Mrs. Venables suppressed a smile suggestive of some unconscious humor in these remarks, but sat more upright than ever in her chair, with a hard light in the bright brown eyes that stared serenely into Rachel’s own.

“I cannot say I came to offer you my assistance, Mrs. Steel.  I only take liberties with very intimate friends.”

“Then I wonder what can have brought you!”

And Rachel returned both the smile and the stare with irritating self-control.

“I will tell you,” said Mrs. Venables, weightily.  “There is a certain thing being said of you, Mrs. Steel; and I wish to know from your own lips whether there is any truth in it or none.”

Rachel held up her hands as quick as thought.

“My dear Mrs. Venables, you can’t mean that you are bringing me a piece of unpleasant gossip on the very afternoon of my first dinner-party?”

“It remains with you,” said Mrs. Venables, changing color at this hit, “to say whether it is mere gossip or not.  You must know, Mrs. Steel, though we were all quite charmed with your husband from the moment he came among us, we none of us had the least idea where he came from nor have we yet.”

“You are speaking for the neighborhood?” inquired Rachel, sweetly.

“I am,” said Mrs. Venables.

“Town and county,” murmured Rachel.  “And you mean that nobody in the district knew anything at all about my husband?”

“Not a thing,” said Mrs. Venables.

“And yet you called on him; and yet you took pity on him, poor lonely bachelor that he was!”

This shaft also left its momentary mark upon the visitor’s complexion.  “The same applies to you,” she went on the more severely.  “We had no idea who you were, either!”

“And now?” said Rachel, still mistress of the situation, for she knew so well what was coming.

“And now we hear, and I wish to know whether it is true or not.  Were you, or were you not, the Mrs. Minchin who was tried last winter for her husband’s murder?”

Rachel looked steadily into the hard brown eyes, until a certain hardness came into her own.

“I don’t quite know what right you think you have to ask me such a question, Mrs. Venables.  Is it the usual thing to question people who have made a second marriage—­supposing I am one—­about their first?  I fancied myself that it was considered bad form; but then I am still very ignorant of the manners and customs in this part of the world.  Since you ask it, however, you shall have your answer.”  And Rachel’s voice rang out through the room, as she rose majestically from the chair which she had drawn opposite that of the visitor.  “Yes, Mrs. Venables, I am that unhappy woman.  And what then?”

“No wonder you were silent about yourself,” said Mrs. Venables, in a vindictive murmur.  “No wonder we never even heard—­”

“And what then?” repeated Rachel, with a quiet and compelling scorn.  “Does it put one outside the local pale to keep to oneself any painful incident in one’s own career?  Is an accusation down here the same thing as a conviction?  Is there nothing to choose between ‘guilty’ and ’not guilty’?”