He needed to talk to his daughter, but he could not imagine how to engage her in conversation. Children were another race whose language he did not speak. Even if he had little hope of learning anything from them, he could at least tell them the truth about Ariane. He picked up the board and carried it carefully up the stairs.

When he entered Sabine’s room he found the two girls there and a silence that suggested they had stopped speaking as he opened the door. Sabine was almost submerged in her bed. Suzie was sitting beside her.

‘How are you?’ he asked his daughter.

‘Very well, thank you.’ Her reply, although patently untrue, confirmed that Suzie had got her to speak again.

He organised the puzzle on a small table in front of the fire, persuading Sabine to get out of bed and to join him and Suzie. She did so with reluctance, but once seated in front of the jigsaw, her interest was roused and she began to turn over the pieces, testing them against the finished part.

‘I still don’t know what the picture is,’ he complained.

‘Don’t tell.’

‘It’s a picture of …’

Sabine and Suzie had spoken simultaneously.

Suzie addressed Sabine. ‘It’s only fair that he should understand what it’s meant to be. We know what it is, why shouldn’t he?’ She turned to Theo. ‘It’s a picture from an old manuscript. There’s a knight riding a horse and he has killed someone who is lying underneath him. It’s decorated round the edge with leaves and branches. And there’s a big letter Q. It’s very complicated.’

‘I can imagine.’

They worked on the puzzle for a while in silence. Theo, who was looking at it upside down, soon abandoned any effort.

‘I’m not going to be able to stay much longer at Bonnemort,’ he said eventually. ‘I shall have to go back to Paris, in a day or so. Ariane will stay here with you two until Sabine is well enough to travel and then you will all come back to Paris together. We shall live in our flat, all of us together as a little family.’ He had no authority from Ariane for saying this. He simply willed it.

Suzie turned towards the window, as if detaching herself from this plan, and Theo, suddenly understanding, corrected his view of the future. ‘That is, until the war ends and Suzie’s mother and father return and she can go back to live with them.’

He paused, holding his temples between his thumb and middle finger, wondering how to begin. The girls looked up curiously, taking the gesture for a sign of emotion, as he supposed it was.

‘Sabine, you are going to live with me and Ariane from now on, and I want to tell you something about her. All through the war, while she was living here and looking after you, she was working, with Henri and Micheline and Dr Maniotte, whom you may remember, for the Resistance. Not, like some people, just at the last minute, in the few months before liberation, but right from the beginning. She took very great risks and was incredibly brave. At the time you didn’t know what she was doing, because she wanted to protect you and make sure that you were not involved. One day you will learn about what she did. The most dangerous and difficult time for her was last year when the Germans came. Just when it seemed that the worst was over and the Allied army had landed to liberate France, here at Bonnemort you had to face the SS. Not least of her worries was the danger to you, Suzie. If the Germans had realised who you were, you, and she, would have been deported immediately.’