He looked up and down the street, clearly uneasy, though there was no sign of any disturbance. He seemed to be fully dressed, a dark jacket over his shirt. In the gloom she could just see the pale window of his face between hair and beard. She became acutely aware of having no stockings on, of the chill air against her naked legs. It brought back the foul association of the last time she had stood close to a man, shaking, naked about the legs. But this time she felt no threat. The man beside her was solid, with a stillness to him like a mountain.

‘Do you know what it was?’

‘Sounded bad.’ His voice was deep, but soft. ‘Summat big’s gone up, I’d say. Must be a good way away, I suppose, but I thought I’d come out and see.’

‘The ground shook,’ she said, still shaken herself.

There was a silence for a moment, then Philip Tallis, with another look back and forth said, ‘Well, we aren’t going to find out anything standing here.’

But he did not go inside. For a moment, they stood in silence. Something seemed to happen in the air between them, so that her blood moved faster. She thought she could hear the rhythm of her heart inside her.

‘So – you’re staying with Mr and Mrs Watts?’ he asked hesitantly.

‘Yes,’ she replied, liking him somehow for his respectful gentleness. ‘They’re my uncle and aunt.’

Philip Tallis nodded.

‘It’s good of you to spend time with my daughter,’ he said eventually.

‘She’s a lovely girl,’ Margaret said. ‘And she must miss her mother terribly.’ The moment she had spoken she felt horribly clumsy. What a thing to say – as if the poor man were not also missing his wife! From all she had heard about Florence Tallis, it seemed the two of them were a devoted couple – perhaps no one could ever take her place.

‘Yes.’ He stood quietly, searching for words, but whatever they were, the words would not come and this moved her more than anything he might have said. He glanced at her, then out at the street, where a man had appeared and was moving along, putting out the lamps. Dawn light had begun to appear over the rooftops.

‘Anyway . . .’ he said, as if his mind had moved on to other things. With sudden formality, he added, ‘Good day, Miss, er . . .’

‘Hanson.’

He paused, and in the uncertain light, for a second he seemed to be looking directly, searchingly, into her face. With a nod, he disappeared indoors. The street felt abruptly abandoned, as if the lamplighter had doused more than the little flares of gas.