not only for the present day, but for the future as well. People will always want to know the explorations of such a country, whatever may happen there."
"Oh - oh." Major Tiplady looked very pleased. "Perhaps you are right. However, there are more pressing matters which I can see you need to discuss, my dear Mrs. Sobell. Please do not let your good manners prevent you from doing so. And if you wish to do so in private ..."
"Not at all," Edith assured him. "But you are right, of course. We must consider the case." She turned to Hester again, her brightness of expression vanished, the pain replacing it. "Hester, Mr. Rathbone has spoken to Peverell about the trial. The date is set for Monday, June twenty-second, and we still have nothing to say but the same miserable lie with which we began. Alexandra did not do it" - she avoided using the word kill - "because of anything to do with Louisa Furnival. Thaddeus did not beat her, or leave her short of money. She had no other lover that we can find trace of. I cannot easily believe she is simply mad - and yet what else is there?" She sighed and the distress in her face deepened. "Perhaps Mama is right." She dragged her mouth down, as if even putting form to the thought was difficult, and made it worse.
"No, my dear, you must not give up," Major Tiplady said gently. "We shall think of something." He stopped, aware that it was not his concern. He knew of it only by virtue of his injured leg, and Hester's presence to nurse him. "I'm sorry," he apologized, embarrassed that he had intruded again, a cardinal sin in his own view. No gentleman intruded into another person's private affairs, especially a woman's.
"Don't apologize," Edith said with a hasty smile. "You are quite right. I was disheartened, but that is when courage counts, isn't it? Anyone can keep going when all is easy."
"We must use logic." Hester sat down on the remaining chair. "We have been busy running 'round gathering facts and impressions, and not applying our brains sufficiently."
Edith looked puzzled, but did not argue. Major Tiplady sat up a little straighter on the chaise longue, his attention total.
"Let us suppose," Hester continued, "that Alexandra is perfectly sane, and has done this thing from some powerful motive which she is not prepared to share with anyone. Then she must have a reason for keeping silent. I was speaking with someone the other day who suggested she might be protecting someone or something she valued more than life."
"She is protecting someone else," Edith said slowly. "But who? We have ruled out Sabella. Mr. Monk proved she could not have killed her father."
"She could not have killed her father," Hester agreed quickly. "But we have not ruled out that there may be some other reason why she was in danger, of some sort, and Alexandra killed Thaddeus to save her from it."
"For example?"
"I don't know. Perhaps she has done something very odd, if childbirth has turned her mind, and Thaddeus was going to have her committed to an asylum." - "No, Thaddeus wouldn't do that," Edith argued. "She is Fenton's wife - he would have to do it."
"Well maybe he would have - if Thaddeus had told him to." Hester was not very happy with the idea, but it was a start. "Or it might be something quite different, but still to do with Sabella. Alexandra would kill to protect Sabella, wouldn't she?"
"Yes, I believe so. All right - that is one reason. What else?"
"Because she is so ashamed of the reason she does not wish anyone to know," Hester said. "I'm sorry - I realize that is a distasteful thought. But it is a possibility."
Edith nodded.
"Or," suggested Major Tiplady, looking from one to the other of them, "it is some reason which she believes will not make her case any better than it is now, and she would prefer that her real motive remain private if it cannot save her."
They both looked at him.
"You are right," Edith said slowly. "That also would be a reason." She turned to Hester."Would any of that help?"
"I don't know," Hester said grimly. "Perhaps all we can look for now is sense. At least sense would stop it hurting quite so much." She shrugged. "I cannot get young Valentine Furnival's face out of my mind's eye; the poor boy looked so wounded. As if everything the