“My temper! It is he who keeps quarrelling with me!”

“Hush! Hush! He will hear you. You have been very sorely tried and any one would say that you have borne it like an angel. But, you know, I think he means to be kind. It is just that he does not express himself very well, and for all his faults we shall miss him greatly when he is gone.”

Upon this last point Strange did not perhaps look as convinced as she could have wished. So she added, “Be kind to Henry? For my sake?”

“Of course! Of course! I am patience itself. You know that! There used to be a proverb – quite defunct now – something about priests sowing wheat and magicians sowing rye, all in the same field. The meaning is that priests and magicians will never agree.⁴ I never found it so until now. I believe I was on friendly terms with the London clergy. The Dean of Westminster Abbey and the Prince Regent’s chaplain are excellent fellows. But Henry irks me.”

On Christmas-day the snow fell thick and fast. Whether from the vexations of recent days or from some other cause, Arabella awoke in the morning quite sick and wretched with a headach, and unable to rise from her bed. Strange and Henry were obliged to keep each other company the whole day. Henry talked a great deal about Great Hitherden and in the evening they played ecarte. This was a game they were both rather fond of. It might perhaps have produced a more natural state of enjoyment, but halfway through the second game Strange turned over the nine of spades and was immediately struck by several new ideas concerning the magical significance of this card. He abandoned the game, abandoned Henry and took the card with him to the library to study it. Henry was left to his own devices.

Sometime in the early hours of the following morning he woke – or half-woke. There was a faint silvery radiance in the room which might easily have been a reflection of the moonlight on the snow outside. He thought he saw Arabella, dressed and seated on the foot of the bed with her back towards him. She was brushing her hair. He said something to her – or at least thought he said something.

Then he went back to sleep.

At about seven o’clock he woke properly, anxious to get to the library and work for an hour or two before Henry appeared. He rose quickly, went to his dressing-room and rang for Jeremy Johns to come and shave him.

At eight o’clock Arabella’s maid, Janet Hughes, knocked on the bed-chamber door. There was no reply and Janet, thinking her mistress might still have the headach, went away again.

At ten o’clock Strange and Henry breakfasted together. Henry had decided to spend the day shooting and was at some pains to persuade Strange to go with him.

“No, no. I have work to do, but that need not prevent your going. After all you know these fields and woods as well as I. I can lend you a gun and dogs can be found from somewhere, I am sure.”