When he finished with me, he pulled his breeches up, took the lantern and left the room without a word or another glance. After he was finished, I was no longer there. I got out of bed and curled myself on the floor. I heard him walking in his room. Then silence. He had gone up to pack his bag, for his stay at the boarding house of Nora Mulloy and her adopted daughter Elizabeth was at an end. Later I heard him come down the stairs. I heard the front door open and shut. Then there was just the sound of the rain and the breath hissing between my teeth.

And do you know what I thought then? After all that … what I thought in my dazed ten-year-old brain was: that man must be crazy, to go out walking in this heavy rain.

It is a fact that people in their most dire situations think of the most inane things to shield their minds from shattering. Doctor Firebaugh told me that.

When I was sure that Robson was gone, I lit a candle and went upstairs.

What I saw in the hallway was the worst of it, Matthew.

The very worst.

I do think my mind shattered. I believe I felt it come apart like a house that had suffered too much shock in a storm … too much for the joints and the foundation to withstand. I felt my brain bleeding as it was torn asunder. My head and face became burning hot. I ran down the stairs and out into the rain screaming for help.

It seemed a very long time before anyone answered.

Well. Poor little girl is without a home now, and without a mum. Poor little girl witnessed a murder and was raped by a madman. But you know … poor little girl likely is not all blameless, they said. A cute little thing, dancing and prancing like that at the harbor to draw business in for the widow Mulloy. And no matter that the widow Mulloy was always there with her at the harbor … that pretty little poor little girl … her dancing drew the murderer in, and there you have it.

Spoken in the most fashionable of low and dirty dives, I later heard.