I gave a deep shuddering sigh. I could let them go. I could let them work my neighbouring village. I could let Rea poach the odd rabbit from my Common. I could let them pass within four miles of me. They did not know I was here. I had no need to tell them. They could go on into the high roads and byways of travellers, of gypsies. These people were my people no longer. Their ways were not my ways. We would never meet. I would never have to see them. They were a life I had left behind. I could cut myself in two and say, ‘That was the old life, the old life with her; it is gone now, all gone.’

I smoothed out the handbill and put my finger under the words, spelling them out, looking at the pictures again. There were the clues which had made Will bring it to me. ‘Robert Gower’ it said in curly letters. I had told him I worked for a man called ‘Robert’ and beside the picture of the white stallion it said ‘Snow the Amazing Arithmetical Horse’. I had told him of a horse called Snow which could do tricks. I knew that he remembered things I said to him, even light, silly things. He perhaps thought that these friends, these old friends from another life might help me look at the Haverings and at Perry with new eyes. He knew that he had lost me, that Wideacre had lost me, that I belonged nowhere now. Perhaps he had thought that the old life might call me back, might help me to find myself again.

He did not know that to think of the old life made me more careless about myself, more feckless about my future than anything else could have done. For they, and I, were still alive. But she was dead.

I sat in the window-seat and watched the moon for a while, but I was uneasy and could not settle. I looked at the little ormolu clock on the mantelpiece, there was still time. If I wished, I could ride and see the show, see how it was for them without her, without me. I could go and be concealed by the crowd, watch them in silence and secrecy, satisfy my curiosity. I could watch them and learn how it was for them, now we two were gone. Then leave among the crowd, and come slowly home.