And she spoke. Her voice was quiet. ‘I would not die, not as quickly as they hoped. The blood flowed too slowly from my wound. I watched as Nicholas bent down beside me and placed a cushion over my face. I could not breathe. It was painful. At first. And then … and then … blissful.’

Hobbes didn’t dare to reply.

‘I lay there unmoving, with barely a heartbeat, and I saw in the shadows of myself that Adeline was waiting for me. She was gentle at first, and then a little more forceful, as she stole my spirit from me. As she took from me the last thing I had left, my soul. And then …’

She took one great breath, to force out these last few words.

‘And then the darkness was complete. And the silence.’

She paused. Another breath. Softer than before.

‘The stillness …’

Her eyes closed. And remained so.

Hobbes watched her.

She was murmuring to herself.

He couldn’t hear the words.

A change was taking place, inside her head, in her mind.

God knew what she was thinking.

And then her eyes opened again, wide this time.

She was staring ahead, not at Hobbes, not even at the wallpaper, but at another person close by, invisible as yet, but also sitting at this table.

A third person.

Hobbes could only imagine that Adeline Graves was there as well, conjured into being by Jeannie Watts’s powerful imagination. The two women were perfect reflections of each other.

And Hobbes leaned back, leaving them facing each other.

He observed the change in the face before him: the tilt of her head, the sagging flesh on her cheek, the curl of her mouth, the look in her eyes, they all righted themselves, a former appearance restored as the mask was dropped.

And the two women became one again.

Hobbes said, ‘Tell me your name.’

‘Adeline.’

‘Adeline Graves?’

She nodded. But that wasn’t enough.

‘Say it!’

‘Adeline. Adeline Graves. What have you done?’

Her voice, too, had taken on a new colour, more refined, more like Rosamund’s tone, or Mary Estelle’s upper-class accent. Her face, her accent, her life: all had been constructed around her true self.

‘I will disappear.’

Hobbes held her stare. He could see the pain in her eyes. ‘No, I don’t believe you will.’ He said, ‘You’ve played your part wonderfully, for so many years. Isn’t that true? But now, now it’s time to give it up, to step down …’

Adeline was trembling. ‘To step down from the stage?’ She laughed at this. Her voice took on a strange lilt, the kind an actress might use to convey a certain mood. ‘I assure you, the stage is my world. I am the parts I have played, nothing more.’

‘The one part, yes. The one role. You’ve rehearsed your lines well, I see that. I admire you for it. The time and the effort you’ve put in, Adeline, the facts you’ve learned, and memorized, about poor Jeannie’s life, the life you stole! But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You actually became Jeannie Watts. You became that person when the real Jeannie was murdered on that night in 1954. Only by doing this could you battle the rot that devoured you, that plagued your mind, and then your body. And only by taking on this other woman’s life could you, finally, have a life of your own.’