"Thank you, Mr. Monk. It was very good of you to try for me." She blinked several times more, then turned away, her voice thick with unreleased weeping. "I'm sure you'd like to see Miss Latterly. Please ..." She did not finish, but led him wordlessly across the hall and up the stairs towards the sitting room which she and Hester shared. She opened the door and stood back for him to enter, retreating immediately.

Hester put down her book. He noticed it was on Indian history. She stood up, coming towards him, searching his face.

"You couldn't find them," she said softly. It was not a question, but her eyes were full of disappointment she could not hide.

He hated having let her down, even though she had never expected the impossible. He realized with a jolt how much her feelings mattered to him, and he resented it. It made him dependent upon her and hideously vulnerable. That was something he had tried all his life to avoid. It had not even happened in a way he could have foreseen and over which he had control. It should have been some gentlewoman in love with him, over whom he could exercise a decent influence and whose effect upon him he could control.

"Of course I couldn't find them!" he said sharply. "I told you that in the beginning. I tried hard, I questioned everyone who had anything to do with it, but there was never any reasonable chance of success. Dammit, it was twenty years ago. What did you expect?" He took a breath, looking at the pain in her eyes. "You were irresponsible leading Martha to hope," he went on.

"I didn't!" she retorted with a sudden flare of temper. "I always said there was very little chance. She can't help hoping. Wouldn't you? No—perhaps you wouldn't. Sometimes I think you don't understand ordinary feelings at all. You haven't got any." She turned away, her body rigid.

It was so untrue it was monstrous. As usual, she was being utterly unjust. He was about to say so when there was a heavy footstep in the corridor outside. A moment later, after the merest hesitation, the door opened and Athol Sheldon stood in the threshold. He was dressed in a smart checked jacket of a Norfolk style and his face was pink with fresh air and exertion. Apparently he had just arrived. As usual, he was oblivious of the emotions of those he had interrupted.