It was about the time of afternoon her husband left off forking round his perfectly-tended shrubs the manure gathered from the horse-coper’s paddock.

‘Poor Brenda,’ she could not avoid mentioning, ‘her eyes have something sad in them.’

‘Who?’ he asked.

‘Brenda,’ she said. ‘Your wife.’

Holding out the warped photograph.

He was an honest man by some standards, but perhaps it wasn’t that, perhaps he was caught in one of those situations where the truth takes over.

‘That isn’t Brenda,’ he said. ‘That’s Alice.’

‘Who is Alice?’ she asked.

‘Alice was my wife. My first wife.’

The present Mrs Mortlock was almost overcome by the sadness of it.

‘Did she die?’ her swollen tongue was forced to inquire.

‘No,’ he said without bothering any more. ‘She left me.’

After that they had their tea.

It began on a clear day, August 27 – why Anthea Mortlock noticed she did not know, only that she must leave her husband, and the date was blazing at her from the calendar.

It could have been a conspiracy in that house of defection, which belonged incidentally to Hessell Mortlock. His wife went to her handbag and found she could muster seventeen-and-six-pence. Then she thought of using cunning. By skimping on the housekeeping, and he always commended her for her economy, she could hope to increase the sum by slow degrees. But she grew impatient. And on the last day of the month, went and looked in his handkerchief drawer, and took the necessary from his wallet.

The voice on the telephone as she booked the air ticket to her home city was so warm and masculine she was almost persuaded she had committed a willing adultery.

After that it was a simple matter of packing the little she cared to take with her. She was surprised to find she was unperturbed on meeting the inquiries of the old man she had married. But of course she had already left him.

‘Where are you going?’ his shocked voice was asking.

‘I am going,’ she said, ‘just going.’

She went on arranging her hair in the reproduction mirror in the hall, and tried not to see his face, what it had become.

‘I took fifteen pounds eight-and-sixpence out of your drawer,’ she said. ‘But have not stolen it.’

‘What else,’ he had begun.

‘I’ll pay it back.’

‘Do you know what you’re doing, Anthea?’

Oh, too well! She could have screamed at this stage.

‘Because I don’t think you do,’ he was saying as well as a shivering and a breathlessness allowed him. ‘I’ll see Simpson on Monday. You won’t get a penny, you know. Not a penny. For such behaviour. They all think they can behave.’

Then, caught in the intricacies of what was by now pure behaviour, for the taxi had arrived, she was looking back at him through his door. Her half-filled suitcase dangled from her hand.

‘I shall pay it back,’ she kept on uttering. ‘I shall pay it back. The money. If I am in your debt in any other way, I am sorry. It wasn’t meant dishonestly.’