"Indeed not," Evan agreed with feeling. He knew dozens of young men, and indeed older ones, who would dearly like to marry, but could not afford it. To keep an establishment suitable for a wife cost more than three or four times the amount necessary to live a single life. And then the almost inevitable children added to that greatly.

Rhys Duff was an unusually fortunate young man. Why had he not been grateful for that?

As if answering his thought she spoke very softly.

"Perhaps he was… too young. He might have done it willingly, if… if it had not been his father's wish for him. The young can be so… so… wilful… even against their own interests." She seemed barely to be able to control the grief which welled up inside her. Evan hated having to press any questions at all, but he knew that now she was more likely to tell him an unguarded truth. Tomorrow she could be more careful, more watchful to conceal anything which damaged, or revealed.

He struggled for anything to say which could be of comfort, and there was nothing. In his mind he saw so clearly the pale, bruised face of the young man lying first in the alley, crumpled and bleeding, and then in St. Thomas's, his eyes filled with horror which was quite literally unspeakable. He saw again his mouth open as he struggled, and failed even to ut tera word. What could anyone say to comfort his mother?

He made a resolve that however long it took him, however hard it was, he would find out what had happened in that alley, and make whoever was responsible answer for it.

"He said nothing of where he might go?" he resumed. "Had he any usual haunts?”

"He left in some… heat," she replied. She seemed to have steadied herself again. "I believe his father had an idea as to where he frequented. Perhaps it is known to men in general? There are…