Mrs. Vanderslice made a sound that might have been a sob, and Anna shivered slightly.

“I’m very glad to know that,” Anna said. She probably was.

Madame frowned and shook her head slightly. “David is confused,” she said in Peter’s deep voice. “He says someone is there who could not possibly want to hear from him.”

Even if Anna, Mrs. Vanderslice and Mother Bates hadn’t all turned to her with their eyes open now, Elizabeth could have guessed she was the one. “But I do want to hear from him,” she said, glad to hear she sounded appropriately earnest.

“And do you really care if he forgives you or not?” Which proved someone had seen her question.

Luckily, Elizabeth was a very good liar. “Of course I do. I always thought we would have time to become friends again, but then you were taken so suddenly. . . .” Sadly, that last part was true. She had expected to become great friends with David once he got over being disgruntled about their broken engagement. David had been Gideon’s best friend and Elizabeth’s best friend’s brother. How could she and David not become friends as well?

“Even after you broke his heart?” Peter asked with haughty disapproval.

“Come now, David,” Elizabeth said, feeling a little silly because she knew none of this was real. “You were the one who broke our engagement, so if anyone’s heart was broken, it was mine.”

This time Mrs. Vanderslice gasped. No one had ever told her the truth about that unfortunate turn of events. Elizabeth didn’t dare give her mother-in-law so much as a glance, either.

But Peter was not gasping on David’s behalf. “Do you even have a heart to break?”

Elizabeth managed not to laugh. “Now I know you forgive me, David. You would never insult anyone you didn’t love dearly.”

To everyone’s surprise, Madame/Peter/David (which one was it really?) chuckled in response.

“David?” Mrs. Vanderslice said in a tremulous voice. “Do you have a message for me?”

“Have you done as he asked?” Peter inquired.

“I . . . I’m trying.”

Elizabeth glanced at Mrs. Vanderslice, and her heart ached to see how desperate she looked. Was it David’s spirit who had insisted she increase her visits to Madame Ophelia? No wonder she had been so adamant about it.

“David is fading,” Peter reported brusquely. “He’s very tired.”

“No, wait,” Mrs. Vanderslice begged.

“Annabel is here,” Peter reported, and Mrs. Lindhurst jolted to attention. From the conversation between her and Peter, Elizabeth surmised that Annabel was a child Mrs. Lindhurst had lost almost thirty years ago. Mr. Lindhurst looked pained through the discussion of Annabel’s carefree life, and he received no message from the child himself.