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with sudden loud bursts of fury when she shook the bars. In the occasional moments of silence Sarah could hear the hiss of the gas-lamp in the corridor outside, and somewhere, far away, another woman crying.
    The top pane of her window was open and she guessed it must be just below the level of the pavement. Once, she heard the clatter and rattle of a tram approach, and the ding! of its bell As it stopped outside; at another time, the clop of a horse’s hooves, and the shout of a man hailing a cab.
    She thought of Jonathan, getting out of a similar cab a few miles away. In her mind she saw him drop coins into the hand of the driver. He would have to use his left hand, she thought. She had bitten his right! He would have a handkerchief round that and another to dab at his face. The cabman would notice but he would ignore it. He would raise his cap in gratitude for the tip, Jonathan would nod, the driver would shake his reins, and the cab would clop quietly away around Belgrave Square. Jonathan would sigh, and walk slowly up the steps to the front door. The door would open, and he would hand his top hat and gloves to Reeves, their butler, and go into his study, alone.
    I wonder how he will explain those scratches to Reeves, she thought. Spot of bad luck, he might say, I picked up a cat and it scratched my face. Something like that . . .
    And it’s true, too, she thought grimly, except that this cat is his wife. The woman he promised to share his whole life with.
    I don’t feel like a cat, I feel like a coward, she thought. I should have told him what I know, why didn’t I dare?
    A little voice in her mind answered : because you’re not sure it’s true.
    Of course it’s true, it all makes sense, no one would send me a letter like that if it wasn’t true. And it’s not just the letter — I saw him with my own eyes. Anyway I don’t want to think about it. I can’t remember it all.
    Remember it. You must. All of it.
    She remembered what had happened two days ago. Two days! It seemed like a hundred years . . .
    She remembered being in her own drawing room in the house in Belgrave Square. She could see the pale cream wallpaper studded with small, delicate patterns of roses and lilies; the long red curtains; the white sofa and armchairs scattered with red and yellow cushions. It was a cheerful room, flooded with sunlight in the late afternoon. A good place to convalesce.
    She was sitting at a table near the window with Alice Watson, her nurse. Mrs Watson was the main reason she had agreed to spend so much time at home, away from the WSPU offices. She was a friendly, businesslike woman, a qualified nurse devoted to the suffragette cause. She had first arrived when Sarah had been released, weak, delirious, exhausted, from her last stay in prison. The WSPU had wanted to take Sarah to a suffragette rest home in Sussex, quite away from her husband; Jonathan had wanted to keep her in his own house, quite away from all suffragettes. Mrs Watson had been the compromise.
    At first she had seemed a triumph. Mrs Watson was undoubtedly a skilled nurse; under her care Sarah relaxed and grew better day by day. She was also a diplomat; after a few rather prickly exchanges, she had deliberately praised some of Jonathan’s political work, and Jonathan had appeared to like and even respect her.
    Sarah wondered now how much of that was a fraud.
    The day Sarah remembered had been a Monday — two days ago. She and Mrs Watson had spent the afternoon going through a large amount of suffragette correspondence. It was useful work, but mundane — enquiries about membership, ladies wishing to subscribe to The Suffragette , queries about a forthcoming rally, and so on. It was, Sarah realised, part of Mrs Watson’s therapy — work that made her feel part of the movement, without exposing her to any risk or undue physical activity.
    It also kept her inside the house. Although she had seen no evidence of policemen outside, watching the house to see