“The money—­it has something to do with that!” thought Rachel.

“My nephew is not to be trusted,” said Mrs. Maldon again.  “I know all his good points.  But the woman who married him would suffer horribly—­horribly!”

“I’m so sorry you’ve had to say this,” said Rachel, very kindly.  “But I assure you that there’s nothing at all, nothing whatever, between Mr. Fores and me.”  And in that instant she genuinely believed that there was not.  She accepted Mrs. Maldon’s estimate of Louis.  And further, and perhaps illogically, she had the feeling of having escaped from a fatal danger.  She expected Mrs. Maldon to agree eagerly that there was nothing between herself and Louis, and to reiterate her perfect confidence.  But, instead, Mrs. Maldon, apparently treating Rachel’s assurance as negligible, continued with an added solemnity—­

“I shall only live a little while longer—­a very little while.”  The contrast between this and her buoyant announcement on the previous day that she was not going to die just yet was highly disturbing, but Rachel could not protest or even speak.  “A very little while!” repeated Mrs. Maldon reflectively.  “I’ve not known you long—­as you say—­Rachel.  But I’ve never seen a girl I liked more, if you don’t mind me telling you.  I’ve never seen a girl I thought better of.  And I don’t think I could die in peace if I thought Louis was going to cause you any trouble after I’m gone.  No, I couldn’t die in peace if I thought that.”

And Rachel, intimately moved, thought:  “She has saved me from something dreadful!” (Without trying to realize precisely from what.) “How splendid she is!”

And she cast out from her mind all the multitudinous images of Louis Fores that were there.  And, full of affection, and flattered pride and gratitude and childlike admiration, she bent down and rewarded the old woman who had so confided in her with a priceless girlish kiss.  And she had the sensation of beginning a new life.

III

And yet, a few moments later, when Mrs. Maldon faintly murmured, “Some one at the front door,” Rachel grew at once uneasy, and the new life seemed an illusion—­either too fine to be true or too leaden to be desired; and she was swaying amid uncertainties.  Perhaps Louis was at the front door.  He had not yet called; but surely he was bound to call some time during the day!  Of the dozen different Rachels in Rachel, one adventurously hoped that he would come, and another feared that he would come; one ruled him sharply out of the catalogue of right-minded persons, and another was ready passionately to defend him.

“I think not,” said Rachel.

“Yes, dear; I heard some one,” Mrs. Maldon insisted.

Mrs. Maldon, long practised in reconstructing the life of the street from trifling hints of sound heard in bed, was not mistaken.  Rachel, opening the door of the bedroom, caught the last tinkling of the front-door bell below.  On the other side of the front door somebody was standing—­Louis Fores, or another!