general prejudice and of the value of women for their prettiness and docility, and led the way for the coroner to express his highly unflattering opinion of Sacheverall." He remembered it with surprising pleasure as he said it.
She smiled, a slow, sad smile, but with a gentleness he realized he had seen in her often.
"Poor Oliver. He is not used to feeling so violently. I think he cared about Melville more than most of his cases. I've never seen him so angry."
"You admire that, don't you?" he observed. He made it a question, but he knew it was true. If she had denied it he would not have believed her. He admired it too. He had no regard for someone incapable of anger at injustice.
He had thought Rathbone cold, a creature of his intellect, of superb and total control of his emotions. To find he was not so increased Monk's liking for him. He was not sure that he wished to like Rathbone, but even with all its complications, it was a sweeter feeling than contempt or indifference.
"Do you want to tell Gabriel?" she asked, cutting across his thoughts.
"Yes... yes, I will. How is he?" He asked because he liked Gabriel; it was not a matter of courtesy.
"Better," she replied, meeting his eyes. "I think the pain is about the same. It will be for a while. But he is sleeping with fewer nightmares now."
"Perdita?" he guessed.
She smiled. "Yes. Slowly..."
He smiled also, remembering Athol Sheldon and the look on his face when Perdita had spoken to him the last time Monk had been there. It was a battle she would not win easily, but at least she was prepared to fight it.
Hester led the way from the withdrawing room across the hall and upstairs to Gabriel's room. She knocked on the door.
It was opened by Perdita. She was dressed in soft pink trimmed with wine and she looked very serious and demure in spite of the flattering color. She stared past Hester to Monk.
"Is it more about Martha's nieces?" she asked very quietly, in case Martha should be close and overhear her.
"No, Mrs. Sheldon, it is about the inquest on Keelin Melville."
"Oh." She hesitated only a moment. The old habit of trying to protect Gabriel did not die easily. She had to make a conscious effort to realize what she was doing. She opened the door wider and they followed her in.
Gabriel was sitting up on the bed, but he was fully dressed. It was only the second time Monk had seen him other than under the covers. He realized with a sense of shock how thin Gabriel was. Quite apart from the empty sleeve of his shirt, neatly tucked up and fastened, in the warm room with the sunlight streaming in, the thin cotton fabric showed how his body had wasted even on the other side. Heat, hunger and pain had taken a fearful toll on him. It would be half a year at least before he regained the health he had had before Cawnpore. Monk became acutely curious of his own body with its lean muscles and ease of movement, his energy, the power he did not even have to think of. So much was a matter of fortune. He could have been in the army instead of the police. He might have been in India. He could have been in Gabriel Sheldon's place, and Gabriel in his. Except he would not have had Perdita to care for him and to be responsible for. But he could have! She was just the sort of gentle, charming woman he had fallen in love with so many times.
Gabriel was looking at him, waiting for him to speak.
"Keelin Melville?" he said at last, when Monk was still silent.
"Yes," Monk replied, coming in. "They held the inquest this morning."
Gabriel's face was unreadable. It flew to Monk's mind that Gabriel must have thought of suicide himself in the early days of his maiming and disfigurement. How often had he lain on his back in agonizing pain and helplessness and wished he were dead? Melville could at least have escaped most of her difficulties. She could have left England and started again in a dozen different places. She was young, healthy; she had sufficient means to travel and no unbreakable ties. Wolff could have gone with her, had he wished to. She was whole of body and had her health and very considerable good looks. In Italy or France she could even have lived