And who was this little kitchen maid who had the power to summon him back? He studied her covertly as she bent her glossy black head over her food. She could, perhaps, be a great beauty given a bit more flesh and a great deal of rest. But apart from that, she was very much a kitchen maid with her slow country speech and her red, calloused hands.

He said in a kinder voice than he had used to her before, “What is thy name, child?”

“Alice. Alice Lovesey.”

“Thy parents?”

“I don’t know,” said Alice. “I was brung here when I was twelve, I do reckon. Person who brung me says as how I was found wandering. There was this here riddle note pinned to my dress with my name.”

“Lovesey,” he said thoughtfully. “I wonder. I do not know of any family of that name about here.”

Flushed with wine and comforted with food, Alice clasped her little hands together and stared at him earnestly. “Oh, p’raps I be the daughter of a high-born lady who’s a-looking for me still.”

“No. You are not high born,” said the ghost flatly. “It is possible however your parents were a respectable country couple. You could change, of course. If, say, I trained you to be a lady and found you an establishment in London, then there is no reason why you should not marry well. Dear Agnes’s jewels, correctly sold, should set you up with an excellent dot.

“It will be difficult to make a lady of you—but not entirely impossible. I shall find you a wardrobe tomorrow. For that, I must go further afield. I think I should cease my haunting of this establishment until you are settled.”

“I don’t want you to steal things for me,” said Alice in a low voice.

“Then I shall leave money for them, my prude. I shall take the present Duke’s money and that will not be stealing for, after all, I am only taking what is my own. We shall contrive. I don’t suppose you can read or write.”

“Oh, yes, sir,” said Alice proudly. “I can do both.”

“Really!” His thin eyebrows flew up in surprise. “Forgive me if I do not believe you. Wait!”

To Alice’s alarm he went straight through the wall and disappeared.

“A new accomplishment,” he murmured, returning as abruptly as he had left with a pile of books, paper, pen and ink.

“Now,” he said, flicking over the pages of a book. “I shall give you something to read to me and then I want you to write it. Let me see…”

He handed her a calf-bound volume of Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici and pointed to a paragraph with one long, polished nail.

Alice looked at the print, half afraid that this one talent should have deserted her. But the sense of the words leaped immediately to her brain, and she read clearly.