‘Where are you going?’ Anxiety betrayed itself in her eyes.

‘You’ve already done your worst,’ he answered angrily. ‘Now it’s my turn.’

Realisation dawned. ‘No! Don’t go to him. Please, Tom, leave it be.’

‘Oh no!’ He smiled wickedly. ‘There are scores to settle.’

‘Violence won’t solve anything.’

‘Maybe not.’

‘Then please, don’t go.’

‘Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? You’d like me to cower from him, pretend nothing happened.’ The sneer slid from his face. As he raised his arm, Bridget instinctively backed away. She was too late. A hard blow to the side of her head knocked her sideways. He looked down on her as she fell. ‘The time when you could tell me what to do is over,’ he growled. ‘Remember that. And remember this, too. I’ve always been too proud a man to link with whores, so I’ll thank you to stay out of my bed. While I’m away from this house, I want you to move all signs of yourself from the bedroom. It finishes here, Bridget. For as long as we live, there can be nothing between us, except the man you deceived me with and the bastard you forced on me.’

Bridget watched him leave. ‘Oh, dear God. What have I done to that good man?’ For that was what he had been, a good man, a good husband and a good Christian. Now, like a wounded animal, he was out for revenge and it was a terrible sight to see.

As he went down the street, Tom recalled the look on her face when he told her it was all finished. ‘Tears are no good now, my beauty,’ he whispered unforgivingly.

He had treated Bridget’s tears with contempt.

Now, as the tears fell down his own sorry face, he realised how she must have felt.

Without warning, the heavens opened and the rain lashed down, soaking him to the skin. He seemed not to notice. Holding his head high, and with his heart set like stone against her, he angrily wiped away the scalding tears. ‘Scores to settle,’ he muttered, quickening his steps. ‘Without pride, a man is nothing!’

The rain lashed down and brought a darkness that turned day into night, but Harry barely noticed. He stood outside his father’s house, his thoughts going back to a night some three and a half months ago; the most wonderful night of his life, and the worst.

‘Better get inside,’ he muttered. ‘Mother will be wanting her medicine.’ Yet still he stood there, his gaze on the house, his heart soothed by its familiar presence. Here in this place he had known a measure of sanctuary. Not now, though. Now, the house and all inside it were like an albatross round his neck.

Straddling the corner of Ainsworth Street, the building was many years old. Its ancient roof dipped at one end, and at the other the brickwork was so higgledy-piggledy, one layer was no longer distinguishable from another. It had been in Harry’s family for three generations. His grandfather had built it, and his own father, Silas, had been master of it for nigh on forty years. Silas had fathered three children here; Alice, now nearly twenty-five, was the first-born, followed two years later by Harry, and then three years later came their younger sister Fay.