The Shadow of the Rope

"It is finished," said the woman, speaking very quietly to herself. "Not another day, nor anight, if I can be ready before morning!"She stood alone in her own room, with none to mark the white-hot pallor of the oval face, the scornful curve of quivering nostrils, the dry lustre of flashing eyes. But while she stooda heavy step went blustering down two flights of stairs, and double doors slammed uponthe ground floor. It was a little London house, with five floors from basement to attic, and a couple of roomsupon each, like most little houses in London; but this one had latterly been the scene of anequally undistinguished drama of real life, upon which the curtain was even nowdescending. Although a third was whispered by the world, the persons of this drama werereally only two. Rachel Minchin, before the disastrous step which gave her that surname, was a youngAustralian lady whose apparent attractions were only equalled by her absolute poverty;that is to say, she had been born at Heidelberg, near Melbourne, of English parents moregentle than practical, who soon left her to fight the world and the devil with no otherarmory than a good face, a fine nature, and the pride of any heiress. It is true that Rachelalso had a voice; but there was never enough of it to augur an income. At twenty, therefore, she was already a governess in the wilds, where women are as scarce as water, but wherethe man for Rachel did not breathe. A few years later she earned a berth to England ascompanion to a lady; and her fate awaited her on board. Mr. Minchin had reached his prime in the underworld, of which he also was a native, without touching affluence, until his fortieth year. Nevertheless, he was a travelled man, and no mere nomad of the bush. As a mining expert he had seen much life in South Africa aswell as in Western Australia, but at last he was to see more in Europe as a gentleman ofmeans. A wife had no place in his European scheme; a husband was the last thing Rachelwanted; but a long sea voyage, an uncongenial employ, and the persistent chivalry of ahandsome, entertaining, self-confident man of the world, formed a combination as fatal toher inexperience as that of so much poverty, pride, and beauty proved to AlexanderMinchin. They were married without ceremony on the very day that they arrived inEngland, where they had not an actual friend between them, nor a relative to whom eitherwas personally known. In the beginning this mattered nothing; they had to see Europe andenjoy themselves; that they could do unaided; and the bride did it only the morethoroughly, in a sort of desperation, as she realized that the benefits of her marriage wereto be wholly material after