‘But it is I who am grateful to you, for your forgiveness.’ He took my face into his hands. ‘My dear Henrietta, now it is made plain to you that which I was unable to reveal in the past. Now you apprehend why it was impossible for you to have accompanied me to Paris. It was not because I did not love you or wish you to be at my side. In this matter I had no choice. Hetty, I have been a spy for His Majesty, in some capacity or other, since I was made to quit our life at Orchard Cottage. I was not at liberty to speak of it, to you or to any person. You cannot imagine what anguish this caused me. I could scarcely bear to consider the life into which you had been cast and then . . . in Paris, when I learned of your association with Mrs Elliot . . .’ He shook his head. ‘I glimpsed you with her, outside the printshop,’ he whispered and shut his eyes. ‘I could do nothing. I suspected that she had contrived a scheme. I begged her to relinquish you, to at the very least inform you of the truth of your situation, but she protested. She claimed that the plan was by then too far advanced to divulge. It was heedless of her, unjust, imprudent. I was unable to alert you to her design without placing myself, without placing all of us in the gravest peril.’ He searched my expression with great sadness. ‘And that dreadful day in September in the passage de Valois, you called my name – and were it not for the accident which befell you . . . Hetty, it was I who gathered you from where you had fallen. You were insensible. I prayed that you would live.’ His tears glistened in his dark lashes. ‘I could do nothing more.’

With that, I buried my head against his chest. I wished to feel him near to me and to banish the memory of how my heart had reproached him for his callousness. That I had ever judged him ill was unbearable to me. What shame I felt, and what sadness, too, that so many deceptions and secrets had lain between us. I understood then what I must say.

‘George,’ I said, my cheek against him. ‘I beg your forgiveness.’

‘There is nothing to forgive, sweet angel.’

‘Pray, say you will forgive me, George,’ I choked.

‘Please . . .’ He placed his hands upon my shoulders and stood somewhat apart from me so he might study my features. He appeared suddenly troubled.