‘Dr Simpson is from home, attending a patient. Would his assistant, Dr Raven, be suitable?’

Sarah heard a mumbled response in the affirmative.

‘Do come with me. I will take you to him presently.’

As Jarvis stepped aside, Sarah recognised the woman who was following him in. She was Mrs Glassford’s housemaid. She had a grave look about her, the significance of which Sarah immediately understood.

Sarah found herself following them along the corridor, drifting like a wraith as though propelled by an unseen force. She loitered in the doorway while the maid stood before Raven in his consulting room. The conversation was brief, the young woman stumbling over the few words that were required to deliver the news.

‘Can I offer you some tea?’ Sarah asked her as the maid turned towards the door, though she was barely conscious of the words issuing from her mouth. She felt numb, present but not truly here.

The girl declined politely and went to leave, her errand at an end, her message delivered. She seemed anxious to extricate herself, though Sarah doubted she had any reason to hurry back to her place of work. What future for her, now that her employer was dead?

It was this thought that somehow rendered an abstract notion into something tangible.

Mrs Glassford was dead.

The numbness lifted and she felt a wellspring of grief rise up and engulf her. Raven was by her side now and she leaned towards him. His arms folded around her as tears began to stream down her cheeks. It felt safe there, a place she could let go and give in to what she was feeling. She sobbed loudly, her shoulders heaving. Then she heard footsteps and was aware of a presence nearby.

She lifted her head from Raven’s chest and saw Quinton standing a few yards away. They broke apart, but the speed and suddenness with which they did so served only to emphasise that they were doing something they wished to hide.

Quinton, for his part, looked mortified, both by having intruded and by what he had intruded upon. He had never struck her as a man well equipped to comprehend other people’s emotions, as he barely ever registered any of his own.

‘My apologies,’ he muttered, then turned on his heel and retreated.

Raven beckoned her into his consulting room and closed the door to give them some belated privacy.

‘Sarah,’ he said softly, ‘what grieves you?’

And that indeed was the question. Who were these tears really for?

Mrs Glassford had been an inspiration. She had shown by example that a woman did not have to accept her lot, rejecting the husband picked out by her father and choosing instead a life on her own terms.