Presently she looked up.

“Now I see how much I should have to gain.  But what would you gain?”

The question was no sooner asked than Rachel foresaw the pretty speech which was its obvious answer.  Mr. Steel, however, refrained from making it.

“I am an oldish man,” he said, “and—­yes, there is no use in denying that I am comfortably off.  I want a wife; or rather, my neighbors seem bent upon finding me one; and, if the worst has to come to the worst, I prefer to choose for myself.  Matrimony, however, is about the very last state of life that I desire, and I take it to be the same with you.  Therefore—­to put the cart before the horse—­you would suit me ideally.  One’s own life would be unaltered, but the Delverton mothers would cease from troubling, and at the head of my establishment there would be a lady of whom I should be most justly proud.  And even in my own life I should, I hope, be the more than occasional gainer by her society; may I also add, by her sympathy, by her advice?  Mrs. Minchin,” cried Steel, with sudden feeling, “the conditions shall be very rigid; my lawyer shall see to that; nor shall I allow myself a loophole for any weakness or nonsense whatsoever in the future.  Old fellows like myself have made fools of themselves before to-day, but you shall be safeguarded from the beginning.  Let there be no talk or thought of love between us from first to last!  But as for admiration, I don’t mind telling you that I admire you as I never admired any woman in the world before; and I hope, in spite of that, we shall be friends.”

Still the indicative mood, still not for a moment the conditional!  Rachel did not fail to make another note; but now there was nothing bitter even in her thoughts.  She believed in this man, and in his promises; moreover, she began to focus the one thing about him in which she disbelieved.  It was his feeling towards her—­nothing more and nothing else.  There he was insincere; but it was a pardonable insincerity, after all.

Of his admiration she was convinced; it had been open and honest all along; but there was something deeper than admiration.  He could say what he liked.  The woman knew.  And what could it be but love?

The woman knew; and though the tragedy of her life was so close behind her; nay, though mystery and suspicion encompassed her still, as they might until her death, the woman thrilled.

It was a thrill of excitement chiefly, but excitement was not the only element.  There was the personal factor, too; there was the fascination which this man had for her, which he could exert at will, and which he was undoubtedly exerting now.

To escape from his eyes, to think but once more for herself, and by herself, Rachel rose at last, and looked from the window which lit this recess.

It was the usual November day in London; no sun; a mist, but not a fog; cabmen in capes, horses sliding on the muddy street, well-dressed women picking their way home from church—­shabby women hurrying in shawls—­hurrying as Rachel herself had done the night before—­as she might again to-night.  And whither?  And whither, in all the world?