It gripped her throat. An invisible hand clutching at her windpipe. Panic, and out of proportion to the situation, she saw that, but here it was. To be never free of this woman. To exist in the shadow of her own fear.

She reached for the bellpull.

‘Alice, has any letter arrived for me in the last week that you have failed to deliver to me?’

‘No, madam.’

‘You are certain? Nothing has come that may have dropped and become hidden? Nothing still on the letter tray? Nothing you have given to Mr Dunlevy in error? Think carefully, girl.’

Alice shook her head. ‘No, madam. I am certain of it.’

‘But how can you be certain unless you have looked? Go now, and search in the hallway and see if there is anything. And search thoroughly, mind.’

‘Yes, madam.’

‘There was an invitation, I believe,’ remarked Alasdair, when Alice had gone. He paused to pour milk into his coffee. ‘It came to my office some days ago.’

For a time neither of them spoke. The sound of furniture being moved about could be heard from the hallway. Something clattered to the ground.

‘Then, as they are to meet again tomorrow,’ Eleanor announced, ‘I believe I shall go.’

‘As you wish,’ Alasdair replied, and still he did not look at her. ‘Though it is of no account. What can they achieve, I wonder, these women?’ He reached over and reclaimed his newspaper. ‘A wife’s proper place remains at her husband’s side. That is where she can achieve the most.’

‘Really? You are to attend a meeting at Marrickville this evening, are you not? And yet you have not asked me to accompany you.’ And the truce she had attempted to broker crumbled to dust in the face of her fury.

Alice returned a little time later to announce that she was very sorry but no letter could be found. Should she continue searching elsewhere?

‘I am delighted you accepted my invitation, Mrs Dunlevy,’ said Marian Dempsey that evening as they arrived at the town hall in Darlington. ‘I had thought you were entirely caught up with the pro-bill set.’

‘Really? Then why invite me?’ said Eleanor, who was a little uncertain herself why she had accepted the invitation. She feared it was perverse. Alasdair had gone to his meeting at Marrickville and she had stood, once again, at the upstairs window and watched his departure, and the only person who had observed her was James Greensmith as he had stood holding the door of the cab.

‘Because everyone else was otherwise engaged,’ replied Miss Dempsey, with a candidness and simplicity that might have been utterly guileless. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ she said to the ardent young women who stood at the doorway to the hall and handed her a pamphlet.