the scar. He had found new hopes, new things to care about, labor for. He could laugh as easily as before. One day perhaps he would love, more than he had loved Sarah. Certainly more than he had loved Unity—if he could honestly say he had loved her at all. It was the child that tore at him, leaving that awful emptiness inside. It was his greatest task, to forgive her for that. He had not succeeded yet.
Pitt was staring at him. There was misery and contempt in his eyes.
Dominic wanted to be angry. How dare Pitt feel such superiority. He had no idea of the temptations Dominic had faced. He sat at home smug and safe with his beautiful, warm and happy wife. No real difficulty crossed his path. He who is never tempted can very easily be righteous.
But he knew all that was a lie which would not deceive Pitt. It did not even deceive him. He had behaved appallingly to Jenny. It had been as much stupidity as malice, but that pardoned nothing. If a parishioner had offered excuses like that, he would have torn him to shreds for the dishonesty they were.
Why should it hurt to see that scorn in Pitt’s face? What did he care what a gamekeeper’s son turned policeman should think of him?
A great deal. He cared very much what Pitt thought. Pitt was a man Dominic liked, in spite of the fact Pitt did not like him. He understood why. In Pitt’s place he would have felt the same.
“I assume from that that you have found out I knew Unity Bellwood in the past,” he said, stumbling over the words more than he wished to. He would like to have been icily dignified, not stiff-tongued, dry-lipped.
“Yes,” Pitt agreed. “Intimately, apparently.”
There was no point in trying to deny any of it. It would only add cowardice to everything else.
“I did then … not since. I don’t suppose you will believe that, but it is true.” He squared his shoulders and clenched his hands to stop them from shaking. Should he tell Pitt that Mallory was the father? How could he believe that, knowing what he did about the past? No one would. It would sound cowardly and self-serving. And there was no proof, only Mallory’s word, which he could easily take back. When he knew about Dominic and Unity he probably would. She could have lain with either of them, or both. Unity would do that. Anyone looking at her history would find that easy to accept.
“Who killed her, Dominic?” Pitt said grimly.
It had to come. For a moment his voice was strangled in his throat. He had to try twice to speak.
“I don’t know. I thought it was Ramsay.”
“Why? Are you going to tell me he was the father of her child?” Pitt’s voice was only mildly sarcastic. He still looked more hurt than angry.
“No.” Dominic swallowed. Why was his mouth still so dry? “No, I thought it was because of her constant erosion of his faith. She undermined him all the time. She was one of those women who made a crusade of proving people wrong and showing them every occasion. She never let an error slip.” His hands were clammy. He clenched and unclenched them. “I thought … I thought in the end he lost his temper and pushed her, without meaning even to injure her, let alone kill her. I thought that afterwards he was so horrified he refused to believe what he had done. Then it preyed on his mind and drove him to suicide in the end.”
“I know.” Dominic shifted his weight, not because he was lying but because his legs were cramping, his muscles were so tense. “I thought she made up that story to cover for him. Suicide is a crime in the eyes of the church.”
“So is murder.”
“I know that! But nobody’s proved murder against him. We could still say it was an accident.”
“His death … or Unity’s? Or both?”
Dominic shifted his weight again. “Both, I suppose. I know no one would believe that … but there would be nothing they could do. It—it is hardly a good answer, but it is all I can think of.” He was stammering, and that was ridiculous, because he was speaking the truth. “It’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense,” he went on desperately. “I can understand how she would defend him the only