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By Root 476 0

that Pitt would not tell her. Previous to her marriage she had been forbidden by her father to read such things. Like most other men of breeding he believed them vulgar and totally unsuitable for women. After all, they carried little else but crime and scandal, and such political notions as were undesirable for the consideration of women, as well, of course, as intellectually beyond them. Charlotte had had to indulge her interest by bribery of the butler or with the connivance of her brother-in-law, Dominic Corde. She smiled now to think how she had loved Dominic in those days, when Sarah was still alive. The smile vanished. Sarah’s death still hurt, and the passion for Dominic had long ago cooled to friendship. She had been shocked and dismayed to discover she was in love with this awkward and impertinent policeman who had told her so disturbingly of a world she had never previously acknowledged, a world of petty crime and desperate, grinding poverty. Her own blind comfort had become offensive to her, her judgments had changed.

Of course her parents had been shaken when she had informed them she intended to marry a policeman, but they had accepted it with as good a grace as possible. After all, she was something of a liability on the marriage market, with her unacceptable frankness. She was handsome enough, in fact Pitt thought her beautiful, but she had not sufficient money to overcome her waywardness and her undisciplined tongue, devastating disadvantages in the eyes of any gentleman of her own station. Her grandmother had given up all hope and was dismally convinced poor Charlotte was destined to become an old maid. And there was the compensation of Emily having married a lord! And with the social stigma of a murder in the house, the Ellisons were no longer a family with whom one chose willingly to contract an alliance!

Pitt was a great deal firmer with Charlotte than she had expected; indeed, in spite of his being deeply and unashamedly in love with her, he was quite as insufferably bossy as all the other men she knew. She was amazed, to begin with, and even fought him a little, but in her heart she was quite glad of it. She had barely dared to admit it to herself, but she had been a little afraid that because of his devotion to her, and their previous relative social positions, he might have let her ride over him, bend his will to hers. She was secretly delighted to discover he had no intention of doing anything of the kind. Of course she had cried, and made an exhibition of both temper and hurt in their first quarrel. But she had gone to sleep with singing happiness inside her when he had come to her gently, taking her in his arms, but utterly and finally refusing to allow her her own way.

But he had never objected to her reading the newspapers, and as soon as the maid returned with the copy of today’s she scrambled through it, fingers flying to find some reference to a crime in Callander Square. She did not find it the first time and had to search more diligently before she discovered a small piece, barely two inches long, stating simply that two bodies of babies had been found in the gardens, and a domestic tragedy among the maidservants was suspected.

She knew immediately why Pitt had concealed it from her. She herself was newly expecting their first child. The thought of some servant girl, alone, desperate not to lose her livelihood, deserted by a lover—the whole thing was appalling. She felt cold at the imagining of it. Yet when she put the paper down she was already determined not to drive it from her mind. Perhaps she would be able to help the girl, if she were thrown out. It was a possibility: not herself, of course, she had no position to offer. But Emily! Emily was rich—and she had a deep suspicion she was also just a little bored. It was two years since her marriage also, and she had by now met all George Ashworth’s friends of any importance; she had been seen well dressed in all the fashionable places. Perhaps this would arouse her. Charlotte decided on the spot. This afternoon she would call upon