He smiled wryly.”Nothing is ever unarguable in law, Mrs. Carlyon. That is how I make my living, and believe me I am good at it. I don't always win, but I do far more often than I lose.”

She swung around to face him and for the first time there was real humor in her face, lighting it and showing a trace of the delightful woman she might be in other circumstances.

“A true lawyer's reply,” she said quietly.'“But I am afraid I would be one of those few.”

“Oh please. Don't defeat me before I begin!” He allowed an answering trace of lightness into his tone also. “I prefer to be beaten than to surrender.”

“It is not your battle, Mr. Rathbone. It is mine.”

“I would like to make it mine. And you do need a barrister of some kind to plead your case. You cannot do it yourself.”

“All you can do is repeat my confession,” she said again.

“Mrs. Carlyon, I dislike intensely any form of cruelty, especially that which is unnecessary, but I have to tell you the truth. If you are found guilty, without any mitigating circumstances, then you will hang.”

She closed her eyes very slowly and took a long, deep breath, her skin ashen white. As he had thought earlier, she had already touched this in her mind, but some defense, some hope had kept it just beyond her grasp. Now it was there in words and she could no longer pretend. He felt brutal watching her, and yet to have allowed her to cling to a delusion would have been far worse, immeasurably dangerous.

He must judge exactly, precisely all the intangible measures of fear and strength, honesty and love or hate which made her emotional balance at this moment if he were to guide her through this morass which he himself could only guess at. Public opinion would have no pity for a woman who murdered out of jealousy. In fact there would be little pity for a woman who murdered her husband whatever the reason. Anything short of life-threatening physical brutality was expected to be endured. Obscene or unnatural demands, of course, would be abhorred, but so would anyone crass enough to mention such things. What hell anyone endured in the bedroom was something people preferred not to speak of, like fatal diseases and death itself. It was not decent.

“Mrs. Carlyon…”

“I know,” she whispered.”They will…” She still could not bring herself to say the words, and he did not force her. He knew they were there in her mind.

“I can do a great deal more than simply repeat your confession, if you will tell me the truth,” he went on. “You did not simply push your husband over the banister and then stab him with the halberd because he was overfamiliar with Mrs. Furnival. Did you speak to him about it? Did you quarrel?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She turned to look at him, her blue eyes uncomprehending.

“What?”

“Why did you not speak to him?” he repeated patiently. “Surely at some time you must have told him his behavior was distressing you?”

“Oh… I-yes.” She looked surprised. “Of course… I asked him to be-discreet…”

“Is that all? You loved him so much you were prepared to stab him to death rather than allow another woman to have him-and yet all you did was to ask-” He stopped. He could see in her face that she had not even thought of that sort of love. The very idea of a consuming sexual passion which culminated in murder was something that had not occurred to her with regard to herself and the general. She seemed to have been speaking of something else.

Their eyes met, and she realized that to continue with that pretense would be useless.

“No.” She looked away and her voice changed again. “It was the betrayal. I did not love him in that way.” The very faintest smile tugged at the corners of her wide mouth. “We had been married twenty-three years, Mr. Rathbone. Such a long-lived passion is not impossible, I suppose, but it would be rare.”

“Then what, Mrs. Carlyon?” he demanded. “Why did you kill him as he lay there in front of you, senseless? And do not tell me you were afraid he would attack you for having pushed him, either physically or in words. The last thing he would have done was allow the rest of the dinner party to know that his wife had pushed him downstairs. It has far too much of the ridiculous.”

She drew breath, and let it out again without speaking.

“Had he ever beaten you?” he asked. “Seriously?”

She did not look at him. “No,” she said very quietly. “It would help if he had, wouldn't it? I should have said yes.”

“Not if it is untrue. Your word alone would not be greatly helpful anyway. Many husbands beat their wives. It is not a legal offense unless you feared for your life. And for such a profound charge you would need a great deal of corroborative evidence.”

“He didn't beat me. He was a-a very civilized man-a hero.” Her lips curled in a harsh, wounding humor as she said it, as if there were some dark joke behind the words.

He knew she was not yet prepared to share it, and he avoided rebuff by not asking.

“So why did you kill him, Mrs. Carlyon? You were not passionately jealous. He had not threatened you. What then?”

“He was having an affair with Louisa Furnival-publicly- in front of my friends and family,” she repeated flatly.

He was back to the beginning. He did not believe her, at least he did not believe that was all. There was something raw and deep that she was concealing. All this was surface, and laced with lies and evasions. “What about your daughter?” he asked.

She turned back to him, frowning. “My daughter?”

“Your daughter, Sabella. Had she a good relationship with her father?”

Again the shadow of a smile curled her mouth.

“You have heard she quarreled with him. Yes she did, very unpleasantly. She did not get on well with him. She had wished to take the veil, and he thought it was not in her best interest. Instead he arranged for her to marry Fenton Pole, a very agreeable young man who has treated her well.”

“But she has still not forgiven her father, even after this time?”

“No.”

“Why not? Such a grudge seems excessive.”

“She-she was very ill,” she said defensively. “Very disturbed-after the birth of her child. It sometimes happens.” She stared at him, her head high. “That was when she began to be angry again. It has largely passed.”

“Mrs. Carlyon-was it your daughter, and not you, who killed your husband?”

She swung around to him, her eyes wide, very blue. She really did have a most unusual face. Now it was full of anger and fear, ready to fight in an instant.

“No-Sabella had nothing to do with it! I have already told you, Mr. Rathbone, it was I who killed him. I absolutely forbid you to bring her into it, do you understand me? She is totally innocent. I shall discharge you if you suggest for a moment anything else!”

And that was all he could achieve. She would say nothing more. He rose to his feet.

“I will see you again, Mrs. Carlyon. In the meantime speak of this to no one, except with my authority. Do you understand?” He did not know why he bothered to say this. All his instincts told him to decline the case. He could do very little to help a woman who deliberately killed her husband without acceptable reason, and a flirtation at a dinner party was not an acceptable reason to anyone at all. Had she found him in bed with another woman it might be mitigating, especially if it were in her own house, and with a close friend. But even that was not much. Many a woman had found her husband in bed with a maid and been obliged to accept in silence, indeed to keep a smile on her face. Society would be more likely to criticize her for being clumsy enough to find them, when with a little discretion she could have avoided placing herself-and him-in such a situation.

“If that is what you wish,” she said without interest. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Rathbone.” She did not even ask who had sent him.