She had been for years unwilling to see that Randall hated her, she had been unwilling to use that word even to herself. But lately she had been compelled to see it, to see the strength and a little to understand the nature of that hatred. Randall saw her as the destroyer, as the devil.

These considerations, however, were very far from adding up to an answer. There were, she felt at times, insuperable barriers between herself and Felix. There was Miranda. The child worshipped her father. Would she tolerate a step-father? Ann had had experience of Miranda's will. Even if this difficulty were overcome there was another, vaster, harder: the Christian view of marriage. Ann had always been a member of the Church of England, zealous, serious, on the whole undoubting, but a little vague about dogma. She had never reflected before upon this particular question. She did not know how to find out what she thought about it and she was afraid' of finding out. She thought that she had it in her to defy authority; but defying her own conscience would be another matter. As yet her conscience, lost somewhere in the uproar of her feelings, had made no pronouncement.

Ann was troubled too by the existence of Marie-Laure Auboyer.

She wished that she had not asked Felix for her name; pale and silent now behind the name, like a funeral effigy, stood the' figure, both pathetic and menacing, of the French girl, whom Ann found herself thinking of both as a rival and as a victim. She had learnt of her existence some time ago from Mildred and had gathered, and felt some quiet pain at the news, that Felix was greatly in love. Mildred had mentioned this in some context of deploring foreigners; and had obviously at once regretted her indiscretion. She had been at Grayhallock twice in the last week, on each occasion in a' state of listlessness out of which she only roused herself in an effort to efface the impression she had then made. In the course of those attempts she let it slip out, perhaps imagining that Ann knew already, that Marie-Laure had gone to Delhi. It was another reason for haste. Felix must if necessary be dispatched to India before it became too late.

Ann began to be tormented by a terrible sense of urgency. She tried to think clearly, especially about the matter of Christian marriage. But whenever she tried to order her thoughts there rose huge and scarlet before her the Randall-demon, her new and terrible relation to her husband: and she knew that before she could move towards a decision that ghost must be somehow laid. She wondered at moments if she should not talk to Felix about the whole thing; but she realized that to do this would be to prejudge an issue about which she would wish to have decided coolly and rationally. As the situation was at the moment balanced, any move she made would be likely to have decisive weight. If she took another step now in the direction of Felix she was lost. Ann decided to talk to Douglas Swann.

Douglas was really the — only person she could talk to. He was not impecably wise, but he was discreet and the scrupulousness of his attachment to her could serve instead of, could even induce, wisdom. So she had summoned him. And as she now emerged from the nursery and crossed the road she caught sight of him further down the hill entering the main gate of Grayhallock. When she arrived he was already waiting in the drawing-room.

'My dear Ann, said Douglas Swann, bowing and swaying over her hand, 'how are you, my dear? You wanted to see me? I was coming anyway, you know.

Ann had not at all thought out what she wanted to say to him, but she felt relief as at an imminent confession. He was, after all, a priest.

She said, 'Douglas, I want an exorcism.

'An exorcism?

'I think I'm going mad.

Swann looked at her anxiously, not sure how to take her words, and smoothed his black bird's plume of hair. 'You couldn't go mad if you tried, my dear. Now do let's sit down and smoke a cigarette. Shall I make you some coffee?

'No thanks, said Ann. She sat down heavily in one of the armchairs and Swann pulled his chair up beside her. She said, 'It's just that I'm somehow obsessed with Randall. He stops me from thinking. I feel that he's got inside me. I feel that he'll be with me, like a cancer inside me, for the rest of my life. The violence of her own words startled her., 'That is just the reverse side of your love for him, said Swann. 'You must purify that love. You will purify it.

'I'm not sure that it is love any more, said Ann. 'Not proper love. She stared at the dead electric fire. Was her long love for Randall over? It was possible.

'Oh yes it is, said Swann. 'One doesn't stop loving a person just like that, whatever they do. We spoke of this once before. Marriage is a sacrament. Here especially God's grace can lift and enlighten our poor human loves.

'Marriage, said Ann. 'Do you really think Randall will come back? It seemed a hundred years since she had talked of married love with Douglas and he had advised her to hold Randall in her loving net.

'I don't know, said Swann. 'But whether he does or not it will matter how you love him. And whether he does or not you will still be married to him.

There was a hardness in the words which bruised Ann. 'You think that I should keep a light burning for Randall?

'Yes, of course, said Swann. 'And humanly speaking, as it were, as well as ecclesiastically speaking. But surely you think this too?

Ann got up and stared out of the window. Out of a dirty golden sky a few drops of rain were falling. Penn in mackintosh and wellingtons was tramping across the lawn. He waved to her and she waved back. She said, 'I shall give Randall a divorce if he wants one.

'I don't think you should be in any hurry to do so, said Swann. 'But in any case that won't alter your own position. We know, don't we, what we think about the permanence of marriage.

'So I should devote the rest of my life to purifying my image of the absent Randall?

'This isn't like you, Ann.

'I don't know what I'm like any more. I feel how I've lived all the time in unconsciousness.

'Being good is a state of unconsciousness.

'Then perhaps I shall stop being good. It looks as if it's going to be too difficult from now on anyway. She sat down again and pushed her hair back.

'You're tired out. Can't you manage a holiday?

'Someone offered to drive me to Greece.

'Well, why don't you go? Do go. Clare and I can keep an eye on things here.

She felt again that unfamiliar sensation and she saw herself on the road south in the very dark blue Mercedes. 'Ah, I've been dead all these years.

'You are precisely mistaken, said Swann, 'You have been alive all these years. You are momentarily dead now.

Ann was silent. What did she want from Douglas? She wanted him to support her own view of the matter. And since he was not doing so she might as well end the conversation. So she had a view of her own which was different from Douglas's?

'You're doing me a lot of good, she said.

Swann smiled and patted her knee. 'Is the exorcism working? Was it? She lifted her head and it was as if the great scarlet cloud were gone, the whirling images were gone, and there was only a great space and a great light. 'Yes, it's working.

'I'm so glad, he said. 'I know we think alike really. Prayer, if I may say' so, is so important here. I have known constant prayer to remove the most rooted resentment.

'Ah, but I don't feel resentment, said Ann. 'I don't, I don't. It was true.

'If you can love him now and keep him in your heart that will be a joy that is better than happiness.

'Better than happiness. She rose to her feet. She wanted to be alone now.

'The marriage bond is an indissoluble mystical union of souls.

Who knows what good your love may not do him, even if you never meet again.