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But last night I hesitated. If I hadn’t, poor Gwendolen would be alive, and I should not be alone, mourning her loss.” The look he gave Isobel was venomous in its intensity and its blame.
    Vespasia was stunned. It was the last response she had intended to provoke. Far from helping Isobel, she had sealed her fate.
    Omegus also looked wretched, but he was bound by his own rules.
    The verdict was a matter of form. By overwhelming majority they found Isobel guilty of unbridled cruelty and deliberate intent to ruin Gwendolen, falsely, in the eyes of the man she loved. There was sympathy for Bertie, but it was not unmixed with a certain contempt.
    â€œAnd what is this pilgrimage that Mrs. Alvie is to make?” Fenton Twyford asked angrily. “I must say I agree with Peter. I really don’t care where she goes, as long as it is not across my path. I can’t stand a woman with a vicious tongue. It’s inexcusable.”
    â€œVery little is inexcusable,” Omegus said with sudden cutting authority, his face at once bleak and touched with a terrible compassion. “You have given your word before everyone here that if she completes the journey, you will wipe the matter from your memory as if it did not happen. Otherwise, you will have broken your word—and that also cannot be excused. If a man’s oath does not bind him, then he cannot be a part of any civilized society.”
    Twyford went white. He glanced around the table. No one smiled at him. Lord Salchester nodded in agreement. “Quite so,” he said. “Quite so.”
    â€œAre we agreed?” Omegus inquired softly.
    â€œWe are,” came the answer from everyone except Isobel.
    Omegus turned to her and waited.
    â€œWhat journey?” she said huskily.
    Omegus explained. “Gwendolen left a letter addressed to her mother, Mrs. Naylor. I have not opened it, nor will you. It’s obviously private. You will take it to Mrs. Naylor and explain to her that Gwendolen has taken her own life, and your part in it. If Mrs. Naylor wishes to come to London, or to Applecross, you will accompany her, unless she will not permit you to. But you will do all in your power to succeed. She lives near Inverness, in the Highlands of Scotland. Her address is on the envelope.”
    The silence in the room was broken by the sound of a sudden shower lashing the windows.
    â€œI won’t!” Isobel said in a rush of outrage. “The north of Scotland! At this time of year? And to … to face … absolutely not.” She stood up, her body shaking, her face burning with hectic color. “I will not do it.” For a moment she stared at them, and then left the room, grasping the door until it slammed against the farther wall, then swinging it shut after her.
    Vespasia half rose also, then realized the futility of it and sat down again.
    â€œI thought she wouldn’t,” Lady Warburton said with a smile of satisfaction.
    Vespasia thought for an instant of a crocodile who fears it is robbed of its prey, and then feels its teeth sink into flesh after all. “You must be pleased,” she said aloud. “I imagine you would have found it nigh on impossible to know something unkind about someone and be unable to repeat it to others.”
    Lady Warburton looked at her coldly, her face suddenly bloodless, eyes glittering. “I would be more careful in my choice of friends, if I were you, Lady Vespasia. Your father’s title will not protect you forever. There is a degree of foolishness beyond which even you will have to pay.”
    â€œYou are suggesting I desert my friends the moment it becomes inconvenient to me?” Vespasia inquired, although there was barely an inflection in her tone, only heavy disgust. “Why does it not astound me that you should say so?” She also rose to her feet. “Excuse me,” she said to no one in particular, and left the room.
    Outside in the hall she