But he seemed to take no notice of her, perhaps misinterpreting her movement, and only went on in a firm voice:

“It really is so, you can believe me. I’ve seen this kind of thing in court and from legal investigations. Defendants in court suffer most from the secrecy, the threat of discovery, the cruel pressure on them to maintain a lie against thousands of little surreptitious attacks. It’s terrible to see a case where the judge already has everything in his hands—the defendant’s guilt, the proof of it, perhaps he even has his verdict ready, only there’s no confession yet, it’s still locked inside the defendant, and however he tries he can’t get it out. I hate to see a defendant writhing and squirming while his ‘Yes, I did it’ has to be torn out of his resisting flesh as if it were on a fish hook. Sometimes it gets stuck high in his throat, and still there’s an irresistible force inside him trying to bring it to the light of day. Defendants retch on it, the words are almost spoken, and then the evil power comes over them, that extraordinary sense of mingled defiance and fear, and they swallow it down again. And the struggle begins all over again. Sometimes the judges are suffering more than the prisoner in the dock. The criminal always sees the judge as his enemy, whereas in fact he is trying to help. As a defending lawyer I’m really supposed to warn my clients against confessing, I’m expected to shore up their lies, consolidate them, but in my heart I often can’t bring myself to do it, because not confessing makes them suffer worse than confessing to their crime and paying the penalty. I still don’t really understand how someone can commit a crime, in full knowledge of the danger, and then not find the courage to confess. It seems to me that their petty fear of a few little words is more pitiful than any crime.”

“Do you think it’s … it’s always just fear that … that keeps people from speaking out? Couldn’t it be … well, couldn’t it be shame? Suppose they’re ashamed to talk about it and expose themselves in front of so many people?”

He looked up in surprise. He was not used to getting answers from her. But the word she had used evidently fascinated him.

“Shame, you say … well, shame is only a kind of fear, but a better one, a fear not of the punishment but … yes. Yes, I see what you mean.”

He had risen to his feet, strangely agitated, and was walking up and down. The idea seemed to have struck a chord, bringing something in him to vigorous life. He suddenly stopped.

“I’ll admit, yes, shame in front of other people, strangers … the hoi polloi who devour other people’s troubles in newspaper stories like a sandwich … but for that very reason they could at least tell those who are close to them. Do you remember that arsonist, the one I was defending last year? The one who took such a curious liking to me? He told me everything, little stories about his childhood, incidents even more intimate than that. You see, he had certainly committed the crime, and he was found guilty, but he wouldn’t confess it even to me. That was because he was afraid I might give him away. It wasn’t shame, because he trusted me … I think I was the only person for whom he’d ever felt anything like friendship in his life. So it wasn’t a sense of shame in front of strangers … what would that mean when he knew he could trust me?”

“Perhaps—” She had to turn away because he was looking at her so intently, and she heard a tremor in his voice. “Perhaps you’d feel most ashamed with … with those you’re closest to.”

He stopped suddenly, as if a powerful idea had seized on him.

“Then you think … you think …” And suddenly his voice changed, became soft and low. “You think little Helene might have confessed more easily to someone else? The governess, perhaps. You think she …”

“I’m sure of it. She put up such resistance to you only because … well, what you think matters more than anything to her. Because … because she loves you best.”

He stopped again.

“You … you may be right. Yes, I’m sure you are.