Why had he not told her about Australia, at all events?  What conceivable harm could that have done?  It would have been the strongest possible bond between them.  But Rachel went further as she thought more.  Why not have told her frankly that he had known Alexander Minchin years before she did herself?  It could have made no difference after Alexander Minchin’s death; then why had be kept the fact so jealously to himself?  And the dead man’s painted eyes answered “Why?” with the bold and mocking stare his wife could not forget, a stare which at that moment assumed a new and sinister significance in her sight.

Rachel looked upward through the window, which was barred, and almost totally eclipsed by shrubs; but a clout of sky was just visible under the architrave.  It was a very gray sky; gray also was Rachel’s face in the sudden grip of horror and surmise.  Then a ragged edge of cloud caught golden fire, a glimmer found its way into the dust and dirt of the secret chamber, and Rachel relaxed with a slight smile but an exceedingly decided shake of the head.  Thereafter she escaped incontinently, but successfully, as she had entered; closed the hidden door behind her, and restored The Faerie Queene very carefully to its place.  Rachel no longer proposed to join the select band of those who have read that epic through.

CHAPTER XIV

BATTLE ROYAL

She went to her own rooms to think and to decide; and what she first thought and then decided was sensible enough.  She was thankful she had not been caught like Fatima in the forbidden room; not that she lacked the courage to meet the consequences of her acts, but it would have put her in the wrong and at a disadvantage at the first crash of battle.  And a battle royal Rachel quite expected; nor had she the faintest intention of disguising what she had done; but it was her husband who was to be taken aback, for a change.

The Steels dined alone, as usual, or as much alone as a man and his wife with a butler and two footmen are permitted to be at their meals.  Steel was at his best after these jaunts of his to Northborough and the club.  He would come home with the latest news from that centre of the universe, the latest gossip which had gone the rounds on ’Change and at lunch, the newest stories of Mr. Venables and his friends, which were invariably reproduced for Rachel’s benefit with that slight but unmistakable local accent of which these gentry were themselves all unconscious.  Steel had a wicked wit, and Rachel as a rule a sufficiently appreciative smile, but this was to-night either lacking altogether or of an unconvincing character.  Rachel could never pretend, and her first spontaneous remark was when her glass filled up with froth.

“Champagne!” said she, for they seldom drank it.

“It has been such a wretched day,” explained Steel, “that I ordered it medicinally.  I am afraid it must have been perishing here, as it was in the town.  This is to restore your circulation.”