“Would you really?”

Morna started to her feet.  The vicar rose more slowly, after sitting for some moments in mute confusion.  It was Mrs. Steel who stood before them on their lawn, pale as death, and ten years older since the day before, yet with a smile upon her bloodless lips, which appeared indeed to express some faint irresistible amusement.

“Would you really like to know?” she repeated, standing at a distance from them, her great eyes travelling from one to the other.  “It is strange, because I had come on purpose to tell you both that and all the rest—­but especially all the rest—­in which it seems Mrs. Venables has been before me.”  She paused an instant, and the corners of her sad mouth twitched just once.  “What my husband did,” said Rachel, “was to lock the doors and refuse to let her out until she had begged my pardon.”

“I hope she did so,” said Hugh Woodgate, with the emphasis which often atoned for the inadequacy of his remarks.

“In about three minutes,” replied Rachel, dryly, with some pride, but no triumph in her tone.

Morna had not spoken.  Now she took a quick step forward, her eyes brimming.  But Rachel held up her hand.

“You are sure you realize who I am?”

“Yes, Rachel.”

“Rachel Minchin!” added Rachel, harshly.  “The notorious Mrs. Minchin—­the Mrs. Minchin whom Mr. Venables would have come to see hanged!”

“Hush, Rachel, hush!”

“Then be honest with me—­mind, honest—­not kind!  You would not have said what Mrs. Venables said to me; she said that all the world believed me guilty.  You would not have said that, Morna; but are you sure you would not have said it in your heart?  Can you look me in the face and tell me you don’t believe it, like all the rest of the world?”

There was no faltering of the firm, sweet voice; it was only unutterably sad.

And Morna answered it only with a sob, as she flung her arms round Rachel’s neck, while her husband waited with outstretched hand.

CHAPTER XVIII

“THEY WHICH WERE BIDDEN”

The rose-covered cottage of Charles Langholm’s dreams, which could not have come true in a more charming particular, stood on a wooded hill at the back of a village some three miles from Normanthorpe.  It was one of two cottages under the same tiled roof, and in the other there lived an admirable couple who supplied all material wants of the simple life which the novelist led when at work.  In his idle intervals the place knew him not; a nomadic tendency was given free play, and the man was a wanderer on the face of Europe.  But he wandered less than he had done from London, finding, in his remote but fragrant corner of the earth, that peace which twenty years of a strenuous manhood had taught him to value more than downright happiness.