a sense of being in two places at once, and a desperate need to recapture it and grasp the whole of it.
"Mr. Monk," Sabella said hastily. "I am so glad you came again. I was afraid after my husband was so abrupt to you that you would not return. How is Mama? Have you seen her? Can you help? No one will tell me anything, and I am going nearly frantic with fear for her."
The sunlight in the bright room seemed unreal, as if he were detached from it and seeing it in a reflection rather than reality. His mind was struggling after gaslight, dim corners and brilliant splinters of light on crystal.
Sabella stood in front of him, her lovely oval face strained and her eyes full of anxiety. He must pull his wits together and give her his attention. Every decency demanded it. What had she said? Concentrate!
"I have requested permission to see her again as soon as possible, Mrs. Pole," he replied, his words sounding far away. "As to whether I can help, I am afraid I don't know yet. So far I have learned little that seems of any use."
She closed her eyes as if the pain were physical, and stepped back from him.
"I need to know more about her," he went on, memory abandoned for the moment. "Please, Mrs. Pole, if you can help me, do so. She will not tell us anything, except that she killed him. She will not tell us any reason but the one we know is not true. I have searched for any evidence of another cause, and I can find none. It must be in her nature, or in your father's. Or in some event which as yet we know nothing of. Please - tell me about them!"
She opened her eyes and stared at him; slowly a little of the color came back into her lace.
"What sort of thing do you wish to know, Mr. Monk? I will tell you anything I can. Just ask me - instruct me!" She sat down and waved to a seat for him.
He obeyed, sinking into the deep upholstery and finding it more comfortable than he had expected.
"It may be painful," he warned. "If it distresses you please say so. I do not wish to make you ill." He was gentler with her than he had expected to be, or was his habit. Perhaps it was because she was too concerned with her mother to think of being afraid of him for herself. Fear brought out a pursuing instinct in him, a kind of anger because he thought it was unwarranted. He admired courage.
"Mr. Monk, my mother's life is in jeopardy," she replied with a very direct gaze. "I do not think a little distress is beyond my bearing."
He smiled at her for the first time, a quick, generous gesture that came quite spontaneously.
"Thank you. Did you ever hear your parents quarreling, say, in the last two or three years?"
She smiled back at him, only a ghost, and then was gone.
"I have tried to think of that myself," she said seriously. "And I am afraid I have not. Papa was not the sort of man to quarrel. He was a general, you know. Generals don't quarrel." She pulled a little face. "I suppose that is because the only person who would dare to quarrel with a general would be another general, and you so seldom get two in any one place. There is presumably a whole army between one general and the next."
She was watching his face. "Except in the Crimea, so I hear. And then of course they did quarrel - and the results were catastrophic. At least that is what Maxim Furnival says, although everybody else denies it and says our men were fearfully brave and the generals were all very clever. But I believe Maxim..."
"So do I," he agreed. "I believe some were clever, most were brave enough, but far too many were disastrously ignorant and inexcusably stupid!"
"Oh do you think so?" The fleeting smile crossed her face again. "Not many people will dare to say that generals are stupid, especially so close to a war. But my father was a general, and so I know how they can be. They know some things, but others they have no idea of at all, the most ordinary things about people. Half the people in the world are women, you know?" She said it as if the fact surprised even herself.