Part 31 (1/2)

(The nuns had left them. Sutton was in one of the wards, helping with an operation.)

”I thought,” he said, ”that I was going to have peace....”

It seemed to her that they had peace. They had been so much at the mercy of chance moments that this secure hour given to them in the closed garden seemed, in its quietness, immense.

”... But first it's Sutton, then it's you.”

”We needn't say anything unless you like. There isn't much to be said.”

”Oh, isn't there!”

”Not,” she said, ”if you're coming back.”

”Of course I'm coming back.... Look here, Charlotte. You didn't suppose I was really going to bolt, did you?”

”Were you going to change into your pyjamas at Ostend?”

”My pyjamas? I brought them for Gurney.”

”And your sleeping draught was for Gurney?”

”Of course it was.”

”And your razors and your toothbrush, too. Oh, John, what's the good of lying? You forgot that I helped Alice Bartrum to pack Gurney's things.

You forget that Billy knows.”

”Do I? I shan't forget your going back on me; your betraying me,” he said.

And for the first time she realised how alone he was; how horribly alone.

He had n.o.body but her.

”Who have I betrayed you to?”

”To Sutton. To McClane. To everybody you talked to.”

”No. No.”

”Yes. And you betrayed me in your thoughts. That's worse. People don't always mean what they say. It's what they think.”

”What was I to think?”

”Why, that all the d.a.m.nable things you said about me weren't true.”

”I didn't say anything.”

”You've betrayed me by the things you didn't say.”

”Why should I have betrayed you?”