Rachel walked to and fro across the room, and once she stopped and deftly arranged some flowers in a vase on the table; then her hand fell from them with a shudder. Belhaven had brought them to her the day before—and he loved her! It was an enormity, but it was true. She did not know that he only obeyed the instinct of self-preservation, that he sought to find his own soul.
Presently Bantry came in with the hot water for the teakettle, and some cake. She arranged the tea-table herself frequently in the absence of the footman. As she passed Rachel she stopped to touch the fold of her skirt.
"You're pale, Miss Rachel," she said reprovingly, "you ought to eat something more; you look all tired out."
"I'm well enough," smiled Rachel.
The woman shook her head; as she went out and closed the door behind her she muttered to herself. "She's wearing her heart out, poor lamb, and there's that little devil!" Bantry shook her fist fiercely in the direction of the Astrys'. Eva had never appealed to her. The Evas of this world rarely appeal to their servants.
Rachel continued her walk, absorbed in thought, the vital forces of her strong nature warring within her. She was rebelling against the circumstances of her existence, she was realizing that she had deliberately ruined her own life to shield a sister who ought to have borne her punishment. She had sacrificed Charter, too, and now John's love for her was the one comfort of her lot and its greatest misery; it was hers and she could not take it, it was hers and she must cast it off! She looked across her life and saw it desolate, sacrificed to Eva. She was caught in an inextricable tangle and she could not escape without betraying Eva. She stretched out her hands with an impotent gesture of despair. She was battling for life, for hope; her strong soul rose passionately within her and struggled for its own.
Her mind was so full of the thought of him that she was scarcely startled when Charter appeared at the threshold, unannounced.
"Bantry let me in," he explained; "she said you had just come from the Astrys' and I wanted to see you."
"I came back some time ago," said Rachel, with an effort to speak naturally.
But his calm was even more unnatural than hers. "I had to come; I don't intend to make my presence in the city an annoyance to you, but—"