‘I can’t stand it,’ he said, the moment they were inside. His face was white and strained in the gloom. Again, he took her by the shoulders, staring intensely into her. Quite roughly, with his right hand, he stroked her cheek. In that second she felt, in terror, that he hated her. ‘You are my torment, Margaret. The sight of you . . . You must stop this – stop your wantonness.’

His voice was furious suddenly and she gasped as if he had slapped her. What kind of woman did he think she was? What was he saying?

‘Because of the way you are, I find myself thinking about you every second of the day, whether you are there or not. The very sight of your body fills me with fever! I cannot see God. I cannot pray. I can only see you. You have bewitched me with your . . . your womanliness. For God’s sake, stop it – I beg you. Release me!’

He was gazing at her with a coldness that cut her to the heart. It was as if he had turned into someone completely different – a frightening stranger.

‘But how?’ she said, flinching as his hands gripped her shoulders.

‘How?’ he said. ‘How? Like this, you whore, with your wiles, with your eyes, your shape . . . How do you expect a man to . . . Like this . . .’ He shoved her against the rough wall and was tearing at her clothes so violently that she was taken completely by surprise. ‘Do the thing you’re made for – that you’ve been forcing on me all these weeks!’

‘What are you doing?’ she cried. Who was this man with hot, panting breath, grabbing at her? To her horror his hands were hauling on her skirt, fingers hooking painfully into her underclothes, yanking and tearing. She was so shocked, so ignorant, that while she was trying to struggle and could hear herself sobbing, protesting, she still had no precise idea of what he was trying to do. He had just gone mad.

‘Charles!’ She called his name, trying to shock him back into the person she knew instead of this crazed force, assaulting her.

His hand slapped her face so hard that she thought he had displaced her jaw. His face came close to hers, the eyes hostile, terrible.

‘Don’t speak, you whore! You Jezebel! I know you – I know what you want, you filthy deceiver; like all women, you are – however much you pretend to be holy.’

This was worse even than the pain. She felt all strength leave her as he tore away her underclothes. With one hand, he seemed to be trying now to loosen his own clothes as he forced her down on the stinking straw. It went dark, his suffocating shape pressing on her, blocking the light. To her horror she felt him trying to force her legs apart, fingers jabbing at the most private parts of her, and she tried to clamp her legs together.