rather than have done what she was doing now. The man had cast a spell
upon her; and for the present she did feel safe in his hands. But with
that unmistakable sense of immediate security there mingled a subtler
premonition of ultimate danger, to which Rachel had felt alive from the
first. And this was the keenest stimulus of all.

What was his intention, and what his object? To draw back was to find
out neither; and to say the truth, even if she had not been friendless
and forlorn, Rachel would have been very sorry to draw back now.

The raw air in her face had greatly revived her; the sights and lights
of the town were still new and dear to her; she had come back to the
world with a vengeance, to a world of incident and interest, with an
adventure ready waiting to take her out of her past self!

But it was only her companion's silence which enabled Rachel to realize
her strange fortune at this stage, and she had to put her question
point-blank before she obtained any answer at all.

"If you insist upon hearing all the little details to-night," said
Steele, with a good-humored shrug, "well, I suppose you must hear them;
but I hope you will not insist. I have had to make provisions which you
may very possibly resent, but I thought it would be time enough for us
to quarrel about them in the morning. To-night you need rest and
sustenance, but no excitement; of that God knows you have had enough! No
one will come near you but the maid of whom I spoke; no questions will
be put to you; everything is arranged. But to-morrow, if you feel equal
to it, you shall hear all about me, and form your own cool judgment of
my behavior towards you. Meanwhile won't you trust me--implicitly--until
then?"