The beautiful tune, interwoven for our generation with all that is most poignant in its life, beat on Rachel’s nerves.  It was being sung all over England that Armistice Day, as it had been sung in the first days of the war, joyously, exultingly, yet with catching breath.  There was in it more than thousands of men and women dared to probe, whether of joy or sorrow.  They sang it, with a sob in the throat.  To Rachel, also, sunk in her own terrors, it was almost unbearable.  The pure unspoilt passion of it—­the careless, confident joy—­seemed to make an outcast of her, as she sat there in the dark, dragged back by the shock and horror of Delane’s appearance into the slime and slough of old memories, and struggling with them in vain.  Yes, she was “damaged goods”—­she was unfit to marry George Ellesborough.  But she would marry him!  She set her teeth—­clinging to him with all the energy of a woman’s deepening and maturing consciousness.  She had been a weak and self-willed child when she married Delane—­when she spent those half miserable, half wild days and nights with Dick Tanner.  Now she trusted a good man—­now she looked up and adored.  Her weakness was safe in the care of George Ellesborough’s strength.  Well, then, let her fight for her love.

Presently Janet knocked at the door.  The singing downstairs had ceased.

“Are you tired, Rachel?  Can’t I help you?”

“Just a bit tired.  I’m resting.  I’ll be down directly.”

* * * * *

But the interruption had started fresh anxieties in her mind.  She had paid the most perfunctory attention to the few words Janet had said about Dempsey’s call at the farm, two nights before.  She understood at the time that he had come to chatter about the murder, and was very glad that she had been out of the way.

But now—­what was it that he had said to Janet—­and why had Janet said so little about his visit?

Instead of resting she walked incessantly up and down.  This uncertainty about Janet teased her; but after all it was nothing to that other mystery—­how did Roger know?—­and to the strange and bewildering effect of the juxtaposition of the two men—­their successive appearance in the darkness within—­what?—­ten minutes?—­a quarter of an hour?—­while the cloud was on her own brain—­without apparently any connection between them—­and relevance to each other.  There must have been some connection!  And yet there had been no sign of any personal knowledge of Roger Delane in Dempsey’s talk; and no reference whatever to Dempsey in Delane’s.

She went down to supper, very flushed and on edge.  Little Jenny eyed her surreptitiously.  For the first time the child’s raw innocence was disturbed or jealous.  What did John Dempsey want with calling on Miss Henderson—­and why had he made a rather teasing mystery of it to her, Jenny?  “Wouldn’t you like to know, Miss Inquisitive?” Yes, Jenny would like to know.  Of course Miss Henderson