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known about him. But that isn’t true. I did know about him; all that you know; and I was his friend. But it’s more than that.’ She had begun to speak with dropped eyes but now she raised them and fixed them on her son, who, his arm fallen, gazed at her. ‘It’s much more than that, Clive,’ she said, and as she spoke she seemed to herself to be drawing Hester near, to be holding her within her arm, to be at one with Hester; ‘Because I understand why Hester loved him, and still loves him, in a way I never could have done if he had remained only my friend.’

Clive spoke then. She heard the voice that Hester had heard; almost the voice of a stranger. ‘What do you mean?’

What did she mean? She stopped to think, looking at her son, feeling no wish for veils. All that she wished was the truth. ‘Not that he was my lover,’ she said. ‘That would have been impossible; but not because I did not love him enough. Impossible because of my age; my situation;—my codes and symbols, Clive. He is not my lover, but I love him and he loves me. We parted last night; and I don’t think we shall ever see each other again; and after you, no one has come so near my heart.’

Had the presage of the October woods been for