The Shadow of the Rope

ery quietly to herself. "Not another day, no

ornful curve of quivering nostrils, the dry lustre of flashing eyes. But while she stood a heavy

uses in London; but this one had latterly been the scene of an equally undistinguished drama of real life, upon which the c

more gentle than practical, who soon left her to fight the world and the devil with no other armory than a good face, a fine nature, and the pride of any heiress. It is true that Rachel also had a voice; but there was never enough of it to augur an inco

European scheme; a husband was the last thing Rachel wanted; but a long sea voyage, an uncongenial employ, and the persistent chivalry of a handsome, entertaining, self-confident man of the world, formed a combination as fatal to her inexperience as that of so much poverty, pride, and beauty proved to Alexander Minchin. They were married without ceremony on the very day that they arrive

itted; but here he gambled, there he drank; and in his cups every virtue dissolved. Rachel's pride did not mend matters; she was a thought too ready with her resentment; of this, however, she was herself

Minchin to finer gambling than he had found abroad. The man was bitten. There was a fortune waiting for special knowledge and a little ready cash; and Alexander Minchin settl

chel, "nor a night-if I ca

ming of doors below and another noise at the top of the house was not one of many minutes. The other noise was made by Ra

ese stairs are so very narrow. No, thank you, I can manag

nny of the normal man. But she was going, whether or no; not another day-though she would doubtless see its dawn. It was the month of September. And she was not going to fly empty-handed, nor fly at all; she was going deliberately away, with a trunk containing all that she should want upon the voyage. The selection was not too e

fingers for passage-money. Yet the exigency troubled her; it touched her honor, to say nothing of her pride; and, after an unforeseen fit of irresolution, Rachel suddenly determined to tell her husband of her difficulty, making direct appeal to the capricious generosity whi

up. The room would have been the back drawing-room in the majority of such houses, and Rachel peeped in on her way down. It was empty; moreover, the bed was not made, nor the curtains drawn. Rachel repaired the first omission, then hesitated, finally creeping u

nt professor lately deceased, and that student had protected his quiet with double doors. The outer one, in dark red baize, made an alarming noise as Rachel pulled it open; but, though she waited, no sound came from within; nor was Minchin disturbed by the final entry of his wife, whose first glance convinced her of the cause. In the professor's armchair sat hi

band's return from an absence of mysterious length. Now she understood that mystery, and her face darkened as she recalled the inconceivable insult which his explanation had

achel could not account for the intensity of her feeling; it bordered upon nausea, and for a time prevented her from retracing the single step which at length enabled her to shut both doors as quietly as she had opened them, after swit

go; it should not; and as if to steady it, she opened the landing window, and spent some minutes gazing out into the cool and starry night. Not that she could see very far. The backs of houses hid half the stars in front and on either hand, making, with the back of this house and its fellows, a kind of square turned inside out. Miserable little gardens glimmered through an irregular network of grimy

uscle and swaying giddily. But she could not have made much noise, for still there was no sign from the study. She s

ight before she spied a solitary hansom. It was then she did the strangest thing; instead of driving straight back for her

celerity, and a face first startled and

ame!" cried the

," Rachel replie

osyllable w

ve," said the wo

sked Rachel, a c

say till the d

"I could see the light in his room from hour to hour, even th

ith undisguised severity in her fixed red eyes

ued, "I really could not. We-I am going abroad-very suddenly. Poor Mr. Severino! I do wish there was anything I could do

ed, the red ey

away for good, tell Mr. Severino; but, as I wasn't able to do so after all, I would rather you

doorstep for the last time, deftly and gently turning the latchkey, while the birds sang to frenzy in a neighboring garden, and the early sun glanced fierily from the brass knocker and letter-box. Another moment and the door had been flung wide open by a police officer, who seemed to fill the narrow hall, with a c

e detachment, not the least common of immediate results, makes us sometimes even conscious of our failure to feel as we would or should; and it was so with Rachel Minchin in the first moments of her tragic freedom. So God had sundered whom God had joined together! And this was the man whom she had married for love; and she could look upon his clay unmoved! Her mind leapt to a minor consideration, that still made her shudder, as eight eyes noted from the door; he must have been dead when she came down and found him seated in shadow; she had misjudged the dead, if not the living. The pose of the head was unaltered,

the ink was drying with the dead man's blood, in which she now perceived him to be soaked, while the n

breaking her long silence with

exchanged a

the one who had open

e; but Rachel no more noticed this than th

g from the broken window to the spilled in

t more terrible to her than all the r

which we can't," said he. "But sh

ould it be

had no time to think about his tone; for now she was bending over th

em all. "He was wearing his watch last n

ring it?" asked the same

tely ce

, "and it can't be found, it

, her wet eyes wide w

"Will you have the goodn

e standing on eith

if you look at it you'll see what I mean. The broken glass is all outside on the sill. But that's not all,