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The rain beat against the bay windows of Margaret's stone cottage on the Welsh headland , blurring the grey line where the Atlantic met the cliffs . On the scarred oak table lay the final chapter of her twelfth novel , neatly stacked beside an uncapped fountain pen . Margaret had not touched the concluding page in four days . When the brass door knocker sounded , she did not immediately stand ; she knew it would be Thomas , who had caught the early train from Paddington to prise the pages from her hands . Thomas shook his dripping overcoat into the hall umbrella stand and entered the study , his eyes darting immediately to the manuscript . " Margaret , the compositors in London are idling . The publisher intends to announce the title on Friday . We ought to settle this ending today . " " The magistrate refuses to cooperate , " Margaret said , pouring two cups of black tea from a cast - iron kettle . " In chapter thirty - one , he has every document required to expose the corruption in the ministry . If he reveals them , his family is disgraced and his daughter's marriage falls apart . If he burns them , he lives out his days as a respected jurist . I cannot decide which fate constitutes the greater betrayal . " Thomas took the tea , his brow furrowing with gentle exhaustion . " You needn't punish him simply to satisfy a modern appetite for tragedy . Readers have followed this man across four hundred pages of quiet stoicism . They hope for redemption , not an execution . " " A novelist dare not manufacture artificial grace merely to comfort her readership , " Margaret replied , looking out at the foam breaking over the black rocks . " To bestow an easy moral victory upon a coward is to lie about the nature of compromise . If I hand him an unearned absolution , the entire architecture of the book disintegrates into melodrama . " " Then let him remain silent , " Thomas suggested softly . " Let the weight of his compromise be the punishment . You ought not to mistake unresolved conscience for moral failure . " Margaret picked up the final sheet . The typed lines ended halfway down the paper , where the character sat alone in his library , listening to the midnight bells of St . Paul's while holding a candle above the fireplace . She dipped her pen into the inkwell , struck out the final two explanatory paragraphs , and wrote a single , quiet sentence beneath the pause . She handed the sheaf to Thomas . He read the new conclusion twice , nodded in silent comprehension , and slipped the manuscript into his leather satchel .
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