"I don't quite know what right you think you have to ask me such a question, Mrs. Venables. Is it the usual thing to question people who have made a second marriage—supposing I am one—about their first? I fancied myself that it was considered bad form; but then I am still very ignorant of the manners and customs in this part of the world. Since you ask it, however, you shall have your answer." And Rachel's voice rang out through the room, as she rose majestically from the chair which she had drawn opposite that of the visitor. "Yes, Mrs. Venables, I am that unhappy woman. And what then?"
"No wonder you were silent about yourself," said Mrs. Venables, in a vindictive murmur. "No wonder we never even heard—"
"And what then?" repeated Rachel, with a quiet and compelling scorn. "Does it put one outside the local pale to keep to oneself any painful incident in one's own career? Is an accusation down here the same thing as a conviction? Is there nothing to choose between 'guilty' and 'not guilty'?"
"You must be aware," proceeded Mrs. Venables, without taking any notice of these questions—"indeed, you cannot fail to be perfectly well aware—that a large proportion of the public was dissatisfied with the verdict in your case."
"Your husband, for one!" Rachel agreed, with a scornful laugh. "He would have come to see me hanged; he told me so at his own table."
"You never would have been at his table," retorted Mrs. Venables, with some effect, "if he or I had dreamt who you were; but now that we know, you may be quite sure that none of us will sit at yours."
And Mrs. Venables rose up in all her might and spite, her brown eyes flashing, her handsome head thrown back.
"Are you still speaking for the district?" inquired Rachel, conquering a recreant lip to put the question, and putting it with her finest scorn.
"I am speaking for Mr. Venables, my daughters, and myself," rejoined the lady with great dignity; "others will speak for themselves; and you will soon learn in what light you are regarded by ordinary people. It is a merciful chance that we have found you out—a merciful chance! That you should dare—you, about whom there are not two opinions among sensible people—that you should dare to come among us as you have done and to speak to me as you have spoken! But one thing is certain—it is for the last time."
With that Mrs. Venables sailed to the door by which she was to make her triumphant exit, but she stopped before reaching it. Steel stood before her on the threshold, and as he stood he closed the door behind him, and as he closed it he turned and took out the key. There was the other door that led through the conservatory into the garden. Without a word he crossed the room, shut that door also, locked it, and put the two keys in his pocket. Then at last he turned to the imprisoned lady.
"You are quite right, Mrs. Venables. It is the last conversation we are likely to have together. The greater the pity to cut it short!"
"Will you have the goodness to let me go?" the visitor demanded, white and trembling, but not yet unimpressive in her tremendous indignation.
"With the greatest alacrity," replied Steel, "when you have apologized to my wife."
Rachel stood by without a word.
"For what?" cried Mrs. Venables. "For telling her what the whole world thinks of her? Never; and you will unlock that door this instant, unless you wish my husband to—to—horsewhip you within an inch of your life!"
Steel merely smiled; he could well afford to do so, lithe and supple as he still was, with flabby Mr. Venables in his mind's eye.
"I might have known what to expect in this house," continued Mrs. Venables, in a voice hoarse with suppressed passion, "what unmanly and ungentlemanly behavior, what cowardly insults! I might have known!"
And she glanced from the windows to the bells.
"It is no use ringing," said Steel, with a shake of his snowy head, "or doing anything else of the sort. I am the only person on the premises who can let you out; your footman could not get in if he tried; but if you like I shall shout to him to try. As for insults, you have insulted my wife most cruelly and gratuitously, for I happen to have heard more than you evidently imagine. In fact, 'insult' is hardly the word for what even I have heard you say; let me warn you, madam, that you have sailed pretty close to the wind already in the way of indictable slander. You seem to forget that my wife was tried and acquitted by twelve of her fellow-countrymen. You will at least apologize for that forgetfulness before you leave this room."
"Never!"
Steel looked at his watch and sat down. "I begin to fear you are no judge of character, Mrs. Venables; otherwise you would have seen ere this which of us will have to give in sooner or later. I can only tell you which of us never will!"
And Rachel still stood by without a word.
Chapter XVII
Friends in Need
That afternoon the Vicar of Marley was paying house-to-house visits among his humbler parishioners. Though his conversation was the weak point to which attention has been drawn, Hugh Woodgate nevertheless possessed the not too common knack of chatting with the poor. He had the simplicity which made them kin, and his sympathy, unlike that of so many persons who consider themselves sympathetic, was not exclusively reserved for the death-bed and the ruined home. He wrote letters for the illiterate, found places for the unemployed, knew one baby from another as soon as their own mothers, and with his own hand sent to the local papers full reports of the village matches in which he rarely scored a run. Until this August afternoon he was not aware that he had made an actual enemy in all the years that he had spent in Delverton, first as an overworked Northborough curate, and latterly as one of the busiest country vicars in the diocese. But towards five o'clock, as Mr. Woodgate was returning to the Vicarage, a carriage and pair, sweeping past him in a cloud of dust, left the clergyman quite petrified on the roadside, his soft felt hat still in his hand; the carriage contained Mrs. Venables, who had simply stared him in the face when he took it off.
Woodgate was quite excited when he reached the Vicarage. Morna met him in the garden.
"Mrs. Venables cut me dead!" he cried while they were still yards apart.
"I am not surprised," replied Morna, who was in a state of suppressed excitement herself.
"But what on earth is the meaning of it?"
"She has just been here."
"Well?"
"She is not likely to come again. Oh, Hugh, I don't know how to tell you! If you agree with her for a moment, if you see any possible excuse for the woman, it will break my heart!"
Morna's fine eyes were filled with tears; the sight of them put out the flame that had leapt for once from stolid Hugh, and he took her hand in his own great soothing grasp.
"Come and sit down," he said, "and tell me all about it. Have I ever taken anybody's part against you, Morna, that you should think me likely to begin now?"
"No; but you would if you thought they were right and I was wrong."
Hugh reflected until they reached the garden-seat upon the lawn.
"Well, not openly, at all events," said he; "and not under any circumstances I can conceive in which Mrs. Venables was the other person."
"But she isn't the only other person; that is just it. Oh, Hugh, you do like Rachel, don't you?"
"I do," he said emphatically. "But surely you haven't been quarrelling with her?"
"No, indeed! And that is exactly why I have quarrelled with Mrs. Venables, because I wouldn't refuse to go to the dinner-party at Normanthorpe to-night!"
Woodgate was naturally nonplussed.
"Wouldn't