die instead of you, as any one who knew him would know he would. And when he was dead you came to me, and kept me in ignorance even—that time—when I said I trusted you."