Rachel looked at her in amazement; was it possible that Eva did not know what she was suffering, what this terrible marriage would cost her? Was she so utterly selfish that she could not only malign her sister but sacrifice her without a pang?
But suddenly Eva flung herself into her arms.
"Oh, Rachel, I'm wicked, I'm worthless—you've been an angel. Forgive me! Save me, save us both; we're not worth it, but save us!"
A moment before Rachel had meant to tell her that she could never do it, that she would rather die, to beg for a reprieve, an escape, even if Eva had to suffer, but this anguish dwarfed her own; Eva had not the strength to take her punishment.
"Eva," her lips quivered, "Eva, promise me that this is the end, that it won't be in vain, that I will really save you if I take all this horror to myself?"
"I promise—" her golden head sank lower on Rachel's breast, "I promise; God help me to keep it!"
Rachel still loved her; she tried to quiet her, she put aside her own trouble and gave herself to the task of consoling her betrayer, and so the night passed.
In the morning she was married to Belhaven.
VI
Some time before his marriage Belhaven had leased an old house not far from Astry's, but nearer the Tennallytown Road. It had once been a tavern, but for fifteen years had been disused, and was part of an estate that belonged to Paul Van Citters' aunt. The old lady had turned it over to Paul to manage for her, and in one of his idle moments he had conceived the idea of refitting it and, perhaps, turning it into a club-house. He had employed an expensive architect and more expensive decorators, and the end had been an alarming hole in the aunt's pocketbook. After the first accounts came in, she closed down upon her nephew's artistic departure, and the old house had remained partly done over and, therefore, of two styles of architecture. The porch, with its Colonial pillars, the long, low wing that Paul had intended for a tea-room, and the terraced lawns, were only half done, but the roof had been reshingled with mossy green, the walls had been harmoniously decorated, and hardwood floors put down instead of wide, rough planks with pieces of zinc nailed over the rat-holes, which had served for a hundred years before. Paul's architect had ripped out the narrow staircase and widened the hall by throwing a small room into it; he had built a flight of wide and handsome stairs ascending to a landing under an oriel window; he had taken advantage of an ingle-nook and thrown out a second wing from the original house, and had foreshadowed even greater changes, when the aunt's pocketbook closed with a snap.