In an
instant she was on her feet, the tears still thick in her noble eyes,
but the spirit once more alight behind the tears.
"Don't go!" she begged them, in a voice that pierced one heart at least.
"Stop and help me, for God's sake! I can't bear it. I am not strong
enough. I can only pretend to bear it, for an hour, before the servants.
Even that has almost maddened me, the effort, and the shame."
"The shame is on others," said Steel, gravely enough now, "and not on
you. And who are those others, I should like to know? And what does it
matter what they think or say? A hole-and-corner district like this is
not the world!"
Rachel shook her head sadly; her beautiful eyes were dry now, and only
the more lustrous for the tears that they had shed. Langholm saw nothing
else.
"But it is the world," she asserted. "It is part of the world, and the
same thing would happen in any other part. It would happen in London,
and everywhere else as soon as I became known. And henceforth I mean to
be known!" cried Rachel, wilfully; "there shall be no more hiding who I
was, or am; that is the way to make them think the worst when they find
out.
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