And his charity
continued behind her back.
"Odd thing," said Sir Baldwin to his hostess, at the earliest
opportunity, "but for the moment I could have sworn that woman was some
one else. May I ask who she is exactly?"
"Sure, Sir Baldwin," replied Mrs. Uniacke, "and that's what I thought we
were to hear at last. It's who she is we none of us know. And what does
it matter? She's pretty and nice, and I'm just in love with her; but
then nobody knows any more about her husband, and so we talk."
A few more questions satisfied the judge that he could not possibly have
been mistaken, and he hesitated a moment, for he was a pious man; but
Rachel's face, combined with her nerve, had deepended an impression
which was now nearly a year old, and the superfluous proximity of an
angular and aquiline lady, to whom Sir Baldwin had not been introduced,
but who was openly hanging upon his words, drove the good man's last
scruple to the winds.
"Very deceptive, these likenesses," said he, raising his voice for the
interloper's benefit; "in future I shall beware of them. I needn't tell
you, Mrs. Uniacke, that I never before set eyes upon the lady whom I
fear I embarrassed by behaving as though I had.
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