Then Kate felt the cool dampness on her forehead and the throbbing eased a little. ‘Me shell – she’s got me shell. She wouldn’t give it back . . .’ she murmured.

She awoke once to see Dr Blair’s kindly face bending over her as he gently spooned liquid between her lips. ‘There, there, my dear. We’ll soon have you up and running about again . . .’

She heard him speaking to her mother in his deep voice. ‘She’ll be fine, Esther, really. It’s clear the child hasn’t been eating properly and she’s exhausted. She obviously got very chilled trying to get home, but there’s no real harm done. All she needs is a few days in bed. She’ll feel a little weak when she first gets up, but with Fleethaven’s good fresh air and your good food . . .’

Then her mother’s voice. ‘Thank goodness. I – I thought she’d got pneumonia.’

‘No – nothing like that, I assure you, but Kate’s been very distressed about something, Esther.’

‘Yes – and as soon as she’s better, I mean to find out exactly what’s been going on.’

Another time Kate opened her eyes to see Rosie standing beside her bed clutching a posy of wild flowers. The child’s face was unusually solemn, and her voice was only a whisper. ‘Katie, I’ve brought you some flowers – to make you better. Do get better, Katie.’

‘Danny? Where’s Danny?’ Kate croaked. ‘Why hasn’t he been to see me?’

The child hopped from one foot to the other. ‘He – he wanted to come – but he wasn’t sure . . .’

‘Tell him I want to see him.’

Kate closed her eyes again. When next she opened them, Rosie had gone and her mother was once again sitting beside her bed holding her hand. Every time Kate awoke, her mother was there.

After a couple of days sleeping most of the time, Kate, although still weak, began to feel better. It was her mother who had dark shadows beneath her eyes now.

‘Oh Katie,’ she said, putting her arms about her daughter and holding her close. ‘You had us all frightened. Kate, listen to me a minute. When you were rambling, you said something about me loving Lilian more than you.’

Kate buried her face against her mother’s shoulder. ‘I dun’t remember.’

Her mother stroked the short cropped hair and murmured, ‘They say ya speak the truth when you’re in that sort of state. But that was not the reason I wanted you to go away to school. I love you dearly. I would never love one of me children more than the other. But a baby takes up a lot of time and attention and I can see it must ’ave felt like that for you, specially because ya’d been the only one for so long.’

When the girl did not answer, Esther said, ‘Do you understand, Katie?’