Rachel was crouching over the fire as usual, and Janet drew up a stool beside her, and laid a hand on her knee.

“What is it?”

Rachel turned.

“I told you one secret, Janet, the other day.  Now this is another.  And it’s—­” She flushed, and broke off, beginning again after a moment—­“I didn’t mean to tell you, or any one.  I can’t make up my mind whether I’m bound to or not.  But I want you to advise me, Janet.  I’m awfully troubled.”

And suddenly, she slipped to the floor, and laid her head against Janet’s knees, hiding her face.

Janet bent over her, instinctively caressing the brown hair.  She was only three or four years older than Rachel, but she looked much older, and the close linen cap she wore on butter-making afternoons, and had not yet removed, gave her a gently austere look, like that of a religious.

“Tell me—­I’ll do my best.”

“In the first place,” said Rachel, in a low voice, “who do you think was the ghost?”

“What do you mean?”

“The ghost—­was Roger Delane!”

Janet uttered an exclamation of surprise and horror—­while fact after fact rushed together in her mind, fitting into one explanatory whole.  Why had she never thought of that possibility, among all the others?

“Oh, Rachel, have you ever seen him?”

“Twice.  He stopped me on the road, when I was coming back from Millsborough on Armistice Day.  And he came to see me the day after.  You remember you were astonished to find I had sent the girls to the Shepherds’ dance?  I did it to get them out of the way—­and if you hadn’t said you were going to that service I should have had to invent something to send you away.”

“I always thought he was in Canada?” said Janet, in bewilderment.  “What did he want?  Have you told Captain Ellesborough?”

“No, I haven’t told George.  I don’t know whether I shall.  Roger wanted money—­as usual.  I gave him some.”

“You gave him some!  Rachel!”

“I had to—­I had to buy him off.  And I’ve seen John Dempsey also without your knowing.  And I’ve had to bribe him too.”

Rachel was now sitting up, very hard and erect, her hands round her knees.  Her first object seemed to be to avoid emotion, and to prevent Janet from showing any.  Janet had gone very pale.  The name “Dick Tanner” was drumming in her ear.

“I know you can’t understand me, Janet,” said Rachel, after a pause, “you could never do what I’ve done.  I dare say when you’ve let me tell you the story you’ll not be able to forgive me.  You’ll think I ought never to have let you settle with me—­that I told a lie when I said I wasn’t a bad woman—­that I’ve disgraced you.  I hope you won’t.  That—­that would about finish it.”  Her voice shook at last.

Janet was speechless.  But instinctively she laid a hand on Rachel’s shoulder.  And at the touch, in a moment, the story came out.