The next morning she tells me she needs to go home urgently, and without much explanation she packs in haste and says she will go with or without me. I had thought her previous actions revealed her decision at last to commit to me and even reside at Shibden, but when I ask her, she turns to me much changed from these last few days and says she must go home and ask Mrs Ainsworth’s opinion. I ask her bluntly if the doctor also advised her never to make a decision by herself, and she marches off without a goodbye. I let her call for the carriage herself and watch her leave from a window overlooking the courtyard where she cannot see me.

She has managed to hold up a mask for a while but has now let it slip. She is not changed at all! Will she ever leave all her pother behind? I believe she will carry it with her wherever she goes.

Miss Walker

I return home vexed. I feel so content in her company and at Shibden, her family seem accepting of me, it is safe there. But who am I to deserve it? I have not told her the whole truth about me. I did not tell it to the doctor either. He believes I have suffered grief. The grief for my parents, my brother, Mr Fraser, and that grief alone is the cause of my anguish. How can I ever share my real secret, not just about how I feel about Miss Lister, but about myself?

Soon, I must face him. The man who did this to me.

I sit down for some breakfast at Crow Nest and when the maid brings it, she has some letters for me. She tells me one was hand delivered as urgent this morning.

It stares up at me with my name and address written in angry, unrecognisable handwriting. I try to eat and ignore it, but my appetite has left me. Urgent, she said. I shake as I open it, all the possibilities of its content racing through my mind.

Mrs Ainsworth has been killed.

My dear friend has been killed.

She was thrown from an open carriage.

I wonder what she was doing, where she was going, whom was she with. Was she out to prepare for her visit to me? Is it my fault she made that journey? Why couldn’t he have died and not her?

Is this what I must suffer in exchange for just four days of happiness? For momentarily feeling alive and with hope for a future of contentment and dare I say it, love – this is what I must pay as a price?