I had it on my conscience, as it might
have been on my stomach. I tried religion, but it was no good to me.
It was between a prayer-meeting and an experience-meeting at Durban
that I used part of the ill-gotten money. I had not touched it till
then. But two days later I got back the very note that I'd spent.
A prey to remorse, I wandered from town to town, trying to do
business.'"
III
Rachel stood up.
"Julian!"
It was the first time in her life that she had called him by his
Christian name.
"What?"
"Give me that." As he hesitated, she added, "I want it."
He handed her the written confession.
"I simply can't bear to hear you reading it," said Rachel
passionately. "All about a prey to remorse and so on and so on! Why
do you want to confess? Why couldn't you have paid back the money and
have done with it, instead of all this fuss?"
"I must finish it now I've begun," Julian insisted sullenly.
"You'll do no such thing--not in my house."
And, repeating pleasurably the phrase "not in _my_ house," Rachel
stuck the confession into the fire, and feverishly forced it into the
red coals with lunges of the poker. When she turned away from the fire
she was flushing scarlet.
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