‘Well, I dare say I shall not suffer him here!’ she snapped. I had never before heard her voice raised to such a pitch. Indeed it struck me then that her falsehoods and deceptions had been so thick and knotted, so intricately woven, as to have completely obscured her true character from me. I recognized that I understood nothing of this woman, not even if she had ever been a friend.

‘This will bring the guards, I am certain of it. All the house will be torn apart again . . .’ she muttered anxiously.

I observed her as she began to pace and fret. In her disquieted state, she seemed oddly pitiable to me.

‘You know that you are widely suspected,’ I ventured cautiously. ‘You cannot pretend that your allegiances are unknown, that the world does not take you for a royalist. It is only natural that they should assume you are a counter-revolutionary as well. You cannot expect to continue here as you have, madam. You hazard your life. You would do well to quit this place for England, as I believed you had intended . . .’

She stopped and turned to me. Her eyes glinted like two dark stones.