Edie looks around the sitting room and she imagines a home in which she and Francis are husband and wife again, where possessions are once more shared, and conversations have two halves. Edie finds that it is easy to give their imaginary home a dinner service, and cutlery and upholstery, and to pick out the pattern of the wallpaper, but she doesn’t know what face her husband ought to wear. The two versions of Francis seem so far apart. Must she have the man with the sorrowful eyes when she would really much rather have the boy with the rhymes and the smile? The contemplation of it makes her feel foolish. It makes her feel like a failure, and why would he choose to come back to such a shallow woman? She imagines an alternative reality in which Francis is sharing a home with a different woman. Is this what jealousy feels like? Is this how betrayal smarts?

“I knew I had it.” The woman turns and puts a looking glass to the piece of paper in her hand. Edie sees rounded copperplate letters and, in the magnification, a female name.

“Captain Rose lives with his sister, you said?”

“Yes, a very nice lady. Lovely manners. We met them both when the house turned over. The captain is a gentleman too, of course, and a decorated officer, only the poor man was suffering terribly with his nerves.”

“He told you that?”

The woman shakes her head and plumps a cushion that is cross-stitched with the words DO UNTO OTHERS. “The neighbors. Noises in the night.”

“Oh.” Edie thinks about the sound of Harry’s fear and tears, and then the cold of his cheek against hers. She is not really sure she wants to hear about noises in the night.

“Don’t you think it’s a pity? He was a charming man in the daytime, they tell me, meek as a lamb, but there were some shocking things went on, weren’t there? Alfred says that no amount of medals on your chest makes up for having that in your head. I suppose that’s why his sister wanted to look after him.”

“Naturally so.”

Is it his nerves that make Harry cry in the night? Is it the shocking things that went on? There was a moment when she had wanted nothing more than to look after Harry, but is he really the man she thought he was?

“Anyway, listen to me rattling on. You are still terribly pale, Mrs. Blythe. Would you like a sherry?”

“No, it’s quite all right, I must get on, but thank you. Could I possibly take a copy of the address?”

“Do you mean to get in touch with Captain Rose?” she asks, as she looks up from the writing bureau.

“I’m not sure. I think so. There’s something that I perhaps need to ask him.”

“Do be careful, dear. Won’t you?”