Driven by something more than anger at Argyll or the need to win, Monk said aloud, "We have to do everything we can to find out if Havilland was afraid of a real disaster, or just of tunneling in the dark. And if Mary learned it, too, and was killed for it, then we can't walk away." He knew as he said it that that was not entirely what was impelling him. It was Mary Havilland's white face smeared with river water that haunted his mind. Even if all those other elements were solved, it would never be enough until her name was cleared and she and her father were buried as they would have wished. But Rathbone did not need to know that. It was a private wound, deep inside him, inextricably wound into his love for Hester.

Rathbone was looking at him. "I've investigated the Argylls' engines. They're pretty much the same as everyone else's. Better, because they've been modified with great skill and considerable invention, but no more dangerous."

"There's something!" Monk insisted.

"Then bring it to me," Rathbone said simply.

In the Old Bailey the next morning, after the jury was appointed and the opening addresses were delivered, Oliver Rathbone began the case for the prosecution. His first witness was Runcorn.

Monk sat in the public gallery, with Hester beside him. Neither of them was a witness, so it was permissible for them to attend. He glanced at her grave face. It was pale, and he knew she was thinking of Mary Havilland. He imagined what she must be remembering of her own grief, and the sense of helplessness and guilt because she had not been there for her father and mother. With such events, Monk knew, there was always the belief, however foolish, that there was something one could have said or done that would have made a difference. But he had not seen anger in her, or heard her blame her brother, James, for not somehow preventing it. She had never lashed out at him that Monk knew of. How did she keep at bay the bitterness and the sense of futility?

Then a sudden thought struck him. How incredibly stupid he was not to have seen it before! Was her need to throw herself into fighting pain, injustice, and helplessness her way of making the past bearable? Was her readiness to forgive born of her own understanding of what it was to fail? She worked with all her strength at Portpool Lane not only to meet a fraction of the women's needs but to answer her own as well. Anything short of her whole heart in the battle could never be enough for her. He was guarding her from the danger without because he was afraid for himself-afraid of what losing her would mean. He was thinking of his own sleepless nights, his imagination of her danger. All the time he was increasing the danger within.