She realised that for the moment she had distracted his attention from himself.

“Yes,” she answered. “I had my whole life and everything that belonged to me crumble away, so that I have been left completely alone and with nothing. At one time I thought that I should die. But then I knew that I had to go on living and that therefore I must make the best of it.”

“You are brave,” he said gently. “Far braver than I.”

“No, you will be brave too once you have got over the shock. At first, everything seems overwhelming, dark and hopeless and then, somehow inexplicably, there comes a little light,”

He stood very still looking at her.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

Carina looked up to meet his eyes and it seemed to her that, in that moment, something strange and almost magnetic passed between them.

She thought that she gave him strength and some of the agony went from his face.

She felt unexpectedly her whole being go out to help him.

She felt that she lifted him up and turned his face towards the stars.

It was so intense, so strong, the link that joined them, that Carina felt herself tremble.

Then Dipa’s voice broke the spell.

“Missie, Missie,” he was calling her and Carina turned towards the door.

The small boy came bursting into the room, his little feet clattering noisily over the parquet and the soft muted blues and pinks of the carpet.

He seized Carina by the hand.

“Come and see, come and see!” he said excitedly. “Pussy cats, lots and lots of pussy cats!”

“Yes, I will come and see them,” Carina said.

But already Dipa had turned and run off again obviously delighted with his find and having no patience to wait for her or for anyone else.

Carina turned back towards Lord Lynche, but the moment of closeness had gone. Now he was scowling, dark and rather awe-inspiring, out of the window again.

“Perhaps – we had best return,” Carina faltered.

Lord Lynche looked at her and then, almost irritably, replied,

“No! I cannot face it, not at the moment. Go, if you wish, but I shall stay here.”

Carina glanced at him, wondering how she would get Dipa back to The Castle. He could not be expected to sit in front of her on the horse. She decided to compromise so as not to trouble him.

“I will go and see what Dipa is up to,” she said quietly and slipped away from the room, leaving Lord Lynche alone.

She had some difficulty in finding the small boy. Every room that she looked into was empty – the library, the morning room, the large dining room with its exquisite Chippendale chairs and polished table.

And then, at length, she found him in the rafter-ceilinged kitchen, crouched on the floor beneath the table, bending over a basket in which lay a cat with six tiny new-born kittens.