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She pushed the door open firmly and entered. She was shaking, and there was no strength in her limbs, but neither was there indecision, that had been resolved and there was no thought of escape now.
Kristian was sitting at his desk. He rose as soon as he saw her, a smile of pleasure on his face in spite of very obvious tiredness. Was that the sleeplessness of guilt? She swallowed, and her breath caught in her throat, almost choking her.
“Callandra? Are you all right?” He pulled out the other chair for her and held it while she sat down. She had intended to stand, but found herself accepting, perhaps because it put off the moment fractionally.
“No.” She launched into the attack without prevarication as he returned to his own seat. “I am extremely worried, and I have decided to consult you about it at last. I cannot evade it any longer.”
The blood drained from his face, leaving him ashen. The dark circles around his eyes stood out like bruises. His voice when he spoke was very quiet and the strain was naked in it.
“Tell me.”
This was even worse than she had thought. He looked so stricken, like a man facing sentence.
“You look very tired …” she began, then was furious with herself. It was a stupid observation, and pointless.
The sad ghost of a smile touched his mouth.
“Sir Herbert has been absent some time. I am doing what I can to care for his patients, but with them as well as my own it is hard.” He shook his head minutely. “But that is unimportant. Tell me what you can of your health. What pain do you have? What signs that disturb you?”
How stupid of her. Of course he was tired—he must be exhausted, trying to do Sir Herbert’s job as well as his own. She had not even thought of that. Neither had any of the other governors, so far as she knew. What a group of incompetents they were! All they had spoken of when they met was the hospital’s reputation.
And he had assumed she was ill—naturally. Why else would she consult him with trembling body and husky voice?
“I am not ill,” she said, meeting his eyes with apology and pain. “I am troubled by fear and conscience.” At last it was said, and it was the truth, no evasions. She loved him. It eased her to admit it in words, without evasion at last. She stared at his face with all its intelligence, passion, humor, and sensuality. Whatever he had done, that could not suddenly be torn out. If it came out at all, it would leave a raw wound, like the roots of a giant tree ripping out of the soil, upheaving all the land around it.
“By what?” he asked, staring at her. “Do you know something about Prudence Barrymore’s death?”
“I don’t think so—I hope not….”
“Then what?”
This was the moment.
“A short while ago,” she began, “I accidentally intruded on you while you were performing an operation. You did not see or hear me, and I left without speaking.” He was watching her with a small pucker of concern between his brows. “I recognized the patient,” she went on. “It was Marianne Gillespie, and I fear that the operation was to abort the child she was carrying.” She did not need to go on. She knew from his face, the total lack of surprise or horror in it, that it was true. She tried to numb herself so she would not feel the pain inside. She must distance herself from him, realize that she could not love a man who had done such things, not possibly. This abominable hurt would not last!
“Yes it was,” he said, and there was neither guilt nor fear in his eyes. “She was with child as a result of rape by her brother-in-law. She was in the very early stages, less than six weeks.” He looked sad and tired, and there was fear of hurt in his face, but not shame. “I have performed abortions on several occasions before,” he said quietly, “when I have been consulted early enough, in the first eight or ten weeks, and the child is a result of violence or the woman is very young indeed, sometimes even less than twelve years old—or if she is in such a state of ill health that to bear the child would, in my judgment, cost her her own life. Not in any other circumstances and not ever for payment.” She wanted to interrupt him and say something, but her throat was too tight, her lips stiff. “I am sorry if that is abhorrent to you.” A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. “Very sorry indeed. You must know how deeply I care for you, although it has never been right that I should tell you, since I am not free to offer you anything honorable—but whatever you feel about it, I have thought long and deeply. I have even prayed.” Again the self-mocking humor flashed and disappeared. “And I believe it to be
right—acceptable before God. I believe in those cases a woman has the right to choose. I cannot change that, even for you.”
Now she was terrified for him. He would be caught, and that would mean professional ruin and imprisonment. She was aching inside with the tension of fear.
“Victoria Stanhope,” she said huskily, her heart full of memories of a girl in a pink dress, her face drawn, her eyes full of hope, and then despair. She had to know this one last thing, and then dismiss it forever. “Did you operate on her?”
His face shadowed with grief.
“No. I would have, since the child was the result of both incest and seduction—her brother Arthur, God help him—but she was only four months from term. It was too late. There was nothing I could do. I wish there had been.”
Suddenly the whole picture was different. It was not abortion for money but an attempt to help some of the weakest and most desperate people to cope with a situation beyond their bearing. Should he have? Or was it still a sin?
Surely not? Surely it was compassion—and wisdom?
She stared at him, unable to grasp the joy of it, the immeasurable relief that washed over her. Her eyes were prickling with tears and her voice was trapped somewhere in her throat.
“Callandra?” he said gently.
She smiled, a ridiculous, radiant smile, meeting his eyes with such intensity it was like a physical touch.
Very slowly he began to smile too. He reached out his hand across the desktop and took hers. If it occurred to him that she had thought also that he had killed Prudence, he did not say so. Nor did he ask her why she had not told the police. She would have told him it was because she loved him fiercely, unwillingly and painfully, but it was far better for all that such things be unsaid. It was known between them, and understood, with all the other impossibilities which did not need words now.
