My dear Mrs.Minchin, I had absolutely no right at all; but I had the excuse which every man has who sees a woman left to stand alone against the world, and who thrusts himself, no matter how officiously, into the breach beside her.

And then for a week I had seen you all day and every day, upon your trial!" At last there something with a ring of definite insincerity, something that Rachel could take up; and she gazed upon her self-appointed champion with candid eyes.
"Do you mean to say that you never saw me before--my trouble, Mr.
Steel ?" "Never in my life, my dear lady." "Then you knew something about me or mine!" "What one read in the newspapers--neither more nor less--upon my most solemn word--if that will satisfy you." And it did; for if there had been palpable insincerity in his previous protestations, there was sincerity of a still more obvious order in Mr.
Steel's downright assurances on these two points.

He had never ever seen her before.

He knew nothing whatever about her up to the period of notoriety; he had no special and no previous knowledge of his own.

It might not be true, of course; but there was that in the deep-set eyes which convinced Rachel once and for all.