That evening, when she had cleared away the supper things and Fleur was doing her household accounts, she went to her room and considered what she had learned. Annette clearly wasn’t at the Clergy House any more, but why had she left? Agreed, the work was hard and she had always been sure that Father Thomas would be an exacting man to work for, but at least Annette had had board and lodging.

I knew there was something wrong, Agathe thought, but what could it have been that was so awful that Annette ran away?

‘No better than she should be,’ that unpleasant woman had said. Surely Annette hadn’t got herself into that sort of trouble, had she? Was that why she’d run away… or had Father Thomas thrown her out? That was more likely.

‘Oh, why didn’t the silly girl confide in me?’ Agathe sighed. ‘I might have been able to do something.’

Where could she have gone? Had she gone for help to St Luke’s? She thought that most unlikely, but where else could she go?

Agathe considered returning to the Clergy House and asking Father Thomas herself, but eventually decided against it; he would tell her no more than she’d learned already from his new housekeeper. Perhaps she should go to St Luke’s and ask after her there.

In the morning, on her way to the market, she paused outside St Luke’s orphanage. It was a forbidding building, its entrance a pair of heavy wooden double doors set in the high encircling stone wall. Surely Annette would not have returned here, the place where she had spent her miserable childhood. But if she were desperate?

Agathe drew a deep breath and walked up to the front door and rang the brass bell that hung there. A grille in the door opened and a face peered out.

‘Yes? Who is it?’

‘Madame Sauze, to see Reverend Mother.’ Agathe spoke with an authority she did not feel, but with which the portress was familiar. She opened the door at once.

‘I am Sister Gabrielle,’ said the nun. ‘Is Mother expecting you?’

‘No,’ admitted Agathe, ‘but I do need to speak to her.’

‘Mother is in chapel,’ said Sister Gabrielle. ‘If you want to see her, you’ll have to wait.’

‘In that case, perhaps you can help me,’ Agathe said, forcing a smile to her face. ‘I wonder if you remember a girl who used to live here? Annette?’

Colour flooded the nun’s face and she scowled. She certainly remembered Annette, and her expression made Agathe remember too. Sister Gabrielle! It was Sister Gabrielle whom Annette had tripped up when her friend Hélène was trying to escape from the convent all those years ago.

Sister Gabrielle continued to scowl. ‘I remember her,’ she said. ‘An evil child! What about her?’

‘I am looking for her,’ replied Agathe. ‘I wondered if she was here.’

‘No,’ replied the nun firmly, ‘she is not. And were she to come here she would not be admitted.’