“If you love, you will be born again; and if this man overmasters your imagination, your memory might quite as well be dead.  One of the three or four things in my life that I have to be thankful for is that I never had to pass through that ordeal.  You are far dearer to me than I ever was to myself, and if you are called upon to go through that wretched experience, whose consequences never finish, and I with so little time left in which to stand by and protect you—­” She changed abruptly.  “Promise me that you will do nothing unconsidered, that you will not behave like the ordinary Francesca—­for whom I have always had the most unmitigated contempt.  The hour.  The man.  The fall.  The wail:  ’The earth rocked, the stars fell.  I knew not what I did!’ You have deliberation and judgement.  Use them now—­and do not ramble alone in the gorge with this handsome Scot—­for he is a fine man; I would I could deny it.  I felt his charm, although he did not open his mouth.”

Rachael’s eyes flashed.  “Ah! did you?” she cried.  “Well, but what of that?  Are not our creoles a handsome race, and have not all but a few been educated in England?  Yes, I will promise you—­if you think all this is serious enough to require a promise.”

“But you care so little for the world.  You would be sacrificing so much less than other women—­nevertheless it would make you wretched and humiliate just as much; do not forget that.  I almost am tempted to wish that you had a lighter nature—­that you would flirt with love and brush it away, while the world was merely amused at a suspected gallantry.  But you—­you would love for a lifetime, and you would end by living with him openly.  There is no compromise in you.”

“Surely we have become more serious than an afternoon’s talk with an interesting stranger should warrant.  I am full of a sudden longing for the world, and who knows but I shall become so wedded to it that I would yield it for no man?  Besides, do I not live to make you happy, to reward as best I can your unselfish devotion?  If ever I could love any man more than I love you, then that love would be overwhelming indeed.  But although I can imagine myself forgetting the world in such a love, I cannot picture you on the sacrificial altar.”

IX

Rachael was asleep when Dr. Hamilton called.  Mistress Fawcett received him in the library, which was at the extreme end of the long house.  He laughed so heartily at her fears that he almost dispelled them.  Whatever he anticipated in Rachael’s future, he had no mind to apprehend danger in every man who interested her.