Jeanne’s voice was calm, but her eyes never left Emilie’s face. She noticed every change of expression, every flicker of the dark eyes, every twitch of the thin, hard lips. At times Emilie Bleuet looked compellingly handsome, but this morning was not one of them. The clear light was piteously revealing and every wrinkle, every line on her thin face seemed to be magnified. It contrived, too, to illuminate the discoloured skin of her neck, the sagging jawline, the deep frown between her eyebrows and the long lines etching themselves from her nostrils to the thin curves of her mouth.

But there was nothing unusual in this. Jeanne was familiar with the best and worst of Emilie’s looks, and it was no secret between the two women that, although their birth date was the same, Emilie was the younger by only twelve months. Jeanne had been born on the 7th January, 1814, Emilie the following year.

Emilie was therefore fifty-nine, and at that age no woman could expect the hand of time to lie anything but heavily upon her. But what was strange was the excitement in Emilie’s expression. Jeanne had never known her so excited, with a kind of inner tension which made her eyes glitter and affected her speech. Only in moments of stress and of complete self-forgetfulness did Emilie relapse into her native accent. Usually her French was Parisian, careful, formal and spoken in a voice of frigid impassivity. But this morning her voice was the echo of Jeanne’s, and anyone listening to them would have known that they both hailed from the shores of Brittany.

Emilie drew a deep breath and then she began,

‘I planned to tell you all this, Jeanne, in a few days’ time. I was expecting my niece to arrive at the end of this month. I was indeed astonished to see her when she came here last night. She tells me that the Reverend Mother of the Convent died and the Nuns decided to send the pupils home three weeks earlier than had been intended. Mademoiselle wrote to me, but, as I have already said, the letter has not arrived.’

Emilie paused for a moment, her fingers meshing together, then she looked at Jeanne and her voice sank to little more than a whisper.

‘Today, Jeanne,’ she said, ‘we start a new life, you and I. The past is finished.’

‘A new life, Madame!’ Jeanne echoed. ‘But what can you mean by that?’

‘What I say,’ Emilie snapped, and her voice was normal again. ‘This is no figure of speech, Jeanne, but a sober fact. The day before yesterday I sold the business.’

‘Madame!’

There was no mistaking the astonishment in Jeanne’s voice now.