'...They were people of courage; that stood out — what could not be surmounted? Don't think I am blaming you, Eva/ At the worst, I suppose you were their mischance — that you should make your home with them seemed right, natural: and so it could have been? I shall never come to the end of my own penitence, felt so much too late, and so unavailing. They were not my flock, God help them — they were my neighbours. What is the good of one? — what's the good of it all?'

'What you are suffering from,' diagnosed Henry, blinking at his reflection in the glaze of the teapot, ' is guilt, not penitence.'

Mr Dancey, bored, said: 'Just as you like.'

'The distinction's rather importance, I should have thought. Penitence is a reflex, guilt is a state.'