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are people who care about me and who will worry and it isn’t fair to put them to this kind of distress. There’s Miss Davies at the library, where I work. My neighbors. Even Barry, in his own way.’
    â€˜Barry?’ he queried, his tone sharpening.
    She didn’t know why she had tossed out Barry’s name. If he was tormented at all it would be because he didn’t care for puzzles and he would be mystified by her disappearance, but she was sure he didn’t care deeply enough about her to endure any real suffering. The relationship between them had been based on friendship. No vital spark or lovers’ clashes, no heights and depths of feelings, no flights from tenderness to passion. The realization that there could be no shared future for them had been coming on gradually, yet for all that the moment of impact took her by surprise and stole her concentration. Therefore she wasn’t giving much attention to what was going on behind the stony facade of Maxwell’s face and she answered his question as to who Barry was in vague indifference. ‘A friend.’
    â€˜A man friend?’
    â€˜Obviously.’
    His face underwent an alarming change. The black rage in his dark olive eyes made her jerk back in sheer astonishment. Not in a million years would she have thought that the mention of Barry’s name would foment such feeling. How ludicrous! After all her attempts to get under his skin and rouse him to this state of anger she had fallen upon the means by accident. Barry, dull, staid, slightly pompous Barry! It was so amazing that she almost laughed out loud.
    â€˜You haven’t been playing fast and loose with Ian, have you?’
    He sounded too savage for her to crow openly about her triumph, but she couldn’t prevent a little flicker of satisfaction from coming to her gray eyes as she said emphatically, ‘I don’t know Ian, so how could I play fast and loose with him?’
    â€˜Have you slept with Barry?’
    â€˜Now really!’ As her eyes slid away from his, as though concealing something, she realized that she was enjoying taunting him. But she would have enjoyed it a whole lot more if she hadn’t begun to question the wisdom of provoking him to greater fury. Yet why should she back down? And why was he attaching such importance to the possibility that she might have gone to bed with Barry? ‘You surely don’t expect me to tell you that. It’s much too personal.’
    â€˜I do, and you will. Have you slept with him? Answer me!’
    â€˜No. I don’t see why I should.’
    â€˜Then I’ll have to provide you with a reason, won’t I?’
    He grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out of the chair so fiercely that it crashed back on its rockers, collided with the table, catching the edge of the work basket, and began to rock wildly backward and forward. Cotton reels, needles, pins, scissors, a colorful assortment of buttons, all the ingredients of a well-stocked work basket flew everywhere.
    â€˜I will not succumb to brutality,’ she said, quivering with indignation, the sense of injustice she was feeling reaching an all-time high so that it not only came to her aid but overcame her fear of his anger. ‘Let me go!’ she demanded.
    But her defiance earned her a severe shaking and his fingers bit deeper into her arms; she thought that if he held her any tighter her bones would crack. In the end she had to cry out in anguish. ‘Stop . . . you’re hurting me!’
    â€˜God in Heaven!’ His ejaculation was ground out in frustration and it was harsh and unrepentant. ‘I’ll hurt you a whole lot more if you don’t speak up.’
    He was no longer the obdurate mountain with its frozen cap. Not only had she melted the ice off the top, but she had caused a volcano to erupt.
    â€˜Damn you, Maxwell Ross!’ she sobbed, closing her eyes on a wave of weakness born of despair. ‘I