"But over Roddy we _can_ meet. I didn't love him when I married him, but I do now, and we're going to have a child.... That will make us both very happy, I expect. You love Roddy and I love him. You needn't be afraid that I'll harm his memory of you." Her voice was trembling and she was very near to tears. She would have liked to have said something that would have offered some terms of peace between them, something upon which, afterwards, she might look back with comfort. For her that hostility seemed, in the face of death, so small and poor a thing. But no words would come. Her grandmother, in a voice that was very weak, said: "Thank you, Rachel; that's a great relief to me. That's good of you ... and now, my dear, I think Christopher would say that I'd talked enough. Good night." Rachel knew that this was their last meeting, that here was the absolute conclusion of all the years of warfare that there had been between them. There was nothing to say.... She bent down and kissed the dry cheek, waited for an instant, but there was no movement. "Good night, grandmamma," she said. "I hope that you'll be better to-morrow," then softly stole away. III The Duchess lay very still, watching the shadows as they crept across the fields. They were evening shadows now, for the sky, pink like the inside of a shell, had no clouds upon its surface. She would not get up again; this evening should be the last to see her gaze upon the world. It was too fatiguing and all energy had flowed from her, leaving her without desire, without passion, without regret, without fear. Very dreamily and at a great distance figures and scenes from her past life hovered, halted, and passed. But she was not interested, she had forgotten their purpose and meaning, she did not want to think any more. The splashing of the fountain was phantasmal and very far away. The long black shadow crept up the field. She watched it. At the top of the red ridge of field, against the sky-line, very sharp and clear, was a gate, golden now in the sun. When the shadow caught it she would go to bed ... and she would never get up again. She waited lazily, indifferently. The gate was caught; the last gleams of the sun had left the orchard and the evening star glittered in a sky very faintly green. She touched a bell at her side and Dorchester appeared. "I'll go to bed, Dorchester." "Very well, Your Grace." "I shan't get up again. Too much trouble." She turned away from the window and closed her eyes. CHAPTER XII RACHEL, RODDY, LORD JOHN, CHRISTOPHER "'Everybody came in to dinner in the best of spirits.... Everything was discussed.'"--_Inheritance._ I