Mrs. Lytton had been the first to whom he had confided his impending failure, and she, remembering her mother’s last letter and profoundly pitying the young sister who seemed marked for misfortune, had persuaded her husband to offer Hamilton the management of his grazing estates on the eastern end of the Island.  She wrote to Rachael, assuring her of welcome, and reminding her that her story was unknown on St. Croix, that she would be accepted without question as Hamilton’s wife and their sister.  But Rachael knew that the truth would come out as soon as they had attracted the attention of their neighbours, and she had seen enough of the world to be sure that what people tolerated in the wealthy they censured in the unimportant.  To depend upon her sisters’ protection instead of her own lifelong distinction, galled her proud spirit.  For the first time she understood how powerless Hamilton was to protect her.  The glamour of that first year when nothing mattered was gone for ever.  She had two children, one of them uncommon, and they were to encounter life without name or property.  True, Levine might die, or Hamilton make some brilliant coup, but she felt little of the buoyancy of hope as they left the cane-fields and drove among the dark hills to their new home.

The house and outbuildings were on a high eminence, surrounded on three sides by hills.  Below was a lagoon, which was separated from the sea by a deep interval of tidal mud set thick with mangroves.  The outlet through this swamp was so narrow that a shark which had found its way in when young had grown too large to return whence he came, and was the solitary and discontented inhabitant of the lagoon.  The next morning Rachael, rising early and walking on the terrace with Alexander, was horrified to observe him warming his white belly in the sun.  On three sides of the lagoon was a thick grove of manchineels, hung with their deadly apples; here and there a palm, which drooped as if in discord with its neighbours.  It was an uncheerful place for a woman with terror and tumult in her soul, but the house was large and had been made comfortable by her brother-in-laws’ slaves.

Mrs. Lytton and Mrs. Mitchell drove over for the eleven o’clock breakfast.  They were very kind, but they were many years older than the youngest of their family, proudly conscious of their virtue, uncomprehending of the emotions which had nearly wrenched Rachael’s soul from her body more than once.  Moreover, Mrs. Mitchell was the physical image of Mary Fawcett without the inheritance of so much as the old lady’s temper; and there were moments, as she sat chattering amiably with Alexander, with whom she immediately fell in love, when Rachael could have flown at and throttled her because she was not her mother.  Mrs. Lytton was delicate and nervous, but more reserved, and Rachael liked her better.  Nevertheless, she was heartily glad to be rid of both of them, and reflected with satisfaction that she was to live on the most isolated part of the Island.  She had begged them to ask no one to call, and for months she saw little of anybody except her family.