“I will never believe,” said Lady Newhaven, “that you will desert me now, that all the past is nothing to you, and that you will cast me aside for another woman.”

Hugh looked at her steadily.  Then he went up to Rachel, and taking her hand, raised it to his lips.  There was in his manner a boundless reverent adoration that was to Lady Newhaven’s jealousy as a match to gunpowder.

Rachel kept his hand.

“Are you sure you want him, Rachel?” gasped Lady Newhaven, holding convulsively to a chair for support.  “He has cast me aside.  He will cast you aside next, for he is a coward and a traitor.  Are you sure you want to marry him?  His hands are red with blood.  He murdered my husband.”

Rachel’s hand tightened on Hugh’s.

“It was an even chance,” she said.  “Those who draw lots must abide by the drawing.”

“It was an even chance,” shrieked Lady Newhaven.  “But who drew the short lighter, tell me that?  Who refused to fulfil his part when the time was up?  Tell me that.”

“You are mad,” said Rachel.

“I can prove it,” said Lady Newhaven, holding out the letter in her shaking hands.  “You may read it, Rachel.  I can trust you.  Not him, he would burn it.  It is from Edward; look, you know his writing, written to tell me that he,” pointing at Hugh, “had drawn the short lighter, but that, as he had not killed himself when the time came, he, Edward, did so instead.  That was why he was late.  We always wondered, Rachel, why he was two days late.  Read it!  Read it!”

“I will not read it,” said Rachel, pushing away the paper.  “I do not believe a word of it.”

“You shall believe it.  Ask him to deny it, if he can.”

“You need not trouble to deny it,” said Rachel, looking full at Hugh.

The world held only her and him.  And as Hugh looked into her eyes his soul rose up and scaled the heights above it till it stood beside hers.

There is a sacred place where, if we follow close in Love’s footsteps, we see him lay aside his earthly quiver and his bitter arrows, and turn to us as he is, with the light of God upon him, one with us as one with God.  In that pure light lies cease to be.  We know them no more, neither remember them, for love and truth are one.

Hugh strode across to Lady Newhaven, took the letter from her, and threw it into the heart of the fire.  Then he turned to Rachel.

“I drew the short lighter,” he said.  “I meant to take the consequences at first, but when the time came—­I did not.  Partly I was afraid, and partly I could not leave you.”

If Lady Newhaven yearned for revenge she had it then.  They had both forgotten her.  But she saw Rachel’s eyes change as the eyes of a man at the stake might change when the fire reached him.  She shrank back from the agony in them.  Hugh’s face became pinched and thin as a dead man’s.  A moment ago he saw no consequences.  He saw only that he could not lie to her.  His mind fell headlong from its momentary foothold.  What mad impulse had betrayed him to his ruin?