"What do you mean, Rachel?"
"You will think me weak and contemptible, but I must confess to you the cause of my late prostration."
"Yes, do; it may be a relief."
"About a month ago," said Rachel, sitting down by the table opposite Katherine, and again resting her elbow on it, while she half hid her face by placing her open hand over her eyes, "I was walking to Mrs. Needham's with some work I had finished, when, turning into Lowndes Square, I came face to face with—him. It is true I had a thick veil on, and my large parcel must have partially disguised me, but he did not recognize me. He passed me with the most unconscious composure, and he was looking better, brighter, than I had ever seen him. The sight of him brought back all the torturing pangs of helpless sorrow for the sweetness, the intense happiness I can never know again; the stinging shame, the poison of crushed hopes, the profound contempt for myself, the sense of being of no value to any one on earth. I think if I could have spoken to you, I might have shaken off these fiends of thought; but I was alone, always alone: why should I live?"
"Rachel, you must put this cruel man out of your mind. He has been the destroyer of your life. Try and cast the idea of the past from you. Life is too abundant to be exhausted by one sorrow. You have years before you in which to build up a new existence and find consolation. I will not listen to another word about your former life; let us only look forward. I have a plan for you—at least Mr. Payne has suggested the idea—in which you can help us and others, and which will need all your time and energy. But I will not even talk of this business. We must try lighter and pleasanter topics. Not another word about by-gone days will I speak. You have started afresh under my auspices, and I mean you to float. Now that you are here, Rachel, you must read amusing books, and be out in the open air all day. You will be a new creature in a week. You must come and see my cottage and my nephews; they are dear little fellows. Are you fond of children?"
"I don't think I am. I never had anything to do with them. But I would rather not go to your house, dear Miss Liddell. I feel as if I could not brave Miss Payne's eyes."
"That is mere morbidness. There is no reason why you should fear any one. You must discount your future rights. A few years hence, when you are a new woman, you will, I am sure, look back with wonder and pity as if reading the memoir of another. I know that spells of self-forgiveness come to us mercifully."
"When I listen to you, and hear in the tones of your voice more even than in your words that you are my friend, that you really care for me, that it will be a real joy to you to see me rise above myself, I feel that I can live and strive and be something more than a galvanized corpse. You give me strength. I wonder if I shall ever be able to prove to you what you have done for me. Stand by me, and I will try to put the past under my feet. I do not wish to presume on the great goodness you have shown me nor to forget the difference between us socially, but oh! let me believe you love me—even me—with the kindly affection that can forgive even while it blames."
"Be assured of that, Rachel," cried Katherine, her eyes moist and beautiful with the divine light of kindness and sympathy, as she stretched out her hand to clasp Rachel's. "I have from the first been drawn to you strangely—it is something instinctive—and I have firm belief in your future, if you will but believe in yourself. You are a strong, brave woman, who can dare to look truth in the face. You will be useful and successful yet."
Rachel held her hand tightly for a minute in silence; then she said, in a low but firm voice: "I will try to realize your belief. I should be too unworthy if I failed to do my very best. There! I have discarded the past; you shall hear of it no more."