a loved one, for in a way--a schoolgirl way, perhaps--I had loved my
prince of the arbour. And always since our day together, I'd compared
other men with him, to their disadvantage. No one else ever captured my
imagination as he captured it in those few hours.

For a moment that little bit of Long Ago pushed itself between me and
Now. I was grieving for my dead romance, instead of for Brian's broken
life: but quickly I woke up. Things were as bad as ever again, and even
worse, because of their contrast with the past I'd conjured up. Grief
for the death of Jimmy Beckett mingled with grief for Brian, and
anxieties about money, in the dull, sickly way that unconnected troubles
tangle themselves together in nightmare dreams.

I'm not telling you how I suffered, as an excuse for what I did, dear
Padre. I'm only explaining how one thing led to another.

It was in thinking of Jim Wyndham, and what might have happened between
us if he'd come back to me as he promised, that the awful idea developed
in my head. The thought wasn't born full-grown and armoured, like
Minerva when she sprang from the brain of Jupiter. It began like this:

"If I'd been engaged to him, I might have gone to his parents now. I
should have comforted them by talking about their son, and they could
have comforted me. Perhaps they would have adopted us as their children.
We need never have been lonely and poor. Jim would have wished us to
live with his father and mother, for all our sakes."

When the thought had gone as far as this, it suddenly leaped to an
enormous height, as if a devil in me had been doing the mango trick.

I _heard_ myself thinking, "Why don't you go to see Mr. and Mrs.
Beckett, and tell them you were engaged to marry their only son? The
paper said he left no fiancee or wife in America. You can easily make
them believe your story. Nobody can prove that it isn't true, and out of
evil good will come for everyone."

Flames seemed to rush through my head with a loud noise, like the
Tongues of Fire in the Upper Room. My whole body was in a blaze. Each
nerve was a separate red-hot wire.

I rose to my feet, but I made no sound. Instinct reminded me that I
mustn't wake Brian, but I could breathe better, think better standing, I
felt.

"They are millionaires, the Becketts--millionaires!" a voice was
repeating in my brain. "They wouldn't let Brian or you want for anything.
They'd be _glad_ if you went to them. You could make them happy. Yo