Only Hester had seen war as he had. Monk knew even he was excluded, for all the poverty and death and daily intolerable misery he had seen in the city slums not more than a mile from where they stood. But he felt grateful for it, not angry, not put aside.

He looked at Hester, not smiling at her with his lips, but willing her to understand that he knew what she was doing, and that she was right, and that he admired her intensely for it. Gabriel Sheldon must need desperately to speak openly to someone. One can wrap the truth in palatable euphemisms for only so long, then it chokes in the throat and the lies suffocate. One ends in hating those who force the deceit by their expectancy, their fear, their cowardice, their sheer lack of understanding of the reality of pain and loss.

"Perhaps we should go downstairs?" Monk said aloud. "I am sure the matters about which I consulted Miss Latterly can wait a while longer."

"Oh ..." Athol had apparently forgotten who he was. "Good ... good. Yes, perhaps we should. Talk about something else, what? Would you like a glass of whiskey, Mr...."

"Monk. Thank you." He turned and followed Athol across the landing and towards the stairs. He wanted to stay and talk to Hester, but he knew it was impossible now.

However, she surprised him. He had barely closed the withdrawing room door, and Perdita asked the butler to bring the decanter, when Hester came in as well.

"Is he all right?" Perdita said immediately, her voice rapid, the decanter forgotten.

"Yes," Hester assured her with a softness around her mouth which was almost a smile. "Don't worry for him. These memories are bound to intrude at times. They would with all of us."

Athol frowned and took half a step forward, but Perdita seemed unaware of him; her attention was entirely upon Hester.

"It isn't in me," She whispered. "I've never seen anything really terrible. I feel a thousand miles away from him, as if there were an ocean between us and I don't know how to cross it. I don't even understand. I don't have nightmares."

"Don't you?" Hester looked doubtful. "Didn't you feel shattered, terrified, broken inside—"

"Miss Latterly!" Athol said sharply.

"No!" Monk put his hand on Athol's arm, his fingers gripping hard enough to silence him.

"... when you saw Gabriel for the first time after he came home?" Hester finished.

"Well..." The memory was so clear in Perdita's face, her mouth pulled as if the pain were physical inside her. She struggled for words and did not know which to choose. "Well... I..." Her eyes rilled with tears. "Yes ... I felt... just like that."

"Haven't you forgotten sometimes, and woken up as if it were all just the same as before, then remembered?" Hester asked. "And had to live it all over again?"