“He wasn’t always unhappy, my darling. When he was a little chap he was the most engaging scamp—tumbling in and out of mischief. I was used to think that he must be lonely, but I’ve come to realize that perhaps it was only when he grew older that he felt the want of companionship.”

“And truer words than that, sir, you’ll never speak!” said Sarah. “Children don’t miss what they’ve never had, so you don’t want to grieve over what’s past, Miss Kate! You think of what the poor boy’s future would have been, and thank God he’s been saved from it! Where have you laid him, Mr Philip?”

“On his own bed. I carried him in through the West Wing entrance, and helped Badger to strip him, and put him into his nightshirt.” A twisted smile just touched his stern mouth. He looked at Kate, and said; “You might suppose him to be peacefully sleeping: no more than that.”

She wiped away her tears, and went to him, saying simply: “Take me to see him, Philip. I—I should like to see him once more.”

He caught her hand, and kissed it. “I will take you, but first I must have a word with Mrs Nidd about your journey. My darling, I had meant to have gone with you, but I can’t leave my uncle at this present. I believe you wouldn’t wish me to. After the inquests, and the funerals, I shall come to you, and with a special license in my pocket, I warn you! Mrs Nidd, will you take these bills? There should be enough to pay all the expenses of the journey. You will be later in starting than I had planned, but you should be able to reach Woburn tonight. Direct the post-boys to set you down at the George, and mention my name: I have frequently stayed there. Be sure to engage a private parlour! If anything should happen to delay you on the road, break the journey at Newport-Pagnell: there are two very tolerable houses there, the Swan and the Sergeant. I fancy—”

He was interrupted. Kate, who had been listening to these instructions with a blank look of incomprehension on her face, said, in bewilderment: “But what are you talking about, Philip? There can be no question of my going to London! How could you think I would leave Staplewood at such a moment?”

He kissed her hand again, and held it in a strong clasp. “Bless you, my little love!” he said, in a much moved voice. “But I wish you to go. I know how hateful Staplewood must have become to you, and I know, too, just how unpleasant—how harrowing—it is going to be, until this appalling business is over. I want to get you safely away before we are plunged into all the degrading consequences of two such deaths. Mrs Nidd, I know you will support me!”

“Well, no, Mr Philip!” responded Sarah apologetically. “In fact, if Miss Kate had said other than what she has said I’d have given her a thundering scold! She’ll be marrying you for better or worse, sir, and if she has the worse before she’s riveted to you, she’ll be luckier than most! A pretty thing it would be if she was to sherry off with me when you’ve got a peck of troubles hung round your neck! Yes, and if that’s the sort of hen-hearted girl you think she is it has me in a puzzle to know why you offered for her! A rare pickle you’d find yourself in if she was to scour off!”

He looked to be very much taken aback, but the ready laughter sprang to Kate’s eyes, and she said: “That’s very true! You may be able to deal with Gaston, but not with Mrs Thorne, believe me! You would be excessively uncomfortable if you had no one here to keep house for you—and, which is much more important, so would Sir Timothy be! So you may put those bills back in your pocket, sir—and stop insulting me!” She lifted his hand, which was still clasping hers, and laid her cheek against it. “Poor Philip!” she said softly. “I know, my dear, I know! Pray don’t ask me to go away!”

His hand tightened round hers; Mrs Nidd said: “If you’ll pardon the liberty, sir, the person I’d be glad to see the back of is the doctor, for I can’t abide him, and nor can’t Miss Kate! A regular Captain Sharp, that’s what he is, and the way you rattled him off was a pleasure to listen to! Let alone he’s been living as high as a coach-horse here, shot-free. If he hasn’t been feathering his nest you may call me a widgeon!”

That drew a smile from him. He said: “I shouldn’t dare!”

“Are you going to send him away, Philip?”

“Not immediately. He is quite as anxious to make himself scarce as you are to see his back, Mrs Nidd, but I’ve made it plain to him that I’ve no intention of permitting him to leave Staplewood until after the inquests. His evidence—if he says what he has himself suggested he should say!—will be of the first importance. My uncle is not a religious man, but I don’t think he could bear it if the verdict at the inquest made it impossible for us to bury Torquil in the Churchyard, amongst his ancestors. Delabole has it in his power to convince the jury that when Torquil took his own life he was not in the possession of his senses. He can do that, and he will do it.” He paused, and after hesitating for a moment, said, with the glimmer of a smile: “He is a rogue, and a toad-eater—everything that is most contemptible! But he was never unkind to Torquil! Oh, he infuriated him with his tactlessness—and got Turkish treatment for it!—but he might, without hindrance, have subjected Torquil to the sort of harsh usage which must have made the unfortunate boy fear him. That he didn’t do so—and God knows Torquil gave him cause enough!—must stand to his credit. I think he was genuinely fond of Torquil, and I am pretty certain that Minerva’s charming scheme to marry the boy to you, Kate, frightened him. But once having fallen under her domination he lacked the courage to break free from her shackles. He has no more pluck than a dunghill cock, but—” He paused, and said ruefully: “He took good care of my uncle. I’ve no doubt Minerva paid him handsomely to do so, for it was all to her advantage to keep Sir Timothy alive, but—well, I must be grateful to him for that at least! That my uncle’s health is so much improved—there was a time, you know, when I lived in hourly dread of hearing that he was dead—stands very much to his credit and I find I can’t forget that.”

It was Kate who broke the silence that succeeded these words. She said quietly: “Have you told Sir Timothy, Philip?”

He shook his head. “Tenby says he is resting: asleep, he thinks. I shall tell him when he wakes. If I can’t persuade you to leave Staplewood, Kate, I must pay off the post-boys: the chaise has been standing in the yard ever since my return. Wait for me: I shan’t be many minutes.”

He went away; and Kate, glancing at the bowl of pink roses on the table by the window, went to it, and drew out one half-opened bloom, and wiped its stalk with her handkerchief. It was in her hand when he came back, and she was holding it when she stood beside him, looking down at Torquil’s still form. Her other hand was clasping Philip’s, but as she gazed at that beautiful face, from which every trace of peevishness had vanished, she drew it out of his slackened hold, and brushed it across her brimming eyes, and said, under her breath: “Yes. He is just asleep, and dreaming so happily! so peacefully! Thank you for bringing me to see him: this is how I shall always remember him.”

She bent over the dead boy, and slid the stem of the rose under his folded hands, and gently kissed his cold brow. Then she turned back to Philip, and he took her out of the room, his arm round her waist.

Neither spoke, until they had left the West Wing, and were walking down the gallery that led from it, past Lady Broome’s bedchamber, past Kate’s, to the upper hall, when Kate said sadly: “No one could grieve over his death, but, oh, Philip, that is how he might have looked when he was alive, if his brain hadn’t been so dreadfully afflicted!”

He answered only by the tightening of his arm round her waist; but when they reached the head of one of the wings of the Grand Stairway, he paused, and kissed her, and said: “I must go down to my uncle. My poor darling, you’re looking so tired! Will you rest on your bed before dinner? I wish you will!”

She smiled, but with an effort. “You do think me a poor honey, don’t you? I’ll go to my room, but I don’t promise to rest on my bed: there’s too much to think of, and I don’t seem to have had time yet to—to regulate my mind. Philip, shall we be obliged to live here?”

“I don’t know,” he answered heavily. “Perhaps I shall be able to make some arrangement. If either of his sisters were alive—but they are both dead! Or if the mutton-head Minerva engaged as bailiff could be trusted to manage the estate—”

“But he can’t, can he? And—and even if he were the best bailiff imaginable he couldn’t bear Sir Timothy company, could he? Philip, if your uncle wishes you to remain here, don’t let the thought of me weigh with you! Do as you think you must! I don’t doubt I shall accustom myself!” She summoned up a gallant smile, and added: “I must accustom myself, for now that Torquil is dead Staplewood will one day belong to you, won’t it? I know you never wanted it, and I don’t mean to try to hoax you into thinking that I do: it has never been a home to me, and—and just at the moment it is horrible to me! But if you took me to your own home, leaving your uncle in this huge, awful house with only servants to take care of him, I don’t think I should ever be happy. I should be thinking all the time that I had failed quite miserably in my duty, and picturing Sir Timothy here, quite alone, with only his memories—and so many of them unhappy memories! And you would too, Philip! You might even regret that you had married me!”

“Never that!” he said. “I always hoped—but even if Torquil were alive, soon or late I must, I suppose, have been confronted with the same problem. O God, what a nightmare it is!”