This was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. If there was any way out of telling her he would have taken it. There wasn’t any way. It would hurt her damnably, and he had got to do it.

She lifted her eyes to his face and said, “Go on.”

“He talked-about how he had never had any luck. You can’t get anywhere without money, and he had never had any. It didn’t give you a chance. And now the best he could do was to tie himself up for a beggarly few hundreds a year. I’m not going to tell you everything he said, but it was all along those lines. I went over and sat down at his table. The girl who was with him was practically out. I said, ‘You’re getting married in a day or two, aren’t you?’ And he said yes, worse luck, but you’d got to live hadn’t you, and he was down on his uppers. I said, ‘If someone were to offer you a good round sum down and a fresh start in, say, South America, what would you say about it?’ He wanted to know what I meant by a good round sum, and I told him. It seemed to sober him up. He stared at me and said, ‘You’re joking!’ I said, ‘Look here, you’re drunk. I can’t do business with you like this. If you’ll come home with me and put your head in a bucket of water, we can talk.’ ”

Carmona said nothing. She kept her eyes on his face and said nothing.

James went on.

“Well, that was how it was. He knew what he was doing all right. I fed him black coffee, and he wasn’t drunk when he made the bargain. England was getting a bit too hot for him, and he had quite a fancy for South America. And he was quite frank about the money-said yours wasn’t going to be very much good to him because it was all tied up on you and your children, whereas if he had some capital to play with, there were no end of things he could do. I saw him again next day and we fixed up the details. He was to have his passage and some spending money, and the main sum down when he reached Rio. And he wasn’t to see you. He was to write and tell you the truth-that he wasn’t within a hundred miles of being good enough for you, and that you would be better off without him.”

“He didn’t write.”

James put out his hand towards her, but she drew away from it. ‘

“I went-to the church-to marry him. He didn’t come.”

“I know. I didn’t mean it to be like that.”

It was almost as if she were appealing to him not to have let it happen, and as if he were putting out a hand to steady her-not in any physical touch, which would have sent her shrinking away into her own loneliness, but with some quiet assurance of safety. That was the curious thing about what was happening between them-under the shock, the hurt, the anger which had ravaged her, there was the instinct which looked to him for security and knew that he could give it. It was this instinct which had drawn her into marrying him. Everyone had been pleased, but everyone had been very much surprised. She knew that they were wondering how she could. So soon, and after such a hurt. They didn’t know, and she could never tell them, that when she was with James the pain and humiliation dimmed and faded out. If she could be with him all the time, it wouldn’t come back. So when he asked her, she married him.

After they had been silent a little while he said,

“We haven’t ever talked about Field. Does it still hurt such a lot?”

She looked at him piteously.

“I thought-he needed me. I knew-it wasn’t going to be easy, but I thought-I could do it. Then I began to wonder- whether I could. I had to make myself-go on. When I went to the church-and he didn’t come-it was-I don’t know how to say it-”

“You had been trying so hard, and then what you were trying to do wasn’t wanted. Was that it?”

She moved her head in assent.

“He didn’t want-any of the things-I thought-I could give him. Now I know that all he ever wanted was the money-and it wasn’t enough-” Her voice went away until the last word could only be guessed at.

He leaned forward and took her hands. This time she did not draw them away. The fingers clung to his, but when he tried to loosen them so that he might put his arms about her they clung and wouldn’t let go,

“Carmona-darling!”

But she shook her head.

“No-please-James-”

He let it be as she wanted.

The tears were running down her face. Presently she took away her hands to find a handkerchief and dry them.

James put out the dressing-room light and drew back the curtains. He looked out upon the same scene which he had watched from the drawing-room-dark water, luminous sky, and the odd shapes of the things with which Uncle Octavius had cluttered up his garden. What was new was something that stirred amongst the clutter, a tall shape amongst the other shapes which had lifted once to the sea and would never move again. Someone was going down the path which led to the cliff.

He stood there, frowning a little. Difficult to imagine that anyone from inside the house would be choosing this time to take a walk. It would certainly not occur to either of the Trevors or to Esther Field. He thought about Pippa Maybury. It was the sort of thing she might do if it came into her head, but not alone-quite definitely not alone. He remembered Alan Field’s “Can I have a word with you, Pippa?” and that she had gone out on to the terrace with him and come back looking-well, how had she looked? Excited-frightened? The impression was so momentary that he couldn’t be sure of it. He couldn’t be sure about anything. The moving figure could be someone who had no manner of business to be there. He thought he would just go down and make certain that everything was quite all right. If, for instance, someone had gone out of the house, one of the doors or windows would be ajar or at least unlatched. If, on the other hand, someone was lurking in the garden-he recalled Pippa’s use of the word with dislike-

He thought he would just go down and see what was happening. The bare possibility that Alan Field might be hanging about-

He opened the door into the bedroom and saw that Carmona was asleep. The overhead light had been turned out, but the room was full of a soft glow from the lamp on his side of the bed. She lay turned away from it, her hair dark against the pillow. He closed the door again, slipped on shoes, and caught up a torch and a light raincoat. As he came out on to the landing, the clock struck the quarter after midnight.

He found what he was looking for at the first trial. If anyone was getting out of the house in the middle of the night, it was a hundred to one they would use the glass door in the drawing-room. And there it was, the door he had locked as he talked to old Tom Trevor about the Beestons an inch or two ajar. He had locked it all right an hour ago-he was sure about that. Someone had come down and opened it. He switched off the torch, pushed the door wide, and went out on the terrace.

Standing now and listening, there was nothing either to hear or see except what he might have heard and seen on any summer night of all the nights he had slept or waked at Cliff Edge. But that someone had been there he was in no doubt, and the open door bore witness. With the torch in his hand but not switched on, he walked down the path to the gate which opened upon the cliff.

Carmona woke. It was later. She had fallen into depths of sleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow. It was as if she had made a long journey and come to the end of it with nothing left but utter weariness and the need to sleep. When she dried her tears, it was as if she had wiped away with them all the pain which had brought them to her eyes- the pain, the anger, the deep humiliation. She no longer felt anything at all. All she wanted was to be left alone, and to lie down and go to sleep. Now she woke to the sound of running footsteps. She opened her eyes upon the glow in the room. The windows on either side of the dressing-table were dark beyond it. The footsteps ran and stumbled. There was the sound of a sobbing breath. She had the confused instinct to see without being seen. To do that she must switch off the light. She pushed back the sheet and the thin blanket and got out of bed.