“Let us be logical about it,” he said thoughtfully. “Did she plan this murder before she committed it? “

“We don't know. There is nothing to indicate whether she did or not.”

“So it might have been a spur-of-the-moment act-lacking forethought, and possibly not considering the consequences either.”

“But she is not a foolish woman,” Hester protested.”She cannot have failed to know she would be hanged.”

“If she was caught!” he argued. “It is possible an overwhelming fury possessed her and she acted unreasonably.”

Hester frowned.

“My dear, it is a mistake to imagine we are all reasonable all of the time,” he said gently. “People act from all sorts of impulses, sometimes quite contrary to their own interests, had they stopped to think. But so often we don't, we do what our emotions drive us to. If we are frightened we either run or freeze motionless, or we lash out, according to our nature and past experience.”

He ignored his food, looking at her with concentration. “I think most tragedies happen when people have had too little time to think or weigh one course against another, or perhaps even to assess the real situation. They leap in before they have seen or understood. And then it is too late.” Ab-sentmindedly he pushed the pickle toward Oliver. “We are full of preconceptions; we judge from our own viewpoint. We believe what we have to, to keep the whole edifice of our views of things to be as they are. A new idea is still the most dangerous thing in the world. A new idea about something close to ourselves, coming quite suddenly and without warning, can make us so disconcerted, so frightened at the idea of all our beliefs about ourselves and those around us crumbling about our ears that we reach to strike at the one who has introduced this explosion into our lives-to deny it, violently if need be.”

“Perhaps we don't know nearly enough about Alexandra Carlyon,” she said thoughtfully, staring at her plate.

“We know a great deal more now than we did a week ago,” Oliver said quietly. “Monk has been to her house and spoken with her servants, but the picture that emerges of both her and the general does nothing to set her in a better light, or explain why she should kill him. He was chilly, and possibly a bore, but he was faithful to her, generous with his money, had an excellent reputation, indeed almost perfect- and he was a devoted father to his son, and not unreasonable to his daughters.”

“He refused to allow Sabella to devote herself to the Church,” Hester said hotly. “And forced her to marry Fen-ton Pole.”

Oliver smiled. “Not unreasonable, really. I think most fathers might well do the same. And Pole seems a decent enough man.”

“He still ordered her against her will,” she protested.

“That is a father's prerogative, especially where daughters are concerned.”

She drew in her breath sharply, longing to remonstrate, even to accuse him of injustice, but she did not want to appear abrasive and ungracious to Henry Rathbone. It was an inappropriate time to pursue her own causes, however justifiable. She liked him more than she had expected, and his ill opinion of her would hurt. He was utterly unlike her own father, who had been very conventional, not greatly given to discussion; and yet in his company she was reminded, with comfort and a stab of pain, of all the wealth of belonging, the ease of family. Her own loneliness was sharpened by the sudden awareness. She had forgotten, perhaps deliberately, how good it had been when her parents were alive, in spite of the restrictions, the discipline and the staid and old-fashioned views. She had chosen to forget, to accommodate her grief.

Now, unaccountably, with Henry Rathbone the best of it returned.

Henry interrupted her thoughts, jerking her back to the present and the Carlyon case. “But that all happened some time ago. The daughter is married already, from what you say?”

“Yes. They have a child,” she said hastily.

“So this may rankle still, but it will not be the motive for murder so long after?”

“No.”

“Let us suggest a hypothesis,” Henry said thoughtfully, his meal almost forgotten. “The crime seems to have been committed on the spur of the moment. Alexandra saw the opportunity and took it-rather clumsily, as it turns out. Which means, if we are correct, either that she learned something that evening which so distressed her that she lost all sense of reason or self-preservation, or that she already wished to kill him but had not previously found an opportunity to do it.” He looked at Hester. “Miss Latterly, in your judgment, what might shake a woman so? In other words, what would a woman hold so dear that she would kill to protect it?”

Oliver stopped eating, his fork in the air.

“We haven't looked at it that way,” he said, turning to her. “Hester?”

She thought, wishing to give the most careful and intelligent answer she could.

“Well, I suppose the thing that would make me most likely to act without thinking, even of the risk to myself, would be some threat to the people I loved most-which in Alexandra's case would surely be her children.” She allowed herself a half smile. “Regrettably it was obviously not her husband. To me it would have been my parents and brothers, but all of them except Charles are dead anyway.” She said it because it was high in her mind, not to seek sympathy, then immediately wished she had not. She went on before they could offer any.”But let us say family-and in the case where there are children, I imagine one's home as well. There are some homes that go back for generations, even centuries. I would imagine one might care about them so extremely as to kill to preserve them, or to keep them from felling into the possession of others. But that does not apply here.”

“Not according to Monk,” Oliver agreed, watching with dark, intent eyes. “And anyway, the house is his, not hers- and not an ancestral home in any way. What else?”

Hester smiled wryly, very aware of him. “Well, if I were beautiful, I suppose my looks would also be precious to me. Is Alexandra beautiful?”

He thought for a moment, his face reflecting a curious mixture of humor and pain. “Not beautiful, strictly speaking. But she is most memorable, and perhaps that is better. She has a face of distinct character.”

“So far you have only mentioned one thing which she might care about sufficiently,” Henry Rathbone pointed out. “What about her reputation?”

“Oh yes,” Hester agreed quickly. “If one's honor is sufficiently threatened, if one were to be accused of something wrongfully, that could make one lose one's temper and control and every bit of good sense. It is one of the things I hate above all else. That is a distinct possibility. Or the honor of someone I loved-that would cut equally deeply.”

“Who threatened her honor?” Oliver asked with a frown. “We have heard nothing at all to suggest anyone did. And if it were so, why should she not tell us? Or could it have been someone else's honor? Who? Not his, surely?”

“Blackmail,” Hester said immediately. “A person blackmailed would naturally not tell-or it would reveal the very subject she had killed to hide.”

“By her husband?” Oliver said skeptically. “That would be robbing one pocket to pay the other.”

“Not for money,” she said quickly, leaning forward over the table. “Of course that would make no sense. For something else-perhaps simply power over her.”

“But who would he tell, my dear Hester? Any scandal about her would reflect just as badly upon him. Usually if a woman has disgraced herself, it is the husband whom the blackmailer would tell.”

“Oh.” She saw the point of what he was saying and it made excellent sense. “Yes.” She looked at his eyes, expecting criticism, and saw a gentleness and a humor that for an instant robbed her of her concentration. She was far too comfortable here with the two of them she liked so much. It would be so easy to wish to stay, to wish to belong. She recalled herself rapidly to the subject.