‘I cannot say,’ said Sir William, ‘but I do not think the danger is past. And now she has asked me to go and look at her portrait.’

‘Oh, the portrait, the portrait!’ cried Julietta. ‘Oh, Sir William, it will tell you the whole terrible story, but Ashton dearest, why do you and Sir William not go and sip a glass of claret in the drawing room and then everything can be made plain by that means, man to man.’

If there was a momentary look of terror on Ashton Sims’s face, he quickly mastered himself, nodded to Sir William and said, ‘probably that is best, that nothing is hidden from you. We believe it is what Jane wishes.’

‘I must go to Jane,’ said Julietta, ‘I must go at once, poor darling, poor angel …’

And she fled up the stairs, leaving the two men marvelling at the effortless speed with which she rushed towards her friend.

If it was difficult, at this time, for men who did not know each other well, to bring themselves to speak frankly about intimate matters, it was also the case that Ashton Sims, whose friends were the writers, publishers, artists and moral philosophers of the day, was used to discussing all the exquisite agonies afflicting the human condition. Thus, to relate to Jane’s father the story of her pregnancy and cruel miscarriage – and its fearful cause – was not as painful for him as it would have been for almost anyone else.

He was able to tell the tale calmly and slowly and yet … and yet … even he could not tell it truthfully. About Ross’s motive for hurting Jane he had had to ‘speculate’ only that Jane’s fiancé had believed himself to be betrayed in some way. He could not bring himself to admit to Sir William Adeane that the cause of the man’s violent outburst had been the knowledge that his own wife was Jane’s lover.

Sir William, then, was left with the story as if told by an author who disdains to apportion to his characters reason and motive. And when he saw that this was how things would remain, he felt again his habitual impatience with the arrival of yet another riddle. But he also saw that Ashton Sims had gone as far with his dreadful tale as he was able to go at present. Sir William lit a cigar to calm himself and said, ‘poor wretched Ross. I still cannot see how he arrived at such a crime.’

He puffed on his cigar for some moments, then he added, ‘I believe he may finally have gone in search of his brother on the Malay Archipelago. I think we will never set eyes on him again.’

‘Ah,’ said Ashton. ‘Well perhaps that is for the best.’

THE WHITE CLOUD

She could not rid herself of the feeling that she was drowning. It wasn’t that the water choked her; it was the coldness of the sea in her veins. It coursed all through her, entering and leaving her heart, slowly insinuating itself into her brain, depositing ice crystals there, and the crystals flashed with wounding light.