Evangeline had lain here, in this bed. Paced this floor. She’d been younger than Ruby when she came to this house, trying to find her way in the world, and she left it pregnant and scared, with no one to help her. Ruby thought of all the women who came into Warwick Hospital and St. Mary’s Dispensary, seeking treatment. Heavy with child, or writhing in pain from venereal diseases, or carrying newborns and toddlers. All the burdens of being poor and female, as Dr. Garrett put it. No one to catch you if you fell.

Looking down at the worn pine floor, Ruby was struck by a realization: she’d been in this room before, when she was barely more than a whispered thought.

“Will you excuse me?” Mr. Whitstone said. “I’ll just be a minute.”

She nodded. It was late in the afternoon. She wanted to get back to her lodgings before dark. Though she wasn’t looking forward to the long voyage back to Tasmania, she was eager to share what she’d learned during her year abroad.

This moment in Evangeline’s room, she knew, had nothing to do with the rest of her life and everything to do with it. She would leave this house changed, but no one would ever know she’d been here.

When Mr. Whitstone returned, he was carrying a small blue velvet box. He gave it to her, and she opened it. There, couched on yellowed ivory satin, was a ruby ring in a baroque gold setting. “A bit tarnished, I’m afraid,” he said. “It’s been in a drawer all these years. My stepmother insisted that it would go to my wife someday, but as it turned out, I never married.”

Ruby extracted the ring and studied it carefully. The stone was larger than she’d imagined. It shimmered wetly in its setting. The color of velvet drapes, a lady’s dress at Christmastime.

“You should be the one to rescue it from ignominy,” he said. “You are . . . my . . . daughter, after all. I would like for you to have it.”

She turned the ring in her hand, observing how the gem caught and refracted the light. She imagined Evangeline holding it in this room nearly three decades ago. She thought of the lies told and promises broken. How desperate Evangeline must’ve felt—how miserable. Ruby put the ring back in its blue velvet box and snapped it shut. “I can’t take this,” she said, handing it back. “It is your burden to bear, not mine.”

He nodded a little sadly and slipped the ring box into his pocket.

Standing in the doorway, a few minutes later, he pulled a collection of coins out of his pocket. “Let me pay for your cab.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“It’s the least I can do, after you’ve come all this way.” He dropped several shillings into her hand.

“Well. All right.”

He seemed to be stalling, trying to keep her there. “I want to tell you that . . . that she was a lovely girl, your mother. And very intelligent. Always with her nose in a book. She had a gentleness about her, a kind of . . . innocence, I suppose.”