eclaring his desire freely. That made her very happy, for she knew that
love from the worst man on earth would be more nourishing for the boy
than her insincerity. She did not tell Richard, because she could not
have borne to see how pleased he would look, but she went about the
house light-heartedly for winter days, bursting with song, and then
penitently checking herself and planning to send Roger extravagant
presents for Christmas, until Susan Rodney's letter came. She had sat
with it open on her lap, feeling sick and wondering in whose care she
could leave Richard while she went down to Dawlish and fetched the poor
little thing away, for quite a long time, before it occurred to her that
Harry had never told her the secret by which he held Peacey in
subjection. Immediately she realised that Peacey knew this. Out of his
cold, dilettante knowledge he had known that when she and Harry met they
would not be able to speak his name for more than one minute. She wished
she were the kind of woman who fainted from fear. The clock ticked, and
not less steadily beat her heart, and nothing came to distract her from
looking into the face of this fact that she had now no power over Peacey
and he knew it.

Then she huddled forward towards the fire, which no longer seemed to
heat her, and Susan's letter fell from her lap into the fender. She
picked it up, crying, "Oh, my baby, how little I care for you!" and
struck herself on the forehead as she reflected how many expedients
would have suggested themselves to her if it had been Richard who was
being maltreated down at Dawlish. She sat down and wrote a lying letter
to Peacey, threatening him with the disclosure of the secret she did not
know, and then, because the grandfather clock twanged out three and she
knew the post was collected five minutes past, she ran out into the
windy afternoon bareheaded. The last part of the distance, down the High
Street, she ran, but she got into the grocer's shop too late and found
Mr. Hemming just about to seal the bag. "Oh, Mr. Hemming!" she gasped.
The three women in the shop turned round and looked at her curiously,
and she perceived that if she betrayed her agony now she would lose all
the ground she had gained during the past few years by her affectation
of well-being. If it leaked out, as it certainly would, unless she at
once lowered the present temperature of the moment, that a few days
after Harry's death she had been excitedly sending a let