“How if the dead past comes and crosses your path, and looks you in the face?”

“What do you mean, Rachel?”

“You will think me weak and contemptible, but I must confess to you the cause of my late prostration.”

“Yes, do; it may be a relief.”

“About a month ago,” said Rachel, sitting down by the table opposite Katherine, and again resting her elbow on it, while she half hid her face by placing her open hand over her eyes, “I was walking to Mrs. Needham’s with some work I had finished, when, turning into Lowndes Square, I came face to face with—­him.  It is true I had a thick veil on, and my large parcel must have partially disguised me, but he did not recognize me.  He passed me with the most unconscious composure, and he was looking better, brighter, than I had ever seen him.  The sight of him brought back all the torturing pangs of helpless sorrow for the sweetness, the intense happiness I can never know again; the stinging shame, the poison of crushed hopes, the profound contempt for myself, the sense of being of no value to any one on earth.  I think if I could have spoken to you, I might have shaken off these fiends of thought; but I was alone, always alone:  why should I live?”

“Rachel, you must put this cruel man out of your mind.  He has been the destroyer of your life.  Try and cast the idea of the past from you.  Life is too abundant to be exhausted by one sorrow.  You have years before you in which to build up a new existence and find consolation.  I will not listen to another word about your former life; let us only look forward.  I have a plan for you—­at least Mr. Payne has suggested the idea—­in which you can help us and others, and which will need all your time and energy.  But I will not even talk of this business.  We must try lighter and pleasanter topics.  Not another word about by-gone days will I speak.  You have started afresh under my auspices, and I mean you to float.  Now that you are here, Rachel, you must read amusing books, and be out in the open air all day.  You will be a new creature in a week.  You must come and see my cottage and my nephews; they are dear little fellows.  Are you fond of children?”

“I don’t think I am.  I never had anything to do with them.  But I would rather not go to your house, dear Miss Liddell.  I feel as if I could not brave Miss Payne’s eyes.”

“That is mere morbidness.  There is no reason why you should fear any one.  You must discount your future rights.  A few years hence, when you are a new woman, you will, I am sure, look back with wonder and pity as if reading the memoir of another.  I know that spells of self-forgiveness come to us mercifully.”