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nothing of these muddy lanes' - and a pale sorrel mare of much slighter build for Amadora - 'you'll find Glow hasn't quite the stamina but she is fleet over short distances and has the gentlest mouth.'
    The rain had almost ceased as they rode away; it was a barely visible dampness just freckling their faces. Amadora laughed at the pleasure of it, and indeed at the pleasure of the morning's visit. They chatted in Spanish all the way down the drive and she said: I do not see Sir George as such a wicked man.'
    Geoffrey Charles said: in his life I know him to have done a number of wicked things; things I find it difficult not to recall when I meet him; but I have no means of assessing evil and no special wish to judge him. He is older—for one thing ... Also ... the causes - at least some of the causes - are no longer there. It really all centred round my mother.'
    'How is that?'
    'Oh, mon Dieu, how can one say it all in a few breaths? Ross Poldark, my cousin - the other Captain Poldark, whom you may meet tomorrow - although happily married to his wife, Demelza, loved my mother first.'
    'A triangle eterno — perhaps?'
    'More of a quadrangle, if you gather my drift.'
    They clopped on for a few moments in silence. They were now descending the hill towards the main turnpike road.
    'Ross and George had been at loggerheads for some time: over a copper-smelting scheme, over matters relating to my father, over charges of riot and assault which nearly brought Ross to the gallows ... My mother's marriage to George caused the already deep division to become an abyss.'
    The track was again narrow and they went temporarily in single file.
    Amadora said: 'England is so green. I have never seen so much green. It is so rich, so lush, so exuberante.'
    'Wait till you cross the spine. On the other coast - my coast - it is quite different.'
    They reached the turnpike road, but instead of turning right or left upon it, Geoffrey Charles led the way up the opposite hill. It was a steep and awkward climb by the narrowest of tracks much overgrown with fern and bramble. In twenty minutes they had reached the top and reined in breathless, looking back the way they had come.
    'So green,' said Amadora again.
    'In a moment we shall join the track to Redruth, which at least is well worn. Then we shall fork right for St Day. But this is the worst of the route. Are you tired, my little?'
    'Tired?' she said. 'What is tired?'.
    They went on.
    'And?' said Amadora.
    ‘ And?'
    'Did not all this you have talked about occur when you were most young?'
    'Yes. Oh yes. Too young to understand at the time. But I have learned of it since - picked up a pretty fact here and there ...'
    'Your governess, you told me - Malvena - there was much trouble over her?'
    'Morwenna. That was later, when I was ten....' He flexed his injured hand. 'She and I became great friends. That did not matter, but one day we met Drake Carne , Demelza's brother — and he and Morwenna became great friends; more than friends. They came to love each other deeply. The only let was that Drake did not come of the same class as Morwenna - and, being related to a Poldark made him specially hated by. George. George arranged an imposed marriage for Morwenna, to an odious clergyman called Osborne Whitworth.' Geoffrey Charles gave an a ngry shrug of the shoulders. 'All that time ... it is best forgotten. But when I remember it ...'
    Amadora took a firmer grip of her reins. 'But you have told me that now - that some years ago this Drake and this Morwenna became married. How is that?'
    'Whitworth - the parson - was killed by footpads, or fell from his horse with some sort of a stroke. Anyway he died. And after a while Drake and Morwenna married. At the time I was fifteen and away at school. Of course he wrote to me. So did Morwenna. But even so one had to read between the lines, to learn more of the truth from other people.'
    'What is that truth?'
    'Soon after they were married a small boat building yard that