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Kelsall shrugged, and started walking again. “I suppose so. Or even Faraday. Although it’s a bit late for that now.”

“The chief constable?” Runcorn caught up with him. “What has he to do with it?”

“Oh, he courted her too, a while ago,” Kelsall replied. “The poor vicar thought that would have been an excellent match, even though he was quite a few years older than she. He thought it would settle her down a bit. But she gave him no encouragement at all, and he soon grew tired of it.”

“Faraday?” the word burst from Runcorn in amazement, and a kind of dull and momentary anger. He had courted Olivia, and now he was going to marry Melisande. Olivia had refused him. And Melisande had been obliged to accept him.

Runcorn was being ridiculous, he knew it, and still his thoughts raced on. He might have lost interest in Olivia because she was flighty, a dreamer, irresponsible. He might love Melisande because she was gentler, a visionary still capable of loving the real, the human and fallible. A woman not only beautiful but brave enough to accept an ordinary man, and perhaps in time make of him something greater.

Kelsall was still talking, but Runcorn had stopped paying attention. He had to ask the curate to repeat himself, and to drag his own attention back to the one thing he was good at, the skill that gave him his identity.

“You said something about Mr. Barclay,” he prompted. Kelsall shook his head a little. “I think the vicar envies him.”

“Why?” Although he feared that he knew the answer.

Kelsall smiled without pleasure. “Barclay’s sister does not argue with him. He has a way of making her understand what has to be done, what life requires of us, if we are to survive. I think Barclay would have persuaded Olivia as well, only he stopped wishing to, just before she died. I have no idea why, or I would have told you. The vicar thought Barclay a fine match for her. Only Mrs. Costain did not care for him.” He gave a slight shrug. “But then, she did not care for Newbridge, either, so far as I could see. The vicar accused her of wishing Olivia to remain single because she was such a good companion. But of course it was no good for her. She should marry and have her own home, and children, like any other woman. And to be honest, it is something of an expense on a clergyman’s stipend to dress and provide for two women.” He looked deeply unhappy. “Fear of poverty is not the same thing as greed, Mr. Runcorn. Really, it is not.”

“No,” Runcorn said quietly. “No, it is a very human and natural thing. Perhaps Miss Costain was not aware of the drain she was on his resources.”

“No. I think she was not always very practical,” Kelsall conceded. “It takes a long time for a man of the cloth to earn enough to keep a wife, never mind a sister as well.” There was loneliness and self-mockery in his voice, and he did not meet Runcorn’s eyes.

“Or a policeman,” Runcorn responded. “But then a policeman’s wife would expect far less.” There was self-mockery in his words too. On his salary he could not keep a woman like Melisande for a month, let alone a lifetime. It was not only social class that divided them, or experience and beliefs—it was money and all it could buy, the comforts a woman of Melisande’s background accepted without even noticing them.

Kelsall caught the shadow of Runcorn’s pain, and looked at him with new intensity and a sudden flame of gentleness in his eyes. He was tactful enough to say nothing.

Runcorn reported to Faraday just before dark as he had been commanded to do. It was an uncomfortable interview, and largely fruitless. He was leaving the vicarage and walking across the churchyard when Melisande caught up with him. She had come out of the house hastily and had no cloak with her. The wind blew her hair off her face and whipped long strands of it out of its pins. It looked soft, giving her a dark, wild halo and showing the pallor of her skin. She was frightened, he could see it in her eyes, but he did not know if it was for herself, or for the ugly things she could