“Oh yes, two—no, three. I forget exactly what they said. Something very silly about Caleb and the schoolmistress, I think. Quite absurd, because Caleb has absolutely no taste for fornication. He never has had. So lucky, being a clergyman.”

“Quite,” I said. “Oh quite.”

“Caleb would have been a saint,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop, “if he hadn’t been just a little too intellectual.”

I did not feel qualified to answer this criticism, and anyway Mrs. Dane Calthrop went on, leaping back from her husband to the letters in rather a puzzling way.

“There are so many things the letters might say, but don’t. That’s what is so curious.”

“I should hardly have thought they erred on the side of restraint,” I said bitterly.

“But they don’t seem to know anything. None of the real things.”

“You mean?”

Those fine vague eyes met mine.

“Well, of course. There’s plenty of adultery here—and everything else. Any amount of shameful secrets. Why doesn’t the writer use those?” She paused and then asked abruptly, “What did they say in your letter?”

“They suggested that my sister wasn’t my sister.”

“And she is?”

Mrs. Dane Calthrop asked the question with unembarrassed friendly interest.

“Certainly Joanna is my sister.”

Mrs. Dane Calthrop nodded her head.

“That just shows you what I mean. I dare say there are other things—”

Her clear uninterested eyes looked at me thoughtfully, and I suddenly understood why Lymstock was afraid of Mrs. Dane Calthrop.

In everybody’s life there are hidden chapters which they hope may never be known. I felt that Mrs. Dane Calthrop knew them.

For once in my life, I was positively delighted when Aimée Griffith’s hearty voice boomed out:

“Hallo, Maud. Glad I’ve just caught you. I want to suggest an alteration of date for the Sale of Work. Morning, Mr. Burton.”

She went on:

“I must just pop into the grocer’s and leave my order, then I’ll come along to the Institute if that suits you?”

“Yes, yes, that will do quite well,” said Mrs. Dane Calthrop.

Aimée Griffith went into the International Stores.

Mrs. Dane Calthrop said: “Poor thing.”

I was puzzled. Surely she could not be pitying Aimée?

She went on, however:

“You know, Mr. Burton, I’m rather afraid—”

“About this letter business?”

“Yes, you see it means—it must mean—” She paused lost in thought, her eyes screwed up. Then she said slowly, as one who solves a problem, “Blind hatred…yes, blind hatred. But even a blind man might stab to the heart by pure chance… And what would happen then, Mr. Burton?”

We were to know that before another day had passed.

II

It was Partridge who brought the news of the tragedy. Partridge enjoys calamity. Her nose always twitches ecstatically when she has to break bad news of any kind.

She came into Joanna’s room with her nose working overtime, her eyes bright, and her mouth pulled down into an exaggerated gloom. “There’s terrible news, this morning, miss,” she observed as she drew up the blinds.