For a member of a large and lively family this prospect, seen from a permanent couch, was not exhilarating, but Christabel did not complain: she took advantage of every incident and made the most of it, but she never expressed a desire for more. She had, for so frail and shattered a body, an amazing capacity for endurance, as though she were upheld by some spiritual force. It might have been religion or love, or the desire to perpetuate Francis’s admiration, but Rose believed, and hated herself for believing, that it was partly antagonism and a feverish curiosity. She had been cheated of her youth and strength, and here, with a beautiful, impassive face, was the woman who might have saved her, a woman with a body strongly slim in her dark habit, and firm white hands skilled in managing a horse. She had read the grey mare’s mind, and now Christabel, delicately blue and pink and white, in a wrapper of silk and lace, her hands fidgeting each other as they had fidgeted the mare’s mouth, thought she was reading the mind of Rose. She stared at her, fascinated but not afraid. There were things she must find out. She asked one day, and it was nearly two years since the accident, “Did they kill the mare?” And Rose, aware that Christabel had known all the time, answered, “Yes, at once. Her leg was broken.” “What a pity!” Waiting for what would come next, Rose smiled and looked out of the window at the swaying elm tops. “Such a useful animal!” Christabel said. “Very dangerous,” Rose remarked, slipping deliberately into the trap. “That’s what I mean. But not quite dangerous enough. Poor Francis! He didn’t know. He doesn’t know now, does he? But of course not.” Rose had a great horror of a debt and she owed something to Christabel, but now she felt she had paid it off, with interest. She breathed deeply, without a sound. Her tone was light. “He knows all that is good for him.” “You mean that is good for you.” Rose stood up, pulled on her washleather gloves, sat down again. The hands on the silk coverlet were shaking. “You are making yourself ill,” Rose said. She was tempted to take those poor fluttering hands into her own and steady them, but her flesh shrank from the contact. She was tempted, too, to tell Christabel the truth, but pride forbade her, and in a moment the impulse was gone, and with its departure came the belief that the truth would be annihilating. It would rob her of her glorious uncertainty, she would be destroyed by the knowledge that Rose had seen her fear, seen and tried to strengthen the slender hold she had on her husband’s love. It was better to play the part of the wicked woman, the murderess, the stealer of hearts: and perhaps she was wicked; she had not thought of that before; the Malletts did not criticize their actions or analyse their minds and she had no intention of breaking their habits. She stood up again and said: “Shall I call the nurse?” “You’re not going yet? You’ve only been here a few minutes.”