JULIAN MALDON.

“But what does he mean?” demanded Rachel, roused from her heavy mood of self-pity.

“I don’t know.”

“But what can he mean?” she insisted.

“Haven’t a notion.”

“But he must mean something!”

Louis asked—­

“Well, what should you say he means?”

“How very strange!” Rachel murmured, not attempting to answer the question.  “And the ‘Three Tuns’!  Why does he write from the ’Three Tuns’?  What’s he doing at the ‘Three Tuns’?  Isn’t it a very low public-house?  And everybody thought he was still in South Africa!...  I suppose, then, it must have been him that we saw to-night.”

“You may bet it was.”

“Then why didn’t he come straight here?  That’s what I want to know.  He couldn’t have called before we got here, because if he had Mrs. Tams would have told us.”

Louis nodded.

“Didn’t you think Mr. Batchgrew looked very queer when you mentioned Julian to-night?” Rachel continued to express her curiosity and wonder.

“No.  I didn’t notice anything particular,” Louis replied vaguely.

Throughout the conversation his manner was self-conscious.  Rachel observed it, while feigning the contrary, and in her turn grew uneasy and even self-conscious also.  Further, she had the feeling that Louis was depending upon her for support, and perhaps for initiative.  His glance, though furtive, had the appealing quality which rendered him sometimes so exquisitely wistful to her.  As he stood over her by the bed, he made a peculiar compound of the negligent, dominant masculine and the clinging feminine.

“And why didn’t he let anybody know of his return?” Rachel went on.

Louis, veering towards the masculine, clenched the immediate point—­

“The question before the meeting is,” he smiled demurely, “what answer am I to send?”

“I suppose you must see him to-night.”

“Nothing else for it, is there?  Well, I’ll scribble him a bit of a note.”

“But I shan’t see him, Louis.”

“No?”

In an instant Rachel thought to herself:  “He doesn’t want me to see him.”

Aloud she said:  “I should have to dress myself all over again. 
Besides, I’m not fit to be seen.”

She was referring, without any apparent sort of shame, to the redness of her eyes.

“Well, I’ll see him by myself, then.”

Louis turned to leave the bedroom.  Whereat Rachel was very disconcerted and disappointed.  Although the startling note from Julian had alarmed her and excited in her profound apprehensions whose very nature she would scarcely admit to herself, the main occupation of her mind was still her own quarrel with Louis.  The quarrel was now over, for they had conversed in quite sincere tones of friendliness, but she had desired and expected an overt, tangible proof and symbol of peace.  That proof and symbol was a kiss.