Alice did not wait to find out. She fled up the stairs, past Mr Dunlevy’s closed door and up to her own room at the top of house where the baby had awakened. She pounced on it, scooping it up and clasping it to her chest to quieten it, to quieten her own beating heart.

The baby wailed and she pressed its face to her breast and felt its tiny fists push against her flesh. The amount of time she had left with it could be countered now in hours, in minutes.

At midnight the house was heavy—not with sleep, for no one slept, but with silence, with misgivings, with passion spent and with passion unspent, with so much emotion, indeed, that the air was dense with it and Alice found it difficult to catch her breath.

She sat on the bed, cradling the baby but not looking at it. She had put on all the warm clothes she possessed and now her heart pounded the blood about her body as though she had fled in fear of her life though she sat perfectly still. She must go, must leave this minute or the moment would be lost. She must leave!

Alice raised her face to the slanted square of ceiling. The rafters were low enough to touch.

What should I do, Milli?

But Milli did not speak to her. No one spoke to her. Of course they did not. Alice was quite alone. Except for the baby, whose fate—

But the baby’s fate was God’s decision, not Alice Nimrod’s. God had let Milli die. God had put Mrs Flowers in her path. Alice thought of Moses in the basket. The slave girl. The child floating down the river to its destiny …

The baby wriggled. It tossed its head, becoming restless. In a moment it would awake and cry. It would wake the whole household. It was this and not God, not Moses in the basket, that decided her. She leaped up. She wrapped a scarf about her head and one about the baby and slipped down the first flights of stairs. On the landing, she paused. The floorboards in Mr Dunlevy’s room creaked as he paced but his door did not open. No sound came from Mrs Dunlevy’s room. Alice slipped down the second flight and let herself out of the side door.

The rain did not let up. Alice hurried with her head down and her scarf over her head but the scarf was soon soaked through and the rain drove directly into her face and into her eyes. She could not shield herself as her arms were full and the package she carried was more important than the rain lashing her face.