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room and stood at the window looking out, and his voice, trembling yet austere, followed her. ‘You are unfair to Hester. She is not capable of what you think. I mean—Hester may have lost her temper; but she could not have insulted you.’

‘I am sorry, Clive. I felt it so; and so did the stranger who, unfortunately, was present—and whose presence did not restrain Hester. Captain Ingpen was there and saw it all.’

‘Ingpen! What had he to do with it!’ Clive stood where she had left him but his voice was altered and as she turned she saw the frosty anger of his face.

‘What had he to do with it?—Your manner is very strange, very unbecoming, Clive. He had nothing to do with it except that he was there.’

‘And how did you know what he felt? What right had he to feel anything about you and Hester? I begin to see. I begin to understand. Hester doesn’t like him. She came for Robin and found him with that man—and it made her lose her temper. She doesn’t like him,’ Clive repeated, ‘and I wonder you do, Mummy, I do indeed.’

Was it Clive who spoke such words? Clive who thus inconceivably arraigned her, seizing the specious pretext so that he might shield Hester?