"Oh!" Rose blushed, glancing down at her beautiful dress. "Yes, of course. This is quite inappropriate, isn't it! Will you excuse me for fifteen minutes? I'm sure I can find something better. Morgan, please don't spend the time trying to persuade Mrs. Monk that I am not suitable for this task. It would be humiliating for me. I like her, and I wish to impress her as competent." She gave him a dazzling smile and kissed his cheek. "Thank you, my dear."

Hester mastered her expression with difficulty, reaching very quickly for a handkerchief and coughing into it to hide her smile.

Morgan Applegate blinked also, but he did not say anything.

After Rose had changed, Hester suggested that although it would take a little longer and definitely be a great deal less comfortable, it would be wiser if they were to travel by public omnibus rather than in Rose's carriage. The day was viciously cold, with intermittent sleet and snow piling in dirty drifts at the edges of gutters and walls and causing the drains to overflow, so everything was wet underfoot.

"Of course," Rose agreed, her face reflecting momentary distaste. "I shall appreciate my carriage more next time, I suppose." Then she realized that Hester almost certainly did not have a carriage. "I'm sorry!" she said, a tide of color washing up her cheeks.

Hester laughed. "I had a carriage before I went to the Crimea," she told her. "Before the war my family had very comfortable means."

"You lost it in the war?" They were walking briskly down the street towards the omnibus stop.

"My father did," Hester replied as they passed two women going in the opposite direction. "He was cheated out of it by a man who made a fortune doing that. He was an ex-army officer invalided out. A hero, so people trusted him."

There was a quick sympathy in Rose's face, but she did not interrupt.

"My father took his own life." Hester found it difficult to say, even so many years after. "But there was no question about it. He felt it was the only honorable way to act ... in the circumstances. My mother died shortly afterwards."

"Oh!" Rose stopped still in the street, ignoring the spray of icy water from a passing carriage. "How unbearable for you!"

"One has to bear it," Hester replied, taking Rose's arm and moving her away from the edge of the curb. "Doing something helps a great deal. The days pass, and it gets better. Do you think that was what Mary Havilland was doing?"

They started to walk again.

"No-no, I don't think so," Rose said gravely. "She was . . . too excited. She grieved terribly for her father, of course, but she really believed she was going to prove his innocence-I mean of ... Oh!" It was a wail of horror at herself. She was aghast at her own clumsiness in piling one pain on top of another.