There was a clink of money and she guessed that Joe and his timid friend were being paid off.

She made one last desperate effort to struggle, but the blanket had been wound too tightly round her shoulders and arms. She could only move her legs and was afraid that her skirts would blow up and she would be unable to pull them down again.

Someone jumped into the boat.

“Cast off,” he ordered.

A chain rattled into the stern. Now they were moving, two men rowing hard, so hard that she could hear their grunts and the deep intakes of their breath.

She knew then that it was hopeless. There was nothing she could do.

She was doomed.

She found herself thinking again of the Marquis. He would never know that she died loving him and, because he would never know it, she found herself whispering her love.

‘I love you! I loved you, I believe, from that – very first moment. I did not know it until you drew me to you at Stade Hall and I sat at your feet – looking up at you. Something happened then, something strange and lovely that seemed to tingle right through me. I was afraid and –yet I was not afraid of what I saw in your eyes. It was what I had always longed for, dreamed about and imagined would happen to me one day. But, when it came, I did not realise what it was. It was – love. Oh, I love you!’

She felt the tears coursing down her cheeks with the intensity of her feelings. So concentrated was she on her thoughts of the Marquis that she did not realise that the men had stopped rowing until she felt one of them lift her shoulders and another take her feet.

She knew then that this was the moment when she would die and when she would feel the dark waters of the English Channel close over her.

She tried to pray and tried to force herself to die bravely.

‘God – God, take me!’

It was an effort to mouth the words and to force them to her lips.

Then suddenly she was thrown not into the water but over a man’s shoulder and, before she could recover from her surprise, she realised that he was climbing. He was moving up a ladder and after the first startled second she knew it was a rope-ladder up the side of a ship.

She could hear the creak of the timbers and the soft lap of the waves.

Someone was giving orders in a modulated tone.

Then she was being carried across the deck and down several steps. She was set down, someone took the blanket from off her head and then, before she could collect herself and before she could open her eyes, she heard a door close.

Very slowly, as if she awoke from a dark and terrifying dream, she moved her hands.

She was free.