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'We shan't be, if you talk like that,’ said Ian. ‘Really, Gray, you’re the ruddy limit! You disappear, making yourself incommunicado, while your father dies and Fran grieves herself sick, to say nothing of your mother who needed you. Then you walk in and throw your weight about as if we were at fault. Aren’t you going to give us some explanation?'

Very deliberately Gray walked behind the desk and seated himself in the swivel chair. Frances and Ian moved to either side of him and he looked from one to the other with a sardonic smile.

‘I was detained in the States. There was something I had to do before I came back.’

‘So you’ve been there all the time? But Lambert said he didn’t know ...’

'I forbade him to disclose my whereabouts.'

‘Oh, did you?’ Ian was smouldering with indignation on Frances’ behalf. ‘Was this . . . er . . . delay anything to do with Miss Samantha?'

‘She was connected with it ... yes.’

'Ah, now we're beginning to see daylight,’ Ian declared triumphantly, while Frances moved to the window and leaned her head against the cool pane. The man who had come back was not the Gray who had gone away. He had become a hard, sneering stranger. Had Silver Arrow’s mishap so embittered him that he was mentally affected? It was the kindest explanation, but Ian was trying to make him admit something more wounding, that he had lingered to dally with Samantha.

Ian said: ‘Perhaps you’ve come back to arrange a divorce?’ He was unable to keep the eagerness out of his eyes. Gray saw it and laughed.

'That would suit you, wouldn’t it? But Fran won’t want to marry a beggar, which is what you’ll be when I’ve turned you out of Crawfords.’ He looked at the slight black figure outlined against the window with a curious expression. ‘I haven’t finished with her yet.’

‘She may have finished with you . . .’

Frances turned round from the window. ‘Please, Ian,' she intervened gently. ‘I want to talk to my husband alone.’

‘Are you sure I’m still that?’ Gray asked.

‘I’m not sure about anything,’ she returned steadily, ‘except that you’ve changed. Please go, Ian.'

Reluctantly Ian left the room. Frances went round the desk and knelt beside Gray’s chair. She took his unresponsive hand in both of hers and looked up appealingly into his face.

‘I never believed you were dead,’ she told him. ‘But why didn’t you send me some word? I’ve wanted you so, and the suspense was hard to bear. You’ve been very cruel, Gray.’

‘I had my reasons,’ he said harshly, ‘and you’re right, I have changed.’ His hand gripped hers so hard it hurt, and looking down, she saw it was covered with white scars, his beautiful sensitive hand that had once caressed her so expertly.

‘Oh, Gray, what have you done to it?’

He snatched it away and thrust it into his pocket.

‘I burned it,’ he said laconically. ‘Get up, Fran, you know I hate sentimental scenes. The best thing you can do is as Ian suggests, divorce me.’

She stood up, feeling shattered,

‘You want your freedom?’ she asked dully.

'Don't you want yours?'

She thought of Robbie, but felt reluctant to tell this grim-faced stranger about the child.

‘So Ian was right, it is Samantha,’ she accused him.

He did not answer but picking up a pencil began to doodle on the clean blotting paper. He formed elaborate letters S, the initial of Samantha, and Silver Arrow. Reminded of the boat, she told him: 'Sandy was furious when he heard you’d sold Silver Arrow, he believes you squandered the money which he considers belonged to the company. I was surprised you had the heart to do it, but you wouldn’t want to keep her when she’d let you down.’

As you don’t want to keep me now you imagine I’ve played you false with Ian.
But Frances did not say that.

He rose abruptly and walked to the window. Frances looked yearningly at his slim, graceful figure, which was as taut and lithe as it had ever been. Without looking at her, his eyes upon the street outside, he told her in a hard clipped tone: ‘Silver Arrow was destroyed by a time-bomb— deliberate sabotage. The criminal was never discovered, but I knew, and Stu knew, it was Brett. Stu spent enormous sums to keep it out of the papers, and he sent Brett off on a world cruise to get him out of the way. He was horrified by what he’d done, but Brett was his only son.'

Frances stared at him aghast. She knew bombings and other violence were taking place every day, but they had always been remote. Lesley had hinted at sabotage, but no one had taken her seriously.

'Oh, Gray, how terrible! I'm so sorry.'

‘Don’t be a hypocrite,' he snapped. 'You always hated Silver Arrow.'

‘But I know what she was to you. I meant it, I'm very sorry.’ She recalled his scarred hand. ‘Gray,
were you there? Were you hurt?'

‘I happened to come along at the wrong moment,' he smiled wryly. ‘As a result I did have to go to hospital.'

Infinite reproach showed in Frances' eyes, and she took a step towards him. ‘How could you keep us all in ignorance w-hen such dreadful things were happening to you?' He shrugged and turned his head away. 'At least you might have let me know!'

He looked at her curiously. ‘Why? What could you have done?'

‘Come to you at once. I'm your wife, it was my place to be with you in your dark hour. I could perhaps have comforted you ... a little . . .' Her lips trembled. ‘Didn't you want me?'

A flicker of emotion showed in his eyes, to be instantly quenched, and he almost shouted at her:

‘No! I didn't want you drooling inanities all over me. Besides, a woman's tongue can't be trusted. Stu paid for the best medical attention for me, and tried to pretend it couldn't have been Brett, but we both knew it was. I agreed that nobody in England should be told the truth, in case something leaked out. He was all for protecting that swine of a son of his, and I ... I had my reasons.’

This repudiation and distrust hurt Frances almost unbearably. He had been injured and in distress, and had deliberately shut her out for what seemed to her to be very flimsy reasons. She said dully:

'I wonder you were able to conceal yourself, you’re not exactly a nobody.’

‘Everyone thought Graham Crawford had gone home with his tail between his legs. I was admitted to hospital as plain Mr Grey.’

The same name he had used on their honeymoon when he had made love to her so passionately. How little she meant to him that he could go through the worst experience of his life without even letting her know he was still alive. A body in a bed, that was all she had ever been to him, and there were other bodies equally accommodating. In a tight voice she enquired:

‘Did Miss Lambert know where you were?’

‘Sam? Oh, yes, she . . .’ he hesitated, then went on, ‘came to visit me.’

‘So you didn’t mind her coming?’ Frances cried bitterly. '
She
was not excluded.’

'She was on the spot and in the know,’ Gray explained. He smiled sardonically. ‘She refused to be kept out.’

Frances felt a spurt of jealous anger.

‘No, it was only me, your wife, you wanted kept out. Conveniently the Atlantic was between us and these fine friends of yours connived at keeping me in ignorance to suit their own ends. Yet I ...’ She checked herself. It was humiliating to speak of her love when he so obviously did not want it.

‘I’d done my duty by you,' Gray told her coldly. ‘If I died you were well provided for, as I promised when I asked you to marry me. Meanwhile you weren’t in want, you were living with your friends the Fergusons, which was what you wanted to do, with Ian to comfort you. You refused to go to my people, which I thought was the better arrangement and more suitable. Now it’s obvious why you wanted to remain with the Fergusons. I don’t think you missed me.’

Not missed him, when with every fibre of her body, every thought in her mind she had yearned for him? Didn’t he know she loved him? But he despised love and he felt none for her. He had had Samantha to ‘drool’ over him, as he put it, and shared his secret with her. She had been a congenial substitute for the deserted wife. Whatever injury Gray had sustained, he had made a complete recovery, except for his being thinner there was no physical change, but the loss of Silver Arrow had warped his mind, she could not get through to him, and he was using Ian as a barrier between them.

He did not know about Robbie, and how was he going to react to that news? Would it soften him? He looked as hard as his native granite. He might resent the child if he were wanting a divorce. No, she would not mention Robbie, not yet.

‘You look quite fit now,’ she began tentatively.

‘I’m fine.’

‘Then why have you waited so long to come back?’

'I had to wait for Brett’s return.’

‘Brett? But he . . .'

‘I couldn’t prosecute him, there wasn’t enough evidence,’ he said flatly. ‘By the time I was discharged it was much too late to do anything officially, but I was going to get a confession out of him, and strike a blow for Silver Arrow'. I had to wait some time to get him alone, and then . . .’ his lips curled back in a smile that froze her blood. 'He was a white-livered hound, he admitted everything, and I had him begging for mercy before I'd done with him. I didn’t quite kill him, for Stu’s sake, but it’ll be a long time before he drives a speedboat again.’

Silence fell between them. Frances sat down weakly on a high chair while Gray resumed his stare out of the window. Into that civilised room, with its polished furniture, silver vase o: flowers, and leather-seated chairs, had crept a raw and primitive element that mocked its sophistication. Gray had taken the law into his own hands to avenge his wrongs. He had descended upon the unfortunate Brett like an avenging angel ... or a devil. Deep within her Frances became aware of an involuntary response, that of ancestral woman to the fighting male, an atavistic urge towards her protector and mate, the guardian of the tribe, but it was not for her sake that Gray had meted out this savage punishment, but to avenge a craft that he had loved more than any woman.

At length Frances spoke.

‘What do you propose to do now?’

Her words broke the ominous silence; the atmosphere became normal again. Gray turned from the window, the fixity of his expression relaxed to a tired indifference. He passed his hand wearily across his brow, the first indication of human weakness he had shown since he had come into the room.

‘Oh, tidy up here, and after that, perhaps I’ll go away again.’

‘Back to Samantha?’

The words slipped out involuntarily, and he gave her a vindictive look.

‘That would suit you, wouldn’t it? So when two years are up you can divorce me for desertion. You may not find me quite so accommodating.’

‘Oh, Gray!’ Frances stood up and went towards him, her face full of desperate appeal. ‘How can I convince you that there’s nothing between me and Ian Ferguson, there never was and there never will be?’

‘You can’t. I have the evidence of my own eyes, they don’t lie.’

Frances turned away with a half sob. She did not want to weep in his presence, but her throat was tight with tears. Their reunion should have been such a joyful occasion, but it had been ruined by Gray’s premature entrance. A few moments later and she would have told Ian as gently as she could that his suit was hopeless, that her love was given to Gray for all time and she would never marry again. That was the Gray that was, not this embittered, biased stranger who scorned her love. Before her on the wail hung a framed photograph of Robert Crawford, the father-in-law she had never met. He had a kindlier face than his son’s, but he lacked Gray’s fine distinction, though he had the same arrogant lift of the head. He had left a widow who mourned him deeply. Better Gray had never come back then he should have returned so mistrustful and vengeful, then she could have retained the image of the gallant lover she had adored.

She became aware of a movement behind her, and Gray's hands, hard and punishing, gripped either side of her waist, and now there was a note in his voice she recognised as he said:

‘You’re still a desirable woman, Fran, and more beautiful than when I left you, and you’re my wife.’

'So you’ve remembered that at last,’ she retorted.

‘I never forgot, though I think you had.’

Frances drew a quick breath, and put ineffectual fingers over his, trying to ease that merciless grip which she knew he meant to hurt. She turned her head, and their eyes met. For a fleeting instant she thought she glimpsed a desperate appeal in his, the torment of a suffering creature mutely begging to be released from the trap of its own pride and despair, but it was gone almost immediately, to be replaced by the cruel glint of metallic silver. Re turned her about, shifting his hold, one hand in the small of her back, pressing her against him, the other at the nape of her neck, where her hair brushed his fingers.

‘You’ve cut it off,’ he remarked. ‘Didn’t Ian like it long? Or did the young man in Kent find he preferred you after all? I’d forgotten about him. To which will you run for consolation when I’ve finished with you? Because I'm going to claim my privileges before I free you.'

Frances closed her eyes to shut out the sight of the mocking devil lurking in his. What travesty of Gray had come back to her? But this was not the real Gray, she told herself desperately; his body might be healed, but he was sick in his mind. Hoping to divert him, she said faintly:

‘If you do that I can’t divorce you for desertion.’

‘Then we must find other grounds,’ he told her silkily. ‘How about . . . cruelty?’

He laughed with sadistic enjoyment as he felt her flinch. Wrapping both arms about her, he crushed her against him in a constricting embrace, using all his strength as if he would break her ribs. His mouth ravaged her face, throat, and neck with fierce demanding kisses, bruising her lips, grazing her skin. Frances struggled to free herself from this assault, but she was helpless against his muscles of steel. She wanted to reason with him, seek yet again to allay his unfounded suspicions, try to restore his sanity, but he was beyond the reach of words.