Lisle Jerningham hated it – a couple of acres of arabesques and geometrical patterns, hard, formal, set with cypresses and statues, and flowers which looked too tidy to be real. Beyond its confines Nature, though still dragooned, had been permitted to produce turf and trees – at first the more carefully clipped varieties, but as the distance from the house increased these gave place to spreading branches and unchecked growth. Dale’s grandfather had been a lover of trees, and the beeches, coloured sycamores, oaks, and maples of his planting had grown and flourished. There were tall conifers too, gold-tipped, deep emerald and blue – cypress, cedar, and deodar.

Lisle walked among them and waited for Dale to come home. Yesterday was yesterday and a long way past. Her colour had come back, and enough courage to make her think very slightingly about yesterday’s panic flight. The sense of shock having passed, she considered her own behaviour with amazement and some shame. Dale had sent her down to the Cranes for the weekend, and she had run away after a single night. He was going to be angry about that, and he was going to want an explanation.

She walked between the trees and wondered what she was going to say. Easy enough if you didn’t mind telling lies. She could say that she felt suddenly ill and didn’t want to be laid up away from home. Rafe and Alicia, horrified at her yesterday’s looks, could very well be trusted to bear her out. But she hadn’t been brought up to lie her way out of a fix. Lies were – rather horrid, and lies to Dale unthinkable. The truth then? Unfortunately the truth was rather unthinkable too. How was she going to say to Dale, “I stood behind a hedge, and two women were talking – I don’t know who they were. They said that Lydia had an accident because you wanted her money, and they said perhaps I would have one too?”

All at once she was shuddering with the recollection of how cold the water had been coming up over her chin, over her mouth, over her eyes – ten days ago – only ten days ago. She steadied herself against the thought and went out from the trees to get the warmth of the sun. She couldn’t tell Dale a lie, and she couldn’t tell him the truth.