There was no merit even in such frankness as he had shown, since her own, accidental discoveries had forced some measure of honesty upon him.

He had admitted nothing which Rachel could not have deduced from that which she had found out for herself.

She felt as far as ever from any satisfactory clew to his mysterious reasons for ever wishing to marry her.

There lay the kernel of the whole matter, there the problem that she meant to solve.

If her first husband was at the bottom of it, no matter how indirectly, and if she had been married for the dead man's sake, to give his widow a home, then Rachel felt that the last affront had been put upon her, and she would leave this man as she had been within an ace of leaving his friend.