Nearer and nearer came the cloud. Jane tried to retreat from it, but found herself up against a stone wall. So then she knew that what was asked of her was surrender. She closed her eyes. She waited for her own invisibility, but knew, still, that she was unreconciled to it. Something of her old pride and stubbornness kept surfacing in her. It understood that all was lost and yet it still fought on.

Then, with her very last ounce of rebellion – a rebellion worthy of Emmeline, going forth into the world wearing a jewelled turban, a rebellion worthy of an exhausted washerwoman who believes that moonlight will blanch her laundered sheets – she opened her eyes again. The cloud hung near. But something moved within it. It was a small shape, no larger than a child’s bundle of washing, but then it seemed to take form and colour and begin to dance, waving its arms in the air. And Jane knew then that it was going to step out of the cloud and save her life. It was the clay golem and it came forth gleaming and soft, as if fresh from the pottery wheel.

Jane woke to find Julietta at her bedside.

She woke, too, to more words than she had had within her for a long time. She said Julietta’s name and was able to reach out to her with both arms and Julietta held her and realised that Jane’s body was no longer cold as it had been.

She kissed her forehead and then laid her head on Jane’s breast. She wanted to call out to Ashton and to Sir William that Jane was returning to them, but was so held by the moment that she could find no voice.

It was Jane who began to speak. She said, ‘I have had visions. I saw death as a cloud and it was coming towards me …’

‘Hush, dearest,’ said Julietta. ‘Don’t talk of any death cloud. Feel how warm is your face and your hand and your breast …’

‘Are they warm?’

‘Feel.’

Jane reached up and put her hand on her cheek and she understood that she would now get well again and rejoin the world.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. They are warm.’

She could only lie still and gaze in wonder at the soft and comforting light in the room, at some roses arranged in a white vase on a little table, now beginning to shed their petals. Then she brought her eyes to the thing she longed to see above all others: Julietta’s face.

THE GOOD SHEPHERD

As the Queen of the Islands heaved itself southwards through the Atlantic storms and its passengers tried to cajole the time with plans for their new lives in Australia, Valentine Ross kept obstinately to his cabin and only walked on deck in the deep of night, when, often, the sea seemed to be calmer and the stars, shining more brightly than they ever did in an English sky, attempted to seduce him with some intimation of wonder.