And of his character she formed by degrees some remote conception; he was Steel by name and steel by nature, as the least observant might discern, and the least witty remark; a grim inscrutability was his dominant note; he was darkly alert, mysteriously vigilant, a measurer of words, a governor of glances; and yet, with all his self-mastery and mastery of others, there were human traits that showed themselves from time to time as the months wore on.  Rachel did not recognize among these that studious consideration which she could still appreciate; it seemed rather part of a preconceived method of treating his wife, and the wary eye gleamed through it all.  But it has been mentioned that Rachel at one time had a voice, of which high hopes had been formed by inexperienced judges.  It was only at Normanthorpe that her second husband became aware of her possession, one afternoon when she fancied that she had the house to herself.  So two could play at the game of consistent concealment!  He could not complain; it was in the bond, and he never said a word.  But he stood outside the window till she was done, for Rachel saw him in a mirror, and for many an afternoon to come he would hover outside the same window at the same time.

Why had he married her?  Did he care for her, or did he not?  What could be the object of that extraordinary step?  Rachel was as far from hitting upon a feasible solution of these mysteries as she was from penetrating the deeper one of his own past life.  Sometimes she put the like questions to herself; but they were more easily answered.  She had been in desperate straits, in reckless despair; even if her second marriage had turned out no better than her first, she could not have been worse off than she was on the night of her acquittal; but she had been very well off ever since.  Then there had been the incentive of adventure, the fascination of that very mystery which was a mystery still.  And then—­yes!—­there had been the compelling will of a nature infinitely stronger than her own or any other that she had ever known.

Did she regret this second marriage, this second leap in the dark?  No, she could not honestly pretend that she did; yet it had its sufficiently sinister side, its occasional admixture of sheer horror.  But this was only when the mysteries which encompassed her happened to prey upon nerves unstrung by some outwardly exciting cause; it was then she would have given back all that he had ever given her to pierce the veil of her husband’s past.  Here, however, the impulse was more subtle; it was not the mere consuming curiosity which one in Rachel’s position was bound to feel; it was rather a longing to be convinced that that veil hid nothing which should make her shudder to live under the same roof with this man.