Here was the house, unmistakable, with its steep gables and many chimneys, the overgrown banksia spilling onto the pavement. A light flickered in an upstairs room. Her room? He could not be sure. Perhaps not. He went up to the front door. He had come and gone at a late hour before this and the front door had never been locked, but perhaps on this occasion it was? No: he pushed it and it swung open. He entered, taking the stairs softly in the gloom of a single gas light turned down low. Quiet reigned inside the house, as it always did, and he paused to listen. Floorboards creaked and nothing more. The house was as silent as its ancient timbers and straining roof joists ever were, and whatever the residents did within their various apartments they did so noiselessly. He had wondered at it each time he had visited Verity, had wondered at the ferocity of his passion and love-making in such a church-like place, yet once inside the secrecy of her bedroom he always forgot such thoughts. He wanted to make love to her now, right at this moment.

The thought that this might not eventuate could not be borne.

He took the stairs two at a time, reaching the first floor and going to her door.

He kneeled and felt with his fingers in the pot of the large fern where the key habitually resided, inching around the circumference of the pot as he had done each time previously. His fingers found nothing. He got to his feet and stood close to the door, listening. Beyond was only silence. He tapped softly.

‘Verity.’

He waited.

‘Miss Trent.’

The silence lengthened. It swirled about him, lapping at his knees, tickling the back of his neck, prickling his scalp.

‘Verity!’

He pounded again and again on the door, over and over.

But she did not come.

Others did come, however. Footsteps thudded and distant voices mumbled and lights flickered and somewhere a door opened and Alasdair, his shame rising up to consume him, stumbled away down the staircase and out of the front door to stand, breathing heavily, outside.

But despite the shame, or because of it, he was not ready to admit the misery of his defeat.