You may hold your breath without moving a
muscle, but the muscles will make up for it when their turn comes, and
it was so with Rachel and her nerves; they rose upon her even on the
platform, and she climbed the many stairs in a tremor from head to foot.
And at the top, in the open night, and at all the many corners of a
square that is nothing of the kind, from hoarse throat and on fluttering
placard, it was "Trial and Verdict," or "Sensational Verdict at the Old
Bailey," here as at the other end of the town.
But now all Rachel's thoughts were of this mysterious Mr. Steel; of his
inexplicable behavior towards her, and of her own attitude towards him.
Yet, when all was said, or when all that had been said could be
remembered, would his behavior be found so very inexplicable? Rachel was
not devoid of a proper vanity, albeit that night she had probably less
than most women with a tithe of her personal attractions; and yet upon
reflection she could conceive but one explanation of such conduct in an
elderly man.
"There is no fool like an old fool," quoted Rachel to herself; and it
was remarkable that until this moment she had never thought of Mr.
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