Laura and Stewart chatted on the drive home, but I paid scant attention. My thoughts focused on that dark stairwell, bouncing back and forth between our reenactment and the events of Tuesday night. I had to talk to Azalea again, and this time I had to persist until she finally told me everything.

Diesel and I made it back to my office at the library by a quarter to two. He showed brief interest in the box I opened, but another treat distracted him. He munched it and then snoozed on the windowsill while I delved into the box’s contents.

According to the list there were only letters here, more correspondence, chiefly business matters, from the 1920s and 1930s. I scanned letter after letter, gradually emptying the box, but found nothing of interest to my current quest.

Near the bottom of the box I felt a hard lump underneath the last inch of paper. Curious, I pulled all the letters up to reveal a small leather-bound book lying beneath. Slightly larger in dimension than a paperback and half as thick, it had a monogram stamped in gold on the cover. The letters were KCD.

Why wasn’t this listed as part of the contents? I picked up the little book and opened it. An inscription in cramped, tiny handwriting adorned the front flyleaf, and I had to pull out a magnifying glass in order to read it. The Private Journal of Katherine Cecilia Ducote.

Cecilia Ducote was the mother of Miss An’gel and Miss Dickce. I had a sudden feeling that this little book could hold the answers to Vera Cassity’s quest to know more about her mother. I also wondered whether the sisters knew about the existence of their mother’s journal.

I turned the page. There was no date, but the first sentence revealed that the keeper of the journal was on her honeymoon.

My darling Richard has brought me to Paris on our wedding trip. Paris! The city of my dreams. And then Vienna and Rome! Was any girl ever so fortunate? Richard is so attentive and so passionate. I blush to write of such things here, but dear Maman should have told me that a woman’s duty could entail such delightful feelings!

Oh, my. I probably blushed a little, reading the most private thoughts of this young woman. I hoped she wouldn’t rhapsodize in any further detail.

I began to skim and worked my way through the splendors of Paris, Vienna, and Rome. By the time the young couple left Rome to return to the United States, they had spent nearly five months in Europe. Near the end of the trip Cecilia confided to the journal that she suspected she was going to have a baby.

Home again in Athena Cecilia wrote about the events of daily life at River Hill and her developing pregnancy. She began to have problems around the fifth month, and her doctor put her on bedrest for the duration of her pregnancy.

I read with sadness the account of the stillbirth of the child, a boy, in the eighth month. Then came the shocking news that the doctor feared Cecilia would never be able to bear another child, at least not to full term.