The broiling afternoon was almost over when she roused. The window had sunk to leaden shades, its whites yellowed like ivory, Her head throbbed. She took a couple of paracetamol and went out to run herself a cool bath.

In the passage an odd new shadow fell upon her. She looked up. The window of Cain and Abel, softening in the westered light, had an addition of blackness. Across the lower panes, over the grapes and wheat below the altar, a black cross had been painted.

Which of the Scarabae had done it? What new process of obscuration was afoot?

She went into the bathroom and ran cold water in the bath, the cross hanging over her mind like a cloud.

After she had soaked herself in coolness for half an hour she dressed reluctantly and returned to the bedroom, and the cross threw down its black diagonals on to the carpet as she passed.

Before all daylight had died something made her go out again, along the corridor, and back, turning into other highways. There were crosses elsewhere drawn on the window panes regardless, over the faces of figures, always low down.

She went to the landing, and above the stairs the prince at the wedding was undisturbed, but this window was placed high up. The urns above the door were similarly untouched.

When the light had gone and she heard Michael come to see to the lamp in the passage, she went out.

‘Michael, have you seen the windows?’

‘Yes, Miss Rachaela.’

But Michael evinced nothing. What the Scarabae did, they did, as with Sylvian and the library. On impulse, Rachaela went to the library then. A lamp burned on the table by the globe, nothing seemed changed. Rachaela moved to the north wall and took out a book. It was pristine and legible.

Rachaela turned. A book lay on the table, face up and open.

Two lines had been ruled exactly across each page, in the shapes of two crosses.

All the previous pages had been crossed, The ebony ruler lay ready, and the pen had been wet, had left a drop of ink on the table.

Rachaela felt a curious excited fear.

She came out of the library, retraced her steps and went down to the hall.

No Scarabae were about. How quiet the house was, and how loud the sea.

The lights shone in the drawing room.

Rachaela went towards the room slowly. Probably only Anna had come down. Anna the matriarch, Adamus’s mother almost certainly, the mouthpiece of the Scarabae.

Rachaela was reluctant to enter the drawing room.

She hung back, looking for Cheta, Maria... but they had been there perhaps half an hour before, to see to the lights. Michael would come soon to serve the drinks. Was Stephan in the room... and Ruth... Ruth would not be there.

Rachaela walked into the drawing room.