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She is a wife, with the standards of a wife. She couldn’t tolerate the thought of hiding my identity from her husband if I stayed, and he couldn’t tolerate seeing his wife’s former lover.—Does he know now who I am?’ Again Ingpen confronted her. ‘Is that why you thought you had killed his love for you?’ And he waited now for her reply.

‘Yes,’ said Monica, ‘that was why.’

‘I see. Yes, I see.’ Ingpen gazed at her, his hands clasped behind him. ‘And he hates me like slow poison.—And will you understand if I say that I felt a stir of hate for him the other evening when I saw him there; her possessor. What are we made of do you think? I don’t want her in the least. What I want is to stay. Near you.’

She was wondering, as she looked at him, whether she must conceal from him how deeply he moved her; wondering whether, at a glance, a gesture, the thread of flame might creep between them; knowing that she could trust him only if she could trust herself. Spoiled.’ The word came back to her. ‘Horribly spoiled.’ It must not be. This was perfection that she held within her hand. She owed it to him, to herself, to life, not to jeopardise it by a faltering or a tear. ‘We could not have made anything of it, you know,’ she said, and her voice was as steady as