There was a long silence.

“Perhaps,” said Rachel at last, with difficulty, “if I had remained an heiress Mr. Tristram might have married me.  I feel nearly sure he would have married me.  In that case I lost my money only just in time to prevent a much greater misfortune, and I am glad I am as I am.”

Rachel remembered that conversation often in after-years with a sense of thankfulness that for once she, who was so reticent, had let Hester see how dear she was to her.

The two girls stood long together cheek against cheek.

And as Hester leaned against Rachel the yearning of her soul towards her suddenly lit up something which had long lain colossal, but inapprehended, in the depths of her mind.  Her paroxysm of despair at her own powerlessness was followed by a lightning flash of self-revelation.  She saw, as in a dream, terrible, beautiful, inaccessible, but distinct, where her power lay, of which restless bewildering hints had so often mocked her.  She had but to touch the houses and they would fall down.  She held her hands tightly together lest she should do it.  The strength as of an infinite ocean swept in beneath her weakness, and bore it upon its surface like a leaf.

“You must go home,” said Rachel gently, remembering Lady Susan’s punctual habits.

Hester kissed her absently and went out into the new world which had been pressing upon her all her life, the gate of which Love had opened for her.  For Love has many keys besides that of her own dwelling.  Some who know her slightly affirm that she can only open her own cheap patent padlock with a secret word on it that everybody knows.  But some who know her better hold that hers is the master-key which will one day turn all the locks in all the world.

* * * * *

A year later Hester’s first book, An Idyll of East London, was reaping its harvest of astonished indignation and admiration, and her acquaintances—­not her friends—­were still wondering how she came to know so much of a life of which they decided she could know nothing, when suddenly Lady Susan Gresley died, and Hester went to live in the country with her clergyman brother.

A few months later still, and on a mild April day, when the poor London trees had black buds on them, Rachel brushed and folded away in the little painted chest of drawers her few threadbare clothes, and put the boots—­which the cobbler, whose wife she had nursed, had patched for her—­under the shelf which held her few cups and plates and the faithful tin kettle, which had always been a cheerful boiler.  And she washed her seven coarse handkerchiefs, and put them in the washhandstand drawer.  And then she raked out the fire and cleaned the grate, and set the room in order.  It was quickly done.  She took up her hat, which lay beside a bundle on the bed.  Her hands trembled as she put it on.  She looked wistfully round her, and her face worked.  The little room which had looked so alien when she came to it six years ago had become a home.  She went to the window and kissed the pane through which she had learned to see so much.  Then she seized up the bundle and went quickly out, locking the door behind her, and taking the key with her.