His hand traced the warmth of her body through her nightdress, downwards, until he reached her thigh. Then, as if he were slowly crumpling up a love letter, he gathered up the lace tiers of her nightdress in his fingers and lifted them, above her knees, above her thighs, above her waist. She shivered, not so much from cold, but from being exposed to him, her thighs slightly parted.

‘Hannah …’ Collis whispered, and his fingertips traced a pattern around her bare stomach, galvanising her nerve endings. Involuntarily, she opened her thighs a little more, longing with uncontrollable immodesty for him to touch her there, to trespass with his fingers on the very last preserve that her marriage had kept for Walter and for nobody else.

It would take her months before she could tell Collis about Walter’s fumbling in bed, about his awkward and untimely attempts at sex. Perhaps she never would. But right now she wanted what by holy or unholy intention was hers by right.

She could feel Collis arched above her now, a crossbow of muscle and desire. She held one hand against his firm muscular chest. With her other hand she caressed his side, the ridges of his ribs, the muscles around his hips and back. And with a daring that almost frightened her, she reached into the hollow inside his thigh, and caressed him without a bit of shyness.

She heard him mumble something. She felt his kisses on her cheeks and eyes. Then, with a sharp inhalation of breath, he began to fall towards her, surrendering to his desire no less than she to hers.

She squeezed her eyes tight shut. The sin of adultery was already committed. This wasn’t going to make it any worse. Yet to refuse Collis now — right on the very point of penetration — wouldn’t that at least show God that she earnestly repented, that she was truly sorry for what she was doing? Wouldn’t it show that she could be strong at the moment of greatest temptation?’

But she heard herself breathing, ‘Now … oh, please, Collis, now …’ and she felt him slide inside her, so deeply it seemed as if gravity had turned itself inside out, as if the whole room had swayed and tipped in an earth tremor.