WYLDER'S HAjYD.
269
"But you have not said, Stanley, thut she does not
suspect the truth."
"Of course, I say it; I have said it. I swear it, if
you like. Upon my honor and soul, I know no more of
his movements, plans, or motives, than you do. If you
reflect you must see it. We were never good friends.
Mark and I. It was no fault of mine, but I never liked
him; and he, consequently, I suppose, never liked me. I
was the last man on earth he would have consulted with.
Even Larkin, his own lawyer, is in the dark. Rachel
knows all this. I have told her fifty times over, and she
seems to give way at the moment. Indeed the thing is
too plain to be resisted. But poor Radie can't reason;
and by the time I see her next, her old fancy possesses
her. I can't help it; because with more reluctance than
I can tell, I at length consent, at Larkin s entreaty, I may
say, to bank and fund his money."
But Dorcas' mind retained its first impression. Some-
times his plausibilities disturbed it for a time; but there
it remained like the picture of a camera obscura, into
which a momentary light has been admitted, unseen for a
second, but the images return with the darkness, and
group themselves in their old colors and places again.
Whatever it was Rachel probably knew it. There was a
painful confidence between them; and there was growing
in Dorcas' mind a feeling toward Rachel which her pride
forbade her to define.
She did not like Stanley's stealthy visits to Redman's
Farm; she did not like his moods or looks after those
visits, of which he thought she knew nothing. She did
not know whether to be pleased or sorry that Rachel
had refused to reside at Brandon; neither did she
like the stern gloom that overcast Rachel's countenance
when Stanley was in the room, nor those occasional walks