peering through the space where it should have sat on the shelf. The names ran like an electric charge in her mind.
Julia was talking, answering Sir Herbert.
"Yes. Yes, it is my sister who requires your help."
Sir Herbert looked at Marianne inquiringly, but also with an appraising eye, regarding her color, her build, the anxiety with which she wound her fingers together in front of her, the bright frightened look in her eyes.
"Please sit down, ladies," he invited, indicating the chairs on (he other side of the desk. "I assume you wish to remain during the consultation, Mrs. Penrose?"
Julia lifted her chin a little in anticipation of an attempt to dismiss her. "I do. I can verify everything my sister says."
Sir Herbert's eyebrows rose. "Am I likely to doubt her, ma'am?"
Julia bit her lip. "I do not know, but it is an eventuality I wish to guard against. The situation is distressing enough as it is. I refuse to have any more anguish added to it." She shifted in her seat as if to rearrange her skirts. There was nothing comfortable in her bearing. Then suddenly she plunged on. "My sister is with child..."
Sir Herbert's face tightened. Apparently he had noted that she had been introduced as an unmarried woman.
"I am sorry," he said briefly, his disapproval unmistakable.
Marianne flushed hotly and Julia's eyes glittered with fury.
"She was raped." She used the word deliberately, with all its violence and crudeness, refusing any euphemism. "She is with child as a result of it." She stopped, her breath choking in her throat.
"Indeed," Sir Herbert said with neither skepticism nor pity in his face. He gave no indication whether he believed her or not.
Julia took his lack of horror or sympathy as disbelief.
"If you need proof of it, Sir Herbert," she said icily, "I shall call upon the private inquiry agent who conducted the investigation, and he will confirm what I say."
"You did not report the matter to the police?" Again Sir Herbert's fine pale eyebrows rose. "It is a very serious crime, Mrs. Penrose. One of the most heinous."
Julia's face was ashen. "I am aware of that. It is also one in which the victim may be as seriously punished as the offender, both by public opinion and by having to relive the experience for the courts and for the judiciary, to be stared at and speculated over by everyone with the price of a newspaper in his pocket!" She drew in her breath; her hands, in front of her, were shaking. "Would you subject your wife or daughter to such an ordeal, sir? And do not tell me they would not find themselves in such a position. My sister was in her own garden, painting in the summer-house, quite alone, when she was molested by someone she had every cause to trust."
"The more so is it a crime, my dear lady," Sir Herbert replied gravely. "To abuse trust is more despicable than simply to enact a violence upon a stranger."
Julia was white. Standing in the alcove, Hester was afraid she was going to faint. She moved to intervene, to offer a glass of water, or even some physical support, and suddenly Sir Herbert glanced at her and motioned her to remain where she was.
"I am aware of the enormity of it, Sir Herbert," she said so quietly that he leaned forward, screwing up his eyes, in his concentration. "It is my husband who committed the offense. You must surely appreciate why I do not wish to bring the police into the matter. And my sister is sensible of my feelings, for which I am profoundly grateful. She is also aware that it would do no good. He would naturally deny it. But even if it could be proved, which it cannot, we are both dependent upon him. We should all be ruined, to no purpose."
"You have my sympathies, ma'am," he said with more gentleness. "It is a truly tragic situation. But I fail to see how I can be of any assistance to you. To be with child is not an illness. Your regular physician will give you all the aid that you require, and a midwife will attend you during your confinement."
Marianne spoke for the first time, her voice low and clear. "I do not wish to bear the child, Sir Herbert. It is conceived as a result of an event which I shall spend the rest of my life trying to forget. And its birth would ruin us all."