“I said to the maid who cleans my room that I’d heard you moving about, and I demanded she told me who you were. She said you were an orphan and that both your parents died in hospital of cholera. She was very clear you weren’t a murderess.”

Mary felt a lump swell in her throat. She wished what he said was true, but she knew what she’d done. Not wanting to talk about it, she changed the subject. “Colin, do you trust me? I want to show you something.”

“Why would I trust you?” he said.

She raised her eyebrows. He had the grace to look slightly ashamed and nodded. “Very well. But I am not going outside,” he added warningly.

“This isn’t outside,” said Mary. She took the wheelchair over to his bed. “Now shall I help you in?”

“No,” he said, his cheeks flushing. “I do not want you to see my back where the hump is growing. Turn away. I can manage on my own.”

Mary went over to stand by the door and waited with her back turned to him. She heard him grunting with effort and cursing under his breath, but at long last, he cleared his throat. “You may turn around.”

He was sitting in his chair with his dressing gown on over his pajamas. His face was pale.

She hurried behind him, pushing him out into the corridor.

“So I have trusted you tonight,” he said, glancing back at her. “I believe you should trust me in return. Tell me why you believe you are a murderess?”

Mary hesitated. She knew how hard it had been for him to agree to leave his bed, and she felt she owed him something in return. “I wished my mother’s death,” she said in a small voice. “I was angry because she didn’t love me, so I wished her dead and then it happened. The cholera came and she and Daddy both died. I am absolutely a murderess, Colin.”

“But, Mary, that’s—”

“I made it happen,” she insisted, glaring at him. She didn’t want him trying to make her feel better. She knew it was her fault and that she had to live with the guilt of what she’d done.

He looked alarmed. “Very well,” he said hastily. “If you say it is so, then . . . then I believe you.” He started to look panicked. “But if you take me to the garden, you will murder me too!”

Mary frowned. “I’m not taking you to the garden. I’m taking you into that room.” She pointed to the room with the murals. “There’s something you need to see.”

She wheeled him inside. He stared at the murals as she found the hidden catch and the door opened into the secret room.