“But you often have your daughters with you, don’t you?” asked Gerard, feeling as he asked the question, uncomfortably like a spy. “Not so very often,” answered the lady in a tone of mild regret. “Lilian is at school, and I don’t see her except during the holidays. And Rachel lives with Lady Jennings, as perhaps you know. I couldn’t interfere with that arrangement, because, of course, socially it’s such a good thing for my girl to live with a woman who goes about so much as Lady Jennings does. And through Rachel’s pride and energy, she is able to earn her own living and so to keep her independence, while Lady Jennings is very grateful for her help and companionship.” “But isn’t Miss Rachel staying with you now?” asked Gerard, in a stifled voice, remembering that Lady Jennings had said the girl had been with her mother for the past three weeks. “Oh no, I haven’t seen anything of her for more than a month. She’s with Lady Jennings.” Gerard said nothing to this; indeed he felt as if he could not have spoken to save his life. In spite of all the fears and doubts which had previously troubled him concerning Rachel Davison, in spite of what he had seen with his own eyes and heard with his own ears, he had never once supposed her capable of such elaborate and carefully planned deceit as that of which he now found her to be the author. For what was this story, as it was now unfolded to him? Nothing less than a deliberate lie acted continually and consistently, not only to her mother but to Lady Jennings? For the past three weeks each of these two ladies had supposed Rachel to be living with the other, and during that time he himself had had what he now began to think was absolute ocular proof, that she had been living in London disguised as a workgirl all the while. Of course it was true that the hypothesis that she was engaged in sensational journalism held good still. It might be that Rachel, knowing neither her mother nor Lady Jennings would approve of the way in which she would have to gain actual experience by living among people of a much lower social rank than her own, had devised this method of keeping her experiences a secret from them. But even if this were true, Gerard felt that it was too daring a step for a young woman to take without the support and advice of some older member of her own sex. And then--the episode of the flashing ornament handed to the man! He wished that he could do one of two things: either look upon all this that he had heard and seen concerning Rachel and her adventures as the work of imagination, or fact distorted by imagination; or else that he could give up thinking about a girl who, whatever her strength of mind and her brilliancy of intellect, was undoubtedly not entirely to be trusted either in her words or in her conduct. “Oh yes, of course--with Lady Jennings,” he stammered.