Rachel arrived after tea at Wilderleigh, and went straight to her room on a plea of fatigue.  It was a momentary cowardice that tempted her to yield to her fatigue.  She felt convinced that she should meet Hugh Scarlett at Wilderleigh.  She had no reason for the conviction beyond the very inadequate one that she had met him at Sybell’s London house.  Nevertheless, she felt sure that he would be among the guests, and she longed for a little breathing-space after parting with Lady Newhaven before she met him.  Presently Sybell flew in and embraced her with effusion.

“Oh! what you have missed!” she said, breathlessly.  “But you do look tired.  You were quite right to lie down before dinner, only you aren’t lying down.  We have had such a conversation down-stairs.  The others are all out boating with Doll but Mr. Harvey, the great Mr. Harvey, you know.”

“I am afraid I don’t know.”

“Oh yes, you do.  The author of Unashamed.”

“I remember now.”

“Well, he is here, resting after his new book, Rahab.  And he has been reading us the opening chapters, just to Miss Barker and me.  It is quite wonderful.  So painful, you know.  He does not spare the reader anything; he thinks it wrong to leave out anything—­but so powerful!”

“Is it the same Miss Barker whom I met at your house in the season, who denounced The Idyll?”

“Yes.  How she did cut it up!  You see, she knows all about East London, and that sort of thing.  I knew you would like to meet her again because you are philanthropic, too.  She hardly thought she could spare the time to come, but she thought she would go back fresher if the wail were out of her ears for a week.  The wail!  Isn’t it dreadful?  I feel we ought to do more than we do, don’t you?”

“We ought, indeed.”

“But then, you see, as a married woman, I can’t leave my husband and child and bury myself in the East End, can I?”

“Of course not.  But surely it is an understood thing that marriage exempts women from all impersonal duties.”

“Yes, that is just it.  How well you put it!  But others could.  I often wonder why, after writing The Idyll, Hester never goes near East London.  I should have gone straight off, and have cast in my lot with them if I had been in her place.”

“Do you ever find people do what you would have done if you had been in their place?”

“No, never.  They don’t seem to see it.  It’s a thing I can’t understand the way people don’t act up to their convictions.  And I do know, though I would not tell Hester so for worlds, that the fact that she goes on living comfortably in the country after bringing out that book makes thoughtful people, not me, of course, but other earnest-minded people, think she is a humbug.”

“It would—­naturally,” said Rachel.

“Well, now I am glad you agree with me, for I said something of the same kind to Mr. Scarlett last night, and he could not see it.  He’s rather obtuse.  I dare say you remember him?”