“I think the toy grew tired of me.”

He took my fist gently and uncurled it, slid his slender fingers through mine, and pressed our palms together. “So you’re in a jumble now. You’ve lost your mind, along with your heart. It happens.”

“But never to you?”

“I guard myself too closely. I am a voyeur, Mary, sense desperate for sensibility, which I can only get from keen souls—the rare geniuses—who feel it, and live it, as you and Henry do.”

I had never heard him call Fuseli by his given name, nor utter any name with such tenderness. This, too, Godwin had understood. Johnson held our joined hands to his chest. “Love was never to be mine,” he said. “But I wish to be close to it, in all its strange and wondrous variegations, as often as I can.”

There was a soft silence between us.

“I know I can be petulant and stubborn, Joseph, but I don’t know where I’d be without you,” I said. “I never had a father or a brother. Not really. You are both to me. I love you, as my dearest friend alive.” I wiped my dripping nose. “But I really don’t know what I shall do now.”

“Mary, you’re the bravest person I know.” He clutched my hand even harder. “And yes, they run the guillotine now, day and night. No one knows who will be next. But Paris is waiting for you.”

I closed my eyes, trying to image forth my future. It was a blank to me, but not blackness, little bird, not despair.

I squeezed his hand back, and lifted my gaze to his. “Neck or nothing, Joseph. I will.”

Mrs. B

September 7, 1797

Every gleam of hope was seized upon by all. Mary began the day asking after her “little bird.” Marguerite had gladly consented to visit her each morning at the wet nurse’s home nearby. Mary told Fanny to be sure to talk to her, and wiggle her feet, the way she’d done with her own brother Charles, and that one day her little sister would surprise her with a belly laugh, and she would never forget it. Dr. Fordyce was often in attendance, watching for signs in the patient, and between bouts of fever or rigors that seemed to settle into a pattern, allowed Mary visitors—a steady stream of them that didn’t stop all day. A few friends sat with Mr. Godwin in the parlor, pulling in chairs from other rooms, and simply refused to leave until they saw her.