‘You can’t deny it. Richard, I thought I knew all there was to know about you years ago. I’ve known almost from the first that you weren’t straight as regards the world. But I thought you were straight with me.’

‘Theo–’

‘Can you deny what I’ve just been saying?’

He was silent, in spite of himself.

‘Listen, Richard. There is something I must tell you. Three days ago when this blow fell on you, the servants told you I was away–gone to the country. That was only partly true. I had gone away with Vincent Easton–’

Richard made an inarticulate sound. She held out a hand to stop him.

‘Wait. We were at Dover. I saw a paper–I realized what had happened. Then, as you know, I came back.’

She paused.

Richard caught her by the wrist. His eyes burnt into hers.

‘You came back–in time?’

Theo gave a short, bitter laugh.

‘Yes, I came back, as you say, “in time”, Richard.’

Her husband relinquished his hold on her arm. He stood by the mantelpiece, his head thrown back. He looked handsome and rather noble.

‘In that case,’ he said, ‘I can forgive.’

‘I cannot.’

The two words came crisply. They had the semblance and the effect of a bomb in the quiet room. Richard started forward, staring, his jaw dropped with an almost ludicrous effect.

‘You–er–what did you say, Theo?’

‘I said I cannot forgive! In leaving you for another man. I sinned–not technically, perhaps, but in intention, which is the same thing. But if I sinned, I sinned through love. You, too, have not been faithful to me since our marriage. Oh, yes, I know. That I forgave, because I really believed in your love for me. But the thing you have done tonight is different. It is an ugly thing, Richard–a thing no woman should forgive. You sold me, your own wife, to purchase safety!’

She picked up her wrap and turned towards the door.

‘Theo,’ he stammered out, ‘where are you going?’

She looked back over her shoulder at him.

‘We all have to pay in this life, Richard. For my sin I must pay in loneliness. For yours–well, you gambled with the thing you love, and you have lost it!’

‘You are going?’

She drew a long breath.

‘To freedom. There is nothing to bind me here.’

He heard the door shut. Ages passed, or was it a few, minutes? Something fluttered down outside the window–the last of the magnolia petals, soft, fragrant.

About the Author

About the Author