“I must leave this house and find my lodgings in town.”

Susannah raised up her head directly then.

“What has happened, that you should leave?” I asked.

“Your mother and I think it for the best,” he said.

Susannah flushed and looked down again, but she said softly, “I am sorry you should think it so.”

He frowned at this but did not reply. None of us spoke, and after an awkward silence, he clapped his hands together soundlessly and turned to leave.

Susannah pushed her sewing from off her lap. “Why is it best?”

He did not turn to face us and his hand remained on the knob. “I cannot say.”

She nodded at Mr. Gilroy’s bowed head, as if she suddenly had understood something, and then she shot such a look of fury at me, I rose up from my chair and moved a little distance off. But she shrieked and came after me, whirling me round to face Mr. Gilroy, who, astonished, had turned from the door.

“Have done with it!” she cried out to him.

“Susannah!”

“Now. In my sight and hearing!” She had hold of me so tightly, I could feel her fingers down to my bone.

“Stop it, Sue!” I whispered to her. “You do not know what you are saying.”

She gave me a good hard shake. “Hush up.” And she pushed me toward Mr. Gilroy, who stood before us, all color drained from his face, his eyes on Susannah.

“Tell her what is in your heart.” Sue’s voice quivered.

Hayden Gilroy looked at me in confusion and then stepped forward toward us with his hand outstretched. “Susannah?”

I looked down at the ground between us, but Susannah was possessed by some scene she must have envisioned, and still holding me tightly with one hand, she reached round with her other and tipped my chin up and held it, forcing me to stare directly into Mr. Gilroy’s troubled countenance.

“Let me hear it.” Susannah trembled behind me, though her voice did not waver again.

“Susannah, I cannot fathom what it is you wish me to say.” Hayden Gilroy stood quietly before us. “But I do not like to think I am somehow the cause of this treatment of your sister.”

“Ah …” Susannah let go her breath slowly. “So, you are concerned about my sister?”

He took a wary step closer. “Please, I think you might be hurting her.”

Susannah let me go so suddenly, I almost stumbled against Mr. Gilroy, who rushed forward to catch Sue in his arms as she fainted there on the spot.