him again? Do you have a relative, an aunt perhaps, with whom she could stay?"
Her eyebrows rose. "Are you suggesting that this man who did this thing should be allowed to go entirely unpunished, Mr. Monk? I am aware that the law will not punish him, and that a prosecution would in any case be as painful for Marianne as it would ever be for him." She was sitting so tensely her body must ache with the rack of her muscles. "But I will not countenance his escaping scot-free! It seems you do not think it a crime after all. I confess I am disappointed. I had thought better of you."
Anger boiled up in him, and it cost him dearly to suppress it. "Fewer people would be hurt."
She stared at him.
"That is unfortunate, but it cannot be helped. Who was it? Please do not prevaricate any further. You will not change my mind."
"It was your husband, Mrs. Penrose."
She did not protest outrage or disbelief. She sat totally motionless, her face ashen. Then at last she licked her lips and tried to speak. Her throat convulsed and no sound came. Then she tried again.
"I assume you would not have said this-if-if you were not totally sure?"
"Of course not." He longed to comfort her, and there was no possible comfort. "Even then I would prefer not to have told you. Your sister begged me not to, but I felt I had to, in part because you were determined to pursue the matter, if not through me, then with another agent. And also because there is the danger of it happening again, and there is the possibility she may become with child-"
"Stop it!" This time the cry was torn from her in a frenzy of pain. "Stop it! You have told me. That is sufficient." With a terrible effort she mastered herself, although her hands were shaking uncontrollably.
"When I taxed her with it, she denied it at first, to protect you." He went on relentlessly. It had to be finished now. "Then when it was obviously true from her own testimony, and that of your neighbors, she admitted it, but implored me not to say so. I think the only reason she made any mention of the incident at all was to account for her extreme distress after it, and for the bruising. Otherwise I think she would have remained silent, for your sake."
"Poor Marianne." Her voice trembled violently. "She would endure that for me. What harm have I done her?"
He moved a step nearer to her, undecided whether to sit without invitation or remain standing, towering over her. He opted to sit.
"You cannot blame yourself," he said earnestly. "You of all people are the most innocent in this."
"No I am not, Mr. Monk." She did not look at him but at some distance far beyond the green shadow of leaves across the window. Her voice was now filled with self-loathing. "Audley is a man with natural expectations, and I have denied him all the years we have been married." She hunched into herself as if suddenly the room were intolerably cold, her fingers gripping her arms painfully, driving the blood out of the flesh.
He wanted to interrupt her and tell her the explanation was private and quite unnecessary, but he knew she needed to tell him, to rid herself of a burden she could no longer bear.
"I should not have, but I was so afraid." She was shivering very slightly, as if her muscles were locked. "You see, my mother had child after child between my birth and Marianne's. All of them miscarried or died. I watched her in such pain." Very slowly she began rocking herself back and forth as if in some way the movement eased her as the words poured out. "I remember her looking so white, and the blood on the sheets. Lots of it, great dark red stains as though her life were pouring out of her. They tried to hide them from me, and keep me in my own room. But I heard her crying with the pain of it, and I saw the maids hurrying about with bundles of linen, and trying to fold it so no one saw." The tears were running down her own face now and she made no pretense of concealing them. "And then when I was allowed in to see her, she would look so tired, with dark rings 'round her eyes, and her lips white. I knew she had