Of course, sensible modern people, though they believe a variety of strange things, do not believe in any such communion in emotion as this which seemed to be at work between Solly and his mother in the darkness of their house. That is why such things are never mentioned by those who have experienced them.

Gloster Ridley had fled for comfort to Mrs Fielding as soon as he felt that he could decently do so, and he arrived in her house precisely at half-past eight, but it was ten o’clock before he had a chance to speak to her intimately. No man should ever assume that he will be able to get the immediate and undivided attention of a woman who has children. Miss Cora Fielding was going to a dance, and needed her mother’s help in certain fine details of dressing. Even Ridley was called into service, Mr Fielding being out, to help with a stuck zipper; the women had a pitiful faith in the ability of a man to meet such a problem, and Ridley broke two fingernails, and pinched Cora severely, in order to sustain the credit of his sex. Young George Fielding, who was seventeen, was encountering the Crimean War for the first time in his history lessons and, although he did not say so, he clearly had a feeling that Ridley remembered this encounter as a personal experience, and repeatedly came into the living-room to ask him questions about it. Ridley finally found it quicker to dictate an essay on Balaclava than to help George to find the facts himself. But at last the essay was done, and at last Cora’s escort called for her, and at last Ridley was alone with Mrs Fielding.

“Now, Gloss, tell me all about it,” said she, leaning back in her chair and turning her level gaze upon him.

This was exactly what Ridley was aching to do, but he could never get used to the way in which Elspeth Fielding cut corners. He had expected at least a quarter of an hour of preliminaries before he got to his theme, and without them he was not completely sure that he knew what that theme was.

“All about what?” he said, to gain time.

“All about what’s worrying you half to death. Dear old Gloss, you come here white as a sheet, you smoke without a stop, your hands shake, you pinch poor Cora, you lecture Georgie as if he were a public meeting, and then you try to pretend that everything is all right. Richard will be home in about an hour, and unless you tell me quickly, you may not tell me at all. Is it about this lawsuit with Professor Vambrace?”

“How did you guess?”

“It comes out of you in strong rays. Now let me get you a drink, and then you can tell me all about it.”

Ridley told her all that he thought was relevant. And because he was a good journalist, and was used to getting a story straight, he told it briefly and with all the points in the proper order. But Mrs Fielding was not to be fooled.

“But you don’t really care about an honorary degree. Don’t tell me that. Of course it would be very nice, but you don’t need it and you don’t want it—not as much as you’re pretending.”

“How do you know, Elspeth? I’m not a university man. An honorary degree to me means the degree I might have earned years ago. I’ve earned it a different way. I’ve always missed a university training. I didn’t have an easy time when I was young. I thought you understood all that.”

“Of course I understand it. But you’re not a vain man. An honour of that sort wouldn’t mean all this to you. You wouldn’t shake and look sick at the thought of missing it.”

“I’m not a very self-assured man. I need things to bolster me up. Comfort, for instance. People think me a fussy old bachelor to take so much thought for my own comfort, though I really don’t think I live any more comfortably than most married men I know. And the position I’ve made for myself. I’m really very well thought of as an editor, you know. And money. Of course I haven’t a lot of money; my expenses have been heavy. But what I’ve got is rather carefully placed. All these things are necessary to me in a way that I don’t suppose they are to most people. I’ve got to be secure.”

“Yes, that’s an obsession of yours. But what has this particular trouble got to do with your security? How can it shake you, even if you do have a lawsuit, and lose it? Even if you lose your piddling degree. You’ll still be you, won’t you?”

“Don’t hector me, Elspeth. I don’t feel up to it.”

“Gloss dear, I’m not trying to hector, only to find out. Tell me truly—I’ll never breathe it to a soul—do you terribly want that red gown? I’d understand, if you said you did. Nearly everybody has some hankering like that. Please tell me? Does it mean something very special?”

“It would be one more thing between me and—”

“Between you and what?”

“And—it sounds strange, but it’s the only phrase that fits—between me and being found out.”

“Found out in what?”

“You know very well. Of course you do.”

“You mean about your wife?”

“Yes.”

“But, Gloss, everybody knows about that!”

Ridley’s face was more white and drawn than ever. He looked at Mrs Fielding coldly, almost with dislike.

“Precisely what do you mean, ‘Everybody knows about that’?” said he.

“Not everybody, of course, but dozens of people. I suppose that several hundred people in Salterton know that your wife has been in an asylum for nearly twenty years. Really, Gloss, for a newspaperman you are very stupid about secrets. How many Salterton secrets do you know? It must be hundreds. Scandals about money; adulteries; suicides; even murders. And you know how all those secrets came to your ears, and how many people know them beside yourself. Did you really, truly suppose, that your little secret could be kept when so many others were known? I have never mentioned it, because I knew you wouldn’t want me to do so. But Dick knows, and somebody told him. And I’ve heard it mentioned several times. Gloster Ridley’s wife is in an asylum near Halifax. Nobody thinks about it, but all kinds of people know it. Gloss, is all this passion for security an attempt to rise above that? You poor darling, what a lot of unnecessary agony! Why didn’t you tell me about that years ago? When you told me about your wife?”

“I have never really told you about my wife.”

“No? Is there more to it? But it can’t really be very dreadful.”

“Can’t it? Elspeth, I visit my wife twice a year. I make myself do it. She hasn’t recognized me once in the past fifteen years, and now I don’t even see her. They let me look into her room. She lies there all day, curled up on a mattress in a corner, with a blanket pulled over her head. She has to be fed artificially.”

“Poor Gloss! How dreadful! But really, my dear, wouldn’t it be better not to go? If you can’t do anything, I mean?”

“No. I must go. It is absolutely necessary for me to go.”

“But why?”

“Because she is there through my fault. And—this is what shakes me, Elspeth—there is still a chance, remote, but a chance, that she might recover. Might be well enough to return to me, the doctors say. Can you imagine that? The murderer’s victim to rise from the dead, to live with him and share his daily life! Do you think murder a strong word to use? Do you? I use it, in my thoughts; often I can’t escape it. Murder! She is in a living death, and I cannot stifle the feeling that I murdered her.”

“Oh, Gloss! I’m sure you didn’t.”

“I wish I were sure, one way or the other. But I’ll never know. However, as Salterton knows so much about my affairs, I suppose this is all stale news to you?”

“Oh, darling, don’t be bitter. Of course I want to know everything about it, if you’ll tell me. But I won’t pry.”

“It isn’t as though there were much to tell. You’ll find this hard to believe, Elspeth, but when I was young I was very romantic. I was always falling in love—not lightly, but deeply and painfully. When I was twenty-one I met a girl who seemed to me to be the most beautiful and desirable creature that I could conceive of. I wanted to devote my life to her. She had no very strong feeling for me; she had no strong feeling about anything; but I talked her into marrying me. That happens oftener than people suppose. Love is a great force, and because I was a stronger character than she, I was able to persuade her. I was sure that she would grow to love me after we were married. She didn’t. Perhaps she couldn’t have loved anyone. I suppose I was ah impossible fool. I know that I reproached her. She was stupid, and she was a wretched housekeeper. I know that sounds petty, in a love story, but we lived a pig’s life, for I had a job with a very poor salary, and it was all intolerable. I thought I couldn’t bear it. I considered running away from her, and do you know why I didn’t? Because of my mother; I didn’t want her to think ill of me. I didn’t know what to do. But one day my wife and I were driving in a borrowed car; I was going, I remember clearly, to report a small country fair for my paper. We quarrelled for several miles. Suddenly the car went out of control, and we turned over in the ditch. That is the phrase the papers always use—’the car went out of control”—you see, it accuses nobody. It is for the court to make accusations. But in this case there was no court. I wasn’t very much hurt, but my wife was badly shaken. It was shock, the doctors said, and after shock came pneumonia. And within a year, a serious breakdown. Schizophrenia, hallucinations, thinking she was somebody else, all that kind of thing. No need to go into detail about it. That meant the hospital, and that’s where she has been ever since. Now she is as near to being dead, to being nothing at all, as a living human creature can be. And what I have never been able to decide is whether that accident was really an accident, or whether I created it.”