She had never been a thoughtful woman, her days for many years had
run brilliantly on the surface of life, she knew not whence the
current was flowing, nor why, nor where it led her; she did not
naturally analyze, nor dispute events. Only a few years ago she
would have said that to an extraordinary degree fortune had been
kind to her. She had been born with an adventurous spirit, she had
played her game well and boldly, and, according to all the
standards of her type, she had won. But sitting before this quiet
fire, perhaps it occurred to her to wonder how it happened that
there were no more hazards, no more cards left to play. She was
caught in a net of circumstances too tight for her unravelling.
Truly it might be cut, but when she stood in the loose wreckage of
it--how should she use her freedom? If it was a cage, at least it
was a comfortable cage; at least it was better than the howling
darkness of the unfamiliar desert beyond.

And yet she raged, and her hurt spirit flung itself again and
again at the bars. Young and beautiful and clever, how had life
tricked her into this deadlock, where had been the fault, and
whose?

For some undefined reason Rachael rarely thought of the past. She
did not care to bring its certainties, its panorama of blinded
eyes and closed doors before her mental vision. But to-night she
found herself walking again in those old avenues; her thoughts
went back to the memories of her girlhood.