‘It is too – dangerous and I cannot go on – deceiving Mama,’ she told herself.

Equally she knew that there was a deeper reason for her decision and one that she did not wish to express in words even to herself.

The morning passed slowly.

Thalia waited on two customers, who as usual, bought more bonnets than they had intended, and Mrs. Burton smiled at her approvingly as she returned to the workroom.

She continued with the trimming of a bonnet on which she had been engaged before she was called to the front of the shop.

“You’ve used up all them roses, Thalia!” one of the work-girls exclaimed.

Thalia was suddenly aware that she had in fact over-decorated the bonnet to the point of absurdity.

It was pretty and at the same time sensationally theatrical. It could only have been worn by someone like Genevieve or perhaps Lady Adelaide.

“It’s too much,” she admitted.

She was aware that she had been working with her fingers, but using her mind in a very different way.

“Pretty though,” the work-girl said. “Why don’t you put it in the window? Bet it’s snapped up so quick you’ll be sittin’ here half the night makin’ another!”

Perhaps it would be better to do that, Thalia thought, than to go home and think where she might have been instead of alone in bed with a book.

She had actually risen to take the bonnet and put it in the window as had been suggested, when there was a knock on the back door and one of the young matchers who opened it, said,

“Another note for you, Thalia! You’re certainly a success today.”

All the work-women looked at Thalia curiously.

Ever since she had been at Mrs. Burton’s, she had never received as far as they knew, any attention from the outside world. Now there had been two notes in the same morning, which set everyone whispering to each other as she opened it.

It was written in the Earl’s forceful hand on his crested parchment paper.

“I have discovered your secret. It is something we must discuss. I shall therefore expect you to dine with me.

Hellington.”

Thalia stared down at what she had read almost as if she was turned to stone.

It could not be true. How could he have found out? And if he knew – who else?

She felt a sudden terror of what this might mean at this particular moment. She would have to give up her work at Mrs. Burton’s and take her mother somewhere else.

They would have to find another house and perhaps change their name again, in which case, when her father returned, there would be another alteration to the address and he might be unable to find them.

She felt for the moment as if the ceiling had caved in and hit her on the head.