For many days they did not speak of Rachael again; indeed George felt that there was nothing further to say. He feared in his own heart that nothing would ever bring about a change in her feeling, or rather, that the change that had been taking place in her for so many weeks was one that would be lasting, that Rachael was an altered woman. Alice believed this, too, and Rachael believed it most of all. Indeed, over Rachael's torn and shaken spirit there had fallen of late a peace and a sense of security that she had never before known in her life. She tried not to think of Warren any more, or at least to think of him as he had been in the happy days when they had been all in all to each other. If other thoughts would creep in, and her heart grow hot and bitter within her at the memory of her wrongs, she resolutely fought for composure; no matter now what he had been or done, that life was dead. She had her boys, the sunsets and sunrises, the mellowing beauty of the year. She had her books, and above all her memories. And in these memories she found much to blame in herself, but much to pity, too. A rudderless little bark, she had been set adrift in so inviting, so welcoming a sea twenty years ago! She had known that she was beautiful, and that she must marry--what else? What more serious thought ever flitted through the brain of little Rachael Fairfax than that it was a delicious adventure to face life in a rough blue coat and feathered hat, and steer her wild little sails straight into the heart of the great waters? She would have broken Stephen's heart; but Stephen was dead. She had seized upon Clarence with never a thought of what she was to give him, with never a prayer as to her fitness to be his wife, nor his fitness to be the father of her children. She had laughed at self-sacrifice, laughed at endurance, laughed at married love--these things were only words to her. And when she had tugged with all her might at the problem before her, and tried, with her pitiable, untrained strength to force what she wished from Fate, then she had flung the whole thing aside, and rushed on to new experiments--and to new failures. Always on the surface, always thinking of the impression she made on the watching men and women about her, what a life it had been! She had never known who made Clarence's money, what his own father had been like, what the forces were that had formed him, and had made him what he was. He did not please her, that began and ended the story. He had presently flung himself into eternity with as little heed as she had cast herself into her new life.