“Yes!” I could feel my heart pounding. I had to be careful what I said. How could I possibly know such things unless I had the diary in my possession. And I didn’t want to give her the diary, not yet. And so I bare-face lied. “I think I read it in an art book at the college.”

Nicole frowned. “I should like to know which book. And when was this fall? What year? Do you recall?”

I did recall. There had been a date at the top of the diary entry. August 1852.

“The year of the accident was 1852,” I said.

Nicole’s frown deepened. “It is not possible. Are you certain?”

“I think so,” I said. I knew so. But Nicole shook her head doubtfully

“Come with me,” she said.

We walked out of the dining room and down the hallway.

“In 1856,” Nicole said as she led me on, “Rose had left Paris behind. We don’t know why. She was living in the Camargue by then, and there is a date-stamped photograph of her from that time. It hangs by the elevator in the entrance – you probably did not see it. Come and look at it now.”

I followed her, thinking that if the diary entry where Rose’s back had been broken was from 1852 and the photo had been taken two years later and the doctor was right about Rose being paralysed, then surely she was already in a wheelchair?

When Nicole, Françoise and I walked into the entranceway, I realised I hadn’t seen the photograph because it was tucked around the corner in the alcove by the window and shadowed by a large houseplant with gigantic green leaves that matched the malachite pillars.

“There,” Nicole said. “That is Rose Bonifait in the photograph.”

Now as I looked at it, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The photograph was a black-and-white print, taken outdoors. It was a spooky, almost ghostly image, of an old French country house, the sky above all dark and ominous. It looked like a storm was coming. But what truly left me startled about the photograph was the girl in the picture, who must have been Rose herself. She did not look injured in any way. She was not sitting in a wheelchair. She was sitting astride a big grey horse.

“The horse, I believe, is a Camarguaise, a wild thing,” Nicole at my shoulder breathed to me. “They say Rose was the only one who rode him as no one else could.”

“That’s impossible …” I began. But then I knew I couldn’t say more. Was the diary itself a lie? A fake? That made no sense.

“What happened to you?” I murmured to the photograph. But Rose Bonifait did not reply.

Chapter 8: I Hate Paris in the Springtime

November 23, 1852