Like Marie Riguad she had eyes and ears only for John Wytham. The great strength of him seemed to fill the room.

He was tall and handsome, and inexperienced though she was about men, Emilie knew that he was wild. There was something untamed, uncivilised about his very gaiety, about his sensual mouth, about the way his eyes seemed magnetically to hold the attention of anyone who watched him.

‘That is settled then,’ he said. ‘Here is some money. I will send you some more when I have it.’

He threw a bundle of banknotes on the table and it seemed to Emilie that there was an enormous amount of them. She was to learn that there were not to be many more.

‘You will stay, John? At least you will stay to supper?’ Marie Riguad gasped piteously as he turned towards the door.

‘No, my dear, I have other commitments. Thank you for taking Alice.’

He disengaged the clinging fingers of the child and gave her a kiss on the top of her head, then turned towards the woman he had loved when he was twenty, and who had loved him for over thirty years. He put his fingers under her chin and tilted hack her head. She looked up into his eyes, her face soft and transfigured.

‘So you still love me!’ he said after a moment. ‘Well, well, I was always a lucky man.’

He kissed her on the lips, then walked from the kitchen, and Marie made no further attempt to stop him. She only stood staring after him, her hand to her breasts which were pounding tumultuously beneath the cheap flannel of her blouse.

It was Emilie who watched him go, Emilie who saw him turn the black horses in the narrow lane with competent skill, who heard the last murmur of his voice, who saw him raise his hat and wave it to her with a flamboyant gesture as the horses set off at a tremendous speed, the chaise rocking behind them in the cart tracks.

Then another sound attracted her attention. It was the cry of a child.

‘Papa! Papa! Do not leave me!’

It was a piteous cry, a cry of utter desolation as a small figure came running from the kitchen into the garden. It was then that Emilie caught Alice up in her arms, holding her tight, feeling her body trembling, quivering in her arms, the warm salt of her tears falling on her cheeks.

‘Pauvre petite!’ she murmured. ‘It is all right, it is all right! I will look after you.’