in death, I’d strangle them when they were infants, yes — ’

‘No, mother,’ came the strange, clarion voice of Gerald from the background, ‘we are different, we don’t blame you.’

She turned and looked full in his eyes. Then she lifted her hands in a strange half-gesture of mad despair.

‘Pray!’ she said strongly. ‘Pray for yourselves to God, for there’s no help for you from your parents.’

‘Oh mother!’ cried her daughters wildly.

But she had turned and gone, and they all went quickly away from each other.

When Gudrun heard that Mr Crich was dead, she felt rebuked.