“It’s a strange choice of memento, though, isn’t it? Why would he want to remember Francis looking like that?” Edie wonders where that photograph of Francis is now. She hopes that Harry doesn’t mean to remember Francis that way.

“You have to understand my brother’s state of mind.” Louisa refills the glasses. “He felt guilty. He felt wretched about some of the things that had gone on. He believed that he should have done better—been a better man, a better leader. I’m afraid that he rather punished himself for that.”

“He punished himself by looking at a photograph of Francis?”

“Possibly. I can’t say with all honesty. I can only tell you that Michael wasn’t a well man.”

“But why not tell me that he’d found Francis?”

“Perhaps he simply just couldn’t bear to. I don’t suppose you recall the date on the postmark?”

“Of course. It was sent on the thirtieth of April.”

Louisa nods. “I wondered if that might be the case. It was the same day that he took his life.”

“I am sorry, Louisa. So terribly sorry. The poor man.”

“Yes. Aren’t they both?”

IN THE BOX of photographs that Edie handed to Harry there had been an image of Francis and Michael Rose together. There’s something candid about this shot, something natural and simply sincere that had made Edie pause when she first saw it. Francis and Michael are looking at one another and laughing, and neither of them seems to be particularly aware of the camera. They look like friends in this photograph. They look happy. Edie had quite forgotten the shape of Francis’s smile in recent months, but she now means to remember it. As she watches Michael’s sister tidying the glasses away, she decides that she will frame that picture when Harry returns the box, and she will also have a copy made for Louisa.

“Your brother lived with you here?”

“For a few months. I wanted to look after him, but then he moved to France just over a year ago. I didn’t want to let him go, I didn’t trust him to look after himself, and what with his state of mind, I worried. You understand?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“But he was determined. He rented a property down in the southwest. He said that it was for his health, for the weather, but I think it was really just that he couldn’t stand any more of me fussing around him. I wanted to stop all the business with the graves, you see, I wanted him to think about other things, find new occupations, forget about the war, but he’d made his mind up to finish it.”

“In the southwest?”