He hadn’t touched her in bed for weeks, and at first she had been relieved and thankful. She was still relieved and thankful, she told herself fiercely. Of course she was. Who wouldn’t be? Every time he had taken her it had been in the form of a punishment, she knew that, but in this relaxing of his attitude towards her she had thought that maybe . . .

What? she questioned herself bitterly as she poured a cup of tea for herself and Adam, black and without sugar – any milk was still for Alice. That he might grow to like her? Want her? Not for the release of his body but because . . .

She mentally shook her head at herself and her stupidity, but her train of thought had forced her to recognize something she had been fighting in the last days and with it came a bitter humiliation that exceeded anything she’d suffered thus far. She cared about him. It had only taken this change in him, after all he had put her through, for her to absolve him of the years of torment, which was as degrading as it was mortifying.

Adam was talking again, saying something about the number of Royal Commissions various governments in the past had set up to look into the wages and working conditions and safety in the coal industry, and how they weren’t worth the paper they were written on, but although Olive made the appropriate responses, her mind was working on a different plain altogether.

He would never love her and there was nothing she could do to change that. It wasn’t just that she was as plain as a pikestaff and with about as little shape as one, but she’d been the means of him losing the woman he loved. Not just loved – worshipped, adored.

She became aware of holding her cup so tightly that her knuckles shone white, and she made herself put it down carefully and then relax her fingers, one by one. She had thought she’d been glad when Ruby had returned and they had made their peace, and she was, in one way. But in another . . .

She drew in a long, silent breath. In another way, her sister’s visit had opened a whole different can of worms, for her, at least.

‘Here, look at this.’ Adam passed her a piece of paper and she saw it was one of the local trade union bulletins. ‘They’re quoting something from a paper called the “Fifth Report” that was apparently written at the end of the war by a committee of churches looking into the working conditions of miners and factory workers and the like. Our leaders are saying it sums up what we’re fighting for now, but another way of looking at it is, if the government and the upper classes didn’t take any notice then, why are they going to now?’

Olive forced herself to concentrate as she read: