Mags couldn’t believe what she was hearing or make any sense of it.

‘Susan saw things that weren’t there. This is my fiancée, and I love her and want rid of Susan for good. I have tried to let Susan down gently, but she won’t have any of it. I’m sorry, deeply sorry. I should never have started the affair, but I was young and she was willing, and it just happened.’

‘Az did zee baby?’

‘What? What are you saying? The child isn’t mine. Susan tried to blackmail me with it, but she cannot prove that I am the father.’

‘We have never had relationships. You know that Suzan took me in and we married so that I could stay az a British citizen.’

‘Stop! Please stop. My God, Harold, have you fathered a child with Susan?’

‘No, Mags, I haven’t. She does have a daughter, but she is not mine. The two of them are blackmailing me. Montel is a displaced person from the war. Susan took pity on him. But when she recovered, after being hurt in the fire that destroyed our house, she told me she had fallen in love with Montel and she ended our affair. But she came back into my life a few weeks later, telling me she was pregnant with my child. I was still in shock and trying to deal with everything. You had gone home weeks before the fire and our only contact had been by letter, and I was alone. I had lost both parents and my brother, and my rotten sister had left with my bastard half-brother. I was vulnerable. I took the easy way out and accepted the situation, and what Susan offered me, once more. But then I came back to you, and all was right again. It was then that I calculated everything and realized Susan’s child cannot be mine, and I tried to end my relationship with her.’

Mags didn’t know what to believe. She looked from one to the other, and saw Harold, a pitiful, begging creature, and Montel, strong, sturdy and defiant – and yes, she could see a blackmailer in him. Why was he displaced? Had he a criminal background that made him want to hide and not return home, as had been the case with others that she’d heard of who had been discovered and extradited?

Something told her that she had a chance now of regaining Harold’s love and of giving him back his dignity. She would stand by him. ‘I believe what my fiancé is saying, and I advise you to leave or we will call the police.’

Her words had the desired effect. Harold stood tall and once more ordered Montel to leave the house. Montel looked for all the world like a trapped animal. His eyes bored into Mags, giving her a strange feeling of being connected to him in some way, then he turned and walked out of the room.

‘Oh, Mags, my darling, I love you.’ Harold’s arms opened to her, and Mags went into them. She needed to know if what she felt for him had died, with all the revelations of the last hour. Finding that they hadn’t elated her. Snuggling into him, she felt her love for him deepen. He’d been a victim of his own foolishness, but it was over now. Now that she believed Harold, Susan and her Frenchman had no further grounds on which to blackmail him concerning the child. Nor could Susan be a pull on Harold emotionally. It was done – she was certain of that. She and Harold could put all of this behind them and go forward together.