I opened it eagerly.  To my surprise and disappointment, it began with an apology warning me to expect no news of any importance.  In the next sentence the everlasting Ezra Jennings appeared again!  He had stopped Betteredge on the way out of the station, and had asked who I was.  Informed on this point, he had mentioned having seen me to his master Mr. Candy.  Mr. Candy hearing of this, had himself driven over to Betteredge, to express his regret at our having missed each other.  He had a reason for wishing particularly to speak to me; and when I was next in the neighbourhood of Frizinghall, he begged I would let him know.  Apart from a few characteristic utterances of the Betteredge philosophy, this was the sum and substance of my correspondent’s letter.  The warm-hearted, faithful old man acknowledged that he had written “mainly for the pleasure of writing to me.”

I crumpled up the letter in my pocket, and forgot it the moment after, in the all-absorbing interest of my coming interview with Rachel.

As the clock of Hampstead church struck three, I put Mr. Bruff’s key into the lock of the door in the wall.  When I first stepped into the garden, and while I was securing the door again on the inner side, I own to having felt a certain guilty doubtfulness about what might happen next.  I looked furtively on either side of me; suspicious of the presence of some unexpected witness in some unknown corner of the garden.  Nothing appeared, to justify my apprehensions.  The walks were, one and all, solitudes; and the birds and the bees were the only witnesses.

I passed through the garden; entered the conservatory; and crossed the small drawing-room.  As I laid my hand on the door opposite, I heard a few plaintive chords struck on the piano in the room within.  She had often idled over the instrument in this way, when I was staying at her mother’s house.  I was obliged to wait a little, to steady myself.  The past and present rose side by side, at that supreme moment—­and the contrast shook me.

After the lapse of a minute, I roused my manhood, and opened the door.

CHAPTER VII

At the moment when I showed myself in the doorway, Rachel rose from the piano.

I closed the door behind me.  We confronted each other in silence, with the full length of the room between us.  The movement she had made in rising appeared to be the one exertion of which she was capable.  All use of every other faculty, bodily or mental, seemed to be merged in the mere act of looking at me.

A fear crossed my mind that I had shown myself too suddenly.  I advanced a few steps towards her.  I said gently, “Rachel!”