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somebody else.’

      ‘I guessed as much.’

      ‘Maybe I ought to say no more, Effie. You see, you come into it.’

      ‘Me, John?’

      As he nodded, it never occurred to her that he was lying. She had always thought that suffering had brought to him distinction of body and mind. With his black hair now thickly powdered with white at the sides, and his lean brown meditative face, he seemed to her a more distinguished man than Sir Colin himself. Never had she heard him say an indecent or false word. Several times she had found herself, deep in her own mind, regretting that his ordeal seemed to have purged him of passions. She had also indulged in the supposition of Peggy’s death and his freedom to remarry: if he asked her, she did not think she would refuse.

      ‘Aye, you, Effie,’ he said. ‘But maybe I should change the subject. There’s something else I want to ask you.’

      ‘But I’d like to know how I come into it, John, whatever it is.’

      He laughed. ‘Och, why not? You’re a sensible woman, Effie, and not likely to let silly tittle-tattle upset you. Somebody has got it into her head you and I are too fond of each other.’

      She seemed more agitated than indignant.

      ‘Mrs Lochie, do you mean?’ she asked.

      He nodded. ‘I don’t think she’s really got a spite against us, Effie. It’s God she blames, but where’s the satisfaction in slandering him?’

      ‘I was aware she slandered you, but I didn’t think she’d started on me.’

      ‘Don’t blame her, Effie.’

      ‘I’m certainly not going to be sorry for her either, if she spreads dirty slanders.’

      He chuckled. ‘So it’s a dirty slander, Effie, to say that you and I are fond of each other?’

      She was blushing; her throat was aflame, and perhaps her breasts.

      He leaned towards her.

      ‘I didn’t think that was what she meant,’ she said hoarsely.

      ‘It wasn’t, Effie,’ he whispered. ‘She made it plain enough what she meant. She accused us of being in bed together; but she put it more coarsely than that.’

      ‘My God!’ she cried, and made to rise.

      He put his hand on her breast and gently pushed her down.

      ‘She’s an old woman, Effie, crazy with anxiety. She sees I have difficulty whiles in showing affection for Peggy; which is the truth, I’m sorry to say. She thinks then I must be showing it to somebody else. It doesn’t occur to her I might be empty of affection altogether.’

      She stared at the table.

      ‘I hope that’s not true, John,’ she said, still hoarse.

      He wondered if he could risk kissing or embracing her. Were her scruples sufficiently annulled by desire for revenge, or by lust, or even by genuine affection for him? To his own destruction, and the cone-gatherers’, ought he to add hers?

      He sat still.

      ‘I think we should drop this subject in the meantime, Effie,’ he said, at last. ‘I see I’ve just got a minute or two left to ask your advice about a different matter altogether.’

      ‘It would be a mistake,’ she said, in such a low voice he could scarcely hear, ‘to let affection die in you altogether.’

      He stretched out his hand and laid it on hers.

      ‘Given the circumstances, Effie,’ he whispered, ‘I could blossom again like a gean-tree.’

      With a shudder, she withdrew her hand.

      ‘What was it you wanted to ask me?’ she murmured.

      ‘Oh, aye. You’re a Lendrick woman, Effie, and you know all that goes on there.’

      ‘I like to take an interest in folks’ affairs.’

      ‘Which is to your credit, surely. Maybe you know we’ve got a couple of men from Ardmore Forest working in our wood here.’

      ‘I heard about it. They’re gathering cones.’

      ‘That’s right. Cones are really seed, tree seed. Before the war this country got its supplies from abroad, from Norway and Canada and Corsica, I believe, among other places. You’ll appreciate better than most that our ships have more important cargoes to fetch these days. Yet if we’re to replace the multitude of trees being felled for the war, we must have seed. It’s the same with human beings: after a big war they’ve got to be replaced as well; but in their case the seed’s easily come by.’

      ‘I don’t think this is what you wanted to talk to me about, John.’

      ‘No, Effie. To tell you the truth, I’m as tongue-tied as a tree with everybody else; with you I talk, it seems, too much.’

      ‘I didn’t mean that. I was thinking of the time.’

      ‘These two men from Ardmore, Effie. I wonder if you can tell me anything about them.’

      ‘Ardmore’s a good eight miles out of Lendrick,’ she said, ‘though most of the men there come in on Saturdays. But I know the two you mean.’

      ‘Brothers,’ he murmured, ‘one a hunchback, the other tall and dour.’

      She nodded. ‘Their name’s McPhie. They’re well enough known in Lendrick.’

      ‘I thought they would be.’

      Something in his tone made her glance up.

      ‘There’s nothing known to their discredit, if that’s what you mean, John. It’s true the small one’s not as God meant a man to be; but that’s God’s business, not ours.’

      ‘Maybe it is our business, Effie.’

      ‘What do you mean?’ She glanced at the clock. ‘I hope you’re watching your time.’

      ‘How long have they been at Ardmore?’

      ‘I couldn’t say for certain. About four or five years.’

      ‘They’re quartered in the wood yonder in a hut as small as a rabbit-hutch, and as filthy.’

      ‘Is that their fault? Simple men like them, John, aren’t asked where they’d like to live. But what’s all the mystery about? What have they done?’

      ‘I’ll tell you. But it’s what they might do that worries me.’

      She waited for him to explain. He paused, searching for words that would bind her and him and the imbecile dwarf together in common defilement.

      ‘The hunchback’s not right in the head,’ he said.

      ‘He’s a bit simple.’

      ‘More than that, Effie. Indecency’s not simple. The papers are often full of what such misbegotten beasts have done.’ He smiled, marvelling at the steadiness of his hand holding the tea cup; within him was a roaring, like a storm through a tree. ‘I’m referring, of course, to assaults on wee lassies. There was one reported just the other week.’ He began to describe it, calmly, in the coarsest terms he knew.

      She stopped him. ‘I understand well enough,’ she said. ‘I’m not a child. But it’s a serious charge to make against any man, stooped or straight, daft or wise.’

      ‘I’m making no charge, as yet. But I’ve got to remember that if anything of the kind was to happen here the responsibility would be mine. There’s Miss Sheila sometimes walks in the wood alone; and of course the mistress.’

      ‘You hinted they’d already done something. What?’

      He stood up, with a smile at the clock, now at a minute to the

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