He and Emily took a table in the dining room and ordered supper. They had the room to themselves for a while, then the members of the club began to arrive and the place grew rowdy. He hoped she would eat but was not surprised to see her leave most of her food on the plate. He ate little enough himself, and after they had drunk a glass each of wine and had whatever entertainment was to be found in watching the club empty their punch bowls and begin on speeches, they went up to her room. The room overlooked the stable yard and the noise from the dining room was no louder than the sound of the sea heard from the house on the island. She took off her shawl and sat on the end of the bed. He thought of how she must long for her sister, or even for Cornelius. Of how, instead of family, she had him.

“You said there was something you wanted to read to me, Emily. About military men.”

“Did I?”

“In the coffee house. When I was reading that piece on Mrs. Clarke and the Duke of York. Do you remember?”

“It does not matter any more, John.”

“Does not . . . ?”

“I was petulant. It does not matter now.”

“Even so, I am curious. What would Emily Frend write down about military men?”

She shrugged, went to her bag, lifted it on to the bed, unfastened the buckles and sank her hands inside. After a few moments she drew out a book bound with green cloth.

“Your diary?” he asked.

“More like a drawer,” she said, “where I keep the things that interest me. Or did so when I saw them first.” She carried the book to the window. There was still an hour of light left in the sky. In the yard the groom held a horse’s leg between his knees and was picking the hoof.

“The military,” she began, “the military is . . . is but a . . . dastardly carcass . . . of . . . of . . . ”

She held the book out to him. He reached across the bed to take it from her. The writing slanted down the page. Letters were missing, no t was crossed. The sort of writing that would earn a schoolboy a thrashing. He moved his finger, line to line, until he found the place.

“Of corruption, full of sottishness and selfishness, preying upon the hard labour of honest men.”

“I copied it from a pamphlet,” she said.

He smiled, hoping to show he had taken no offence. “I think there is some truth in it. A dastardly carcass of corruption. I wonder if the writer was a military man himself.”

As he held the book a dozen pages fanned across his thumb and when he glanced down he immediately saw his own name. Today John and I . . . He closed the book and placed it on the end of the bed.