“It wasn’t necessary,” he added, with a touch of the early manner which she had never liked; “you see, I knew you.”

The insincerity was so obvious that Rachel could scarcely bring herself to confess that she had come to ask his advice.  “What was the point?” he said to that, so crisply that the only point which Rachel could think of was the fresh, raw grievance of the empty house.

“Didn’t your solicitor tell you?” asked Carrington.  “He came to me about it; but I suppose—­”

Rachel knew well what he supposed.

“He should have told you to-night,” added Carrington, “at any rate.  The rent was only paid for half the term—­quite right—­the usual way.  The permanent tenant wanted to be done with the house altogether, and that entitled her to take her things out.  No, I’m afraid you have no grievance there, Mrs. Minchin.”

“And pray,” demanded Rachel, “where are my things?”

“Ah, your solicitor will tell you that—­when you give him the chance!  He very properly would not care to bother you about trifles until the case against you was satisfactorily disposed of.  By the way, I hope you don’t mind my cigar?  We were smoking in the next room.”

“I have taken you from your guests,” said Rachel, miserably.  “I know I ought not to have come at such an hour.”

Carrington did not contradict her.

“But there seemed so much to speak about,” she went desperately on.  “There are the money matters and—­and—­”

“If you will come to my chambers,” said Carrington, “I shall be delighted to go into things with you, and to advise you to the best of my ability.  If you could manage to come at half-past nine on Monday morning, I would be there early and could give you twenty minutes.”

He wrote down the address, and, handing it to Rachel, rang the bell.  This drove her to despair; evidently it never occurred to him that she was faint with weariness and hunger, that she had nowhere to go for the night, and not the price of a decent meal, much less a bed, in her purse.  And even now her pride prevented her from telling the truth; but it would not silence her supreme desire.

“Oh!” she cried; “oh, may I not speak to your wife?”

“Not to-night, if you don’t mind,” replied Carrington, with his bow and smile.  “We can’t both desert our guests.”

“Only for a minute!” pleaded Rachel.  “I wouldn’t keep her more!”

“Not to-night,” he repeated, with a broader smile, a clearer enunciation, and a decision so obviously irrevocable that Rachel said no more.  But she would not see the hand that he could afford to hold out to her now; and as for going near his chambers, never, never, though she starved!

“No, I wouldn’t have kept her,” she sobbed in the street; “but she would have kept me!  I know her!  I know her!  She would have had pity on me, in spite of him; but now I can never go near either of them again!”