He said: “Jesus, Esther …”

She nodded. “It was force,” she said.

“Jesus … Who?”

“Bannister himself.”

“When? In London?”

“Yes.”

“But what …” He was confused and appalled: he had the key now, but the key was filthy and ugly, and would not turn for him. “But what did you – what happened after? When did the pretending start?”

“I’ll tell you.” Esther drew away from him, and sat down on the bed, motioning to him to join her. She was grave now, and pale; her eyes held his urgently, as if she were praying that he would listen, and believe, and forgive. “It’s a long story, Harry. There’s plenty of blame in it – blame for me, and for him, and for her. But I thought I was doing right.”

“I love you anyway,” he said, touching her hand again. “Love you and believe in you.”

“That’s good to know.”

“Now tell me.”

So, trustfully, with no more hesitation, she began to tell Harry Grant her story. She talked steadily and bravely for a long time, with her hand clasped in his hand, except when he strode the room in rage and torment, and her eyes holding his, save when he could no longer bear to meet them. This was what she told him, and what she implied, and what he guessed at: this was the missing part of her fearful history.

It was force, Esther said again, with a submissive determination which Harry Grant found cruelly moving – as if, unreassured, he might come to the conclusion that she had made a freewill offering of her body … It was force; and for a long time afterwards she lay like a flower cut down, while around her the London household hummed like some noisome piece of carrion. It was force: there was even some surgical repair to be done, a tribute to Charles Bannister’s prowess of which, later on, when drunk, he was inclined to boast. Just now, he did not boast; indeed, he hardly seemed to exist at all – spending long hours laired up in his bedroom, slipping down furtively to the hotel restaurant or the bar, appearing briefly in doorways and passages, with the branded look of absolute guilt in his face.

Jack Lett would not speak to him; Mrs Bannister, after her first crude onslaught, did not acknowledge his presence at all; Esther was no longer in his world. He could not be excluded from the party, since he was a grossly material witness; but as far as any human being could be disregarded, that was his current fate.

Meanwhile, there were plans to be made, arrangements to be altered or abandoned. To begin with, the Australian trip, said Mrs Bannister, must be postponed.

“What do you mean – postponed?” asked Jack Lett, to be met by a look from Mrs Bannister so complicated and stealthy that he let the question lie unanswered. He had much to lose by a public confession that Esther was no longer abnormal in any way; he hoped for some fortunate outcome; and after meeting Mrs Bannister’s glance he trusted her to find it.