There was a guilty answer in her consciousness which made her speak without anger.
"I know my own faults very well. And now you must go—we can't either of us stand this any more. Do you give me your solemn promise that you will trouble me no more—-or the man I am going to marry—if I do this for you?"
"Give me a piece of paper—" he said, huskily.
He wrote the promise, signed it, and pushed it to her. Then he carefully examined the self cheque "to bearer" which she had written.
"Well, I dare say that will see me out—and bury me decently. I shall take my family down to the sea. You know I've got a little girl—about three? Oh, I never told any lies about Anita. I've married her now."
Rachel stood like a stone, without a word. Her one consuming anxiety was to see him gone, to be done with him.
He rose slowly—with difficulty. And the cough seized him again. Rachel in a fevered exasperation watched him clinging to the table for support. Would he die—or faint—then and there—and be found by Janet, who must now be on her way home? She pressed brandy on him again. But he pushed it away. "Let me be!" She could only wait.
When he could speak and move again, he put the cheque away in his pocket, and buttoned his coat over it.
"Well, good-night." Then straightening himself, he fixed her with a pair of burning eyes. "Good-night. Anita will be kind to me—when I die—Anita will be a woman to me. You were never kind—you never thought of any one but yourself. Good-bye. Good luck!"
And walking uncertainly to the door, he opened it and was gone. She heard his slow steps in the farmyard, and the opening of the wicket gate. Then all sounds died away.