Then she thought of the faces of the women she had seen yesterday, worn out and old long before their time, color and softness taken from them. Suddenly self-regard seemed not only ridiculous but disgusting. "I'll be ready," she said firmly. "What time shall we begin?"

"I'll come 'ere," he said, still uncertain of himself. "At breakfast. We'll start early. Not as it makes much difference under the ... ground."

She knew he had been going to say river but stopped himself at the last moment, in case the thought should be too much for her, especially since they had been talking of cave-ins, floods, and gas.

"I'll be here," she said with a smile, catching his eye and seeing the answering humor in it, and a flicker of admiration that pleased her quite unreasonably.

He nodded and rose to his feet.

By the next morning the clothes that Sutton provided had been laundered. They were still shabby and badly patched; however, Hester found them more comfortable than she had expected. It was an oddly naked feeling to have no skirts. Even on the battlefield she had been used to the nuisance of skirts around her legs, making striding difficult, especially in wind or rain. Trousers were marvelous, even if she did feel indecent.

Scraping her hair back into a knot and clipping it tight so it appeared short was not difficult, but it was certainly unflattering. But there was no help for it. A flat cap on her head covered most of it anyway, even down over her ears. Sutton had been thoughtful enough to provide a thick woollen muffler that made her feel considerably warmer. The coat, which came almost to her knees, was the last item, apart from a pair of weather-beaten and awkwardly fitting men's boots.

She left the room where she had changed and walked self-consciously along the passage towards the staircase.

"Yer done wonders," Sutton said approvingly. "Come on, Snoot! We got business."

She explained to him as they walked what she and Rose had learned about Mary Havilland.

"That's funny," he said, considering it carefully. "Were she lookin' fer streams an' the like, or trying ter find out wot 'er pa knew, if 'e knew sum-mink ter kill 'im for? But why fer? Streams in't no secret, leastways if they cross one an' it makes a cave-in, the 'ole world's gonna know!"

"It doesn't make any sense," she agreed, walking quickly in order to keep up with him. "There's something major in this that we don't know. Either that, or somebody is very stupid."