Rachel hated the condition of mutual secretiveness upon which she had married this man; it was antagonistic to her whole nature; she longed to repudiate it, and to abolish all secrets between them.  But there her pride stepped in and closed her lips; and the intolerable thought that she would value her husband’s confidence more than he would value hers, that she felt drawn to him despite every sinister attribute, would bring humiliation and self-loathing in its train.  It was the truth, however, or, at all events, part of the truth.

Yet a more unfair arrangement Rachel had been unable to conceive, ever since the fatally reckless moment in which she had acquiesced in this one.  The worst that could be known about her was known to her husband before her marriage; she had nothing else to hide; all concealment of the past, as between themselves, was upon his side.  But matters were coming to a crisis in this respect; and, when Rachel deemed it done with, this incident of the tramp was only just begun.

It seemed that the servants knew of it, and that it was not Steel who had originally discovered the sleeping intruder, but an under-gardener, who, seeing his master also up and about, had prudently inquired what was to be done with the man before meddling with him.

“And the master said, ‘leave him to me,’” declared Rachel’s maid, who was her informant on the point, as she combed out her mistress’s beautiful brown hair, before the late breakfast which did away with luncheon when there were no visitors at Normanthorpe.

“And did he do so?” inquired Rachel, looking with interest into her own eyes in the glass.  “Did he leave him to your master?”

“He did that!” replied her maid, a simple Yorkshire wench, whom Rachel herself had chosen in preference to the smart town type.  “Catch any on ’em not doin what master tells them!”

“Then did John see what happened?”

“No, m’m—­because master sent him to see if the chap’d come in at t’ lodge gates, or where, and when he got back he was gone, blanket an’ all, an’ master with him.”

“Blanket and all!” repeated Rachel.  “Do you mean to say he had the impudence to bring a blanket with him?”

“And slept in it!” cried her excited little maid.  “John says he found him tucked up in a corner of the lawn, out of the wind, behind some o’ them shrubs, sound asleep, and lapped round and round in his blue banket from head to heel.”

Rachel saw her own face change in the glass; but she only asked one more question, and that with a smile.

“Did John say it was a blue blanket, Harris, or did your own imagination supply the color?”

“He said it, m’m; faded blue.”

“And pray when did you see John to hear all this?” demanded Rachel, suddenly remembering her responsibility as mistress of this young daughter of the soil.

“Deary me, m’m,” responded the ingenuous Harris, “I didn’t see him, not more than any of the others; he just comed to t’ window of t’ servants’ hall, as we were having our breakfasts, and he told us all at once.  He was that full of it, was John!”