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forgotten. Her heart was no longer shut in on its solitary love, and a shared heart is a heart enfranchised. It would be happier for Clive to be loved by an enfranchised heart.

She opened the letter. Hester’s firm dark script closely filled the sheets.

‘Dear Monica, Frank Jessup has for some time been suggesting that I should go to Russia again and write a series of articles for the “Enquirer” on developments there, and it seems the moment to close with the offer. So I am going up to London by the r2.40 and shall stay with Frank and Marcia for a day or two and then be off. If I could have foreseen this on Thursday, I wouldn’t have asked Godfrey to go and perhaps you know where he is and could tell him to come back. But perhaps you and Clive will like to stay on at Oddley, and in that case it is necessary that Godfrey should be kept away; Clive could never stand seeing him. My going off on the same day as he does will make some gossip, I imagine; but I like to be quite frank with you and hope you will go on understanding—as you did yesterday—if I say that gossip about me will be all to the good, where Clive is concerned. You see, I found him and Celia up here, on the hill, the