CHAPTER 36Nicholas came in through the gate and up to the front door. It was very late and he had walked from Dalling Grange, but it was only now, on his own doorstep as he slipped his key into the lock, that he was aware of fatigue. It was a purely physical sensation separate from himself, from the Nicholas who had emerged from a nightmare. Until the whole thing was over he had never let himself relax from taking just the one inescapable step which lay before him, looking neither to the right hand nor to the left. It was not until now, when the strain was over, that he could let himself think of Henry and feel ashamed because he had not dared to think of him before. If Brown hadn’t cracked, sticking to his superior pinnacle until it looked as if he had an unshakable footing there and then
