And Jane? What task could she find for herself except as his nurse, his inferior, his helpmate? And then in time, of course, she would be demoted even from that role. She would simply be Mrs Ross, the mother of his children. And there would be many children, for his lust would never be contained. Jane would become a lumbering figure, dragging her great height about in silent weariness. She would live for nothing except the love of her family. She would crave attention and tenderness from him, but he would ration it. He would make her go down on her knees and beg …

This reverie so preoccupied Ross’s thoughts that he was startled when Nancy approached him to say that a tray of tea awaited him in the drawing room. He put down the palette knife he found himself to be holding. Though shocked by the violence underlying his scheme, he considered that in his Borneo plan might lie his salvation – the only salvation that he could envisage at that moment. He liked the mathematics of it. It would solve the complex equation he had been wrestling with for months: how to do his duty by his brother while at the same time committing himself to marriage with Jane.

Already, he saw the ship – one very like the Rainsford – waiting for him and Jane at Plymouth. He saw the cramped darkness of the cabin in which they would lie.

Nancy had served China tea, which Ross did not like. In the perfumed bitterness of it he understood how different Emmeline’s tastes were from his own. Forced by his visit to the studio to admire her, he now felt that he might be obliged to dislike her on this account alone.

Setting the tea aside, he rang for Nancy. A great weariness was upon him and he urgently wished to rest before having to meet Jane. Indeed the idea of sleep was now so seductive to him that he closed his eyes and almost let himself fall across the padded Chesterfield on which he was sitting. But he also longed for a soft bed and, explaining that he had been travelling for a great quantity of time, asked Nancy to show him to a room upstairs.

The room she chose for him was small and dark, containing the kind of narrow cot which reminded him of his boarding school and he wondered if she had insulted him by offering him a servant’s lodging. He had noticed that the way this girl looked at him was sly and it came into his mind that perhaps she had been privy to Jane’s darkest secrets, and now felt nothing but pity for this ‘fiancé’, who knew nothing of them. For a moment, he considered taking the maid roughly by the arm and commanding her to tell him what visitors Jane Adeane had received at Tite Street, but, as if fearing that this was what he might be going to do, the girl had quickly fled away.