So Scobie and Helen kiss. And an affair begins. And then we cut to what I'm assuming is a month or two into the affair, when some of the shine has worn off, and the two lovers are... well, they're not exactly bickering. But Helen reminds Scobie of his wife, Louise, which isn't that great for Scobie. It is - as my friend Mike might say - a bit of a "weenie shrinker."

But there's a cold reality to this predicament. Scobie is married. Not only that, he's Catholic, which means he'll never be able to spiritually divorce Louise for Helen. And despite his lacadazical efforts to got to Mass, things like faith are important to Scobie. So a fight erupts, words are tossed back and forth like bombs, and Scobie leaves Helen for the time being. He later writes her a letter, professing his love for her, telling her that he'll always be there for her while he's alive.

That last part is important. Greene seems to be dropping lots of pretty heavy clues as to how this is going to turn out. The book pretty much opens with Scobie investigating a suicide, and now this. I probably just gave the whole thing away.

Anyway, something that's a little astonishing is that Scobie and Helen are flying under the radar in all of this. No one in the entire colony seems to know what's going on with them. When Scobie finishes the aforementioned letter, he goes to Helen's with it, slips it under her door. It's evidence. It's a physical declaration of his love for Helen. Since this is Greene, you know nothing good is going to come of it.

And nothing does. Scobie meets Helen at a party, and finds out she never got the letter. Not only that, but Louise is coming back from South Africa. She misses Scobie, basically. So our man is up a creek. To top it off, Helen's house boy got to the letter before she did and brought it to Yusef, the Syrian from whom Scobie took the loan to send Louise to South Africa. Now the blackmail begins.