She crept to the King’s road, and returned with a few sandwiches, walking better in her eagerness to break a fast which she had only felt since excitement had given place to despair.  But now it was making her faint and ill.  And she hurried, weary though she was.

But in the little street itself she stood aghast.  A crowd filled it; the crowd stood before the empty house of sorrow and of crime; and in a moment Rachel saw the cause.

It was her own fault.  She had left the light burning in the upper room, the bedroom on the second floor.

Rachel joined the skirts of the crowd—­drawn by an irresistible fascination—­and listened to what was being said.  All eyes were upon the lighted window of the bedroom—­watching for herself, as she soon discovered—­and this made her doubly safe where she stood behind the press.

“She’s up there, I tell yer,” said one.

“Not her!  It’s a ghost.”

“Her ’usband’s ghost, then.”

“But vere’s a chap ’ere wot sore ’er fice to fice in the next street; an’ followed ’er and ‘eard the door go; an’ w’en ’e come back wiv ’is pals, vere was vat light.”

“Let’s ’ave ’er aht of it.”

“Yuss, she ain’t no right there.”

“No; the condemned cell’s the plice for ’er!”

“Give us a stone afore the copper comes!”

And Rachel saw the first stone flung, and heard the first glass break; and within a very few minutes there was not a whole pane left in the front of the house; but that was all the damage which Rachel herself saw done.

A hand touched her lightly on the shoulder.

“Do you still pin your faith to the man in the street?” said a voice.

And, though she had heard it for the first time that very evening, it was a voice that Rachel seemed to have known all her life.

CHAPTER VI

A PERIPATETIC PROVIDENCE

“Do you still pin your faith to the man in the street?”

It was Mr. Steel who stood at Rachel’s elbow, repeating his question word for word; but he did not repeat it in the same tone.  There was an earnest note in the lowered voice, an unspoken appeal to her to admit the truth and be done with proud pretence.  And indeed the pride had gone out of Rachel at sight of him; a delicious sense of safety filled her heart instead.  She was as one drowning, and here was a strong swimmer come to her rescue in the nick of time.  What did it matter who or what he was?  She felt that he was strong to save.  Yet, as the nearly drowned do struggle with their saviours, so Rachel must fence instinctively with hers.

“I never did pin my faith to him,” said she.

“Yet see the risk that you are running!  If he turns round—­if any one of them turns round and recognizes you—­listen to that!”

It was only the second window, but a third and a fourth followed like shots from the same revolver.  Rachel winced.