She sits back, satisfied. ‘I am in admiration,’ she answers. ‘You must turn a marvellous trick, for you are quite plain to look at, but they say it takes all sorts and the quiet ones are the naughtiest.’

‘I am a magician in the sheets. But tell no one of my rope-trick,’ I whisper.

She is earnest now, leaning in again, looking at my belly. ‘So you were with child then, back in Kelso? Well, you said nothing to me.’

‘I did not know it then,’ I reply.

She pauses to take some laudanum, her eyes watering at the bitterness of it.

‘I have had two pregnancies,’ she says eventually. ‘Many years ago. I take a tonic now – a draught from the apothecary – but I had to have two aborted. I was so young, you see: fourteen the first time, and then the second one only a year later. I was frightened the childbirth might kill me. I went to a midwife. She had me wear a tight girdle and, when that did not work, she gave me a purgative.’

She slides her eyes at me. They are beginning to glitter, now that the laudanum is taking effect. The lanterns glow and the pipe smoke billows and the scene becomes her. Her skirts rustle and the strings of glass beads about her throat twinkle. She is far from gaudy and gaunt now. Mrs Rose is the sort of lady who lights up at night. Luminous, with her sad tales and her sorrows.

‘I am not a good woman, as you know, Mistress Dickson, but I was not dealt a good hand in life,’ she goes on. ‘I try to make the most of what I’ve got. I am pretty to look at, but spiky underneath. It’s survival. It’s why I call myself “Mrs Rose”. It’s not even my real name! My real name is Dorothy Donaldson – how dreary is that. Now I know a secret of yours, and you know a secret of mine.’

Oh, she is marvellous. I think, if I were a man or a sapphist, I would fall in love with Dorothy Donaldson, or Dorothy Rose, or whoever she is. But I am neither of these. So I admire her honesty and pity her melancholies, but I do not want to have her or possess her. She cannot be possessed.

When Dr McTavish realizes this woman is her own woman and cannot be possessed, he will snuff her out like a candle-stub.