‘And which novels are the good citizens of Sydney purchasing?’ he asked her now. For she had lately found a position three afternoons a week in a small second-hand bookshop in College Street. She had found the position herself and had told him about this change in her circumstances only once the deal was done, as it were. He had been a little surprised. He had been a little put out. Why had she done this thing behind his back? Why did she need the money when he gave her all that she might need? He had said nothing, though, lest it sound petty, belittling. But he might yet say something, he decided; the subject was not closed merely because he had let it pass initially.

She turned away from the window towards him. ‘Mr Thackeray, Mr Wells, Mr Hardy, Mr Conan Doyle,’ she recited as though she were often asked such a question and could answer it without thinking. ‘And all the old novelists remain popular here, as they do in England: Scott and Stevenson, Mr Dickens and Mrs Gaskell. But I can find no novels written by New South Wales authors. Are there any?’

It was a simple enough question, asked with a simple honesty, but Alasdair found himself irked. For did it not imply something rather lacking in the menfolk of his own colony?

‘We have our own novelists, Verity, as you will discover: Mr Rolf Boldrewood and Mr Marcus Clarke are two fine examples. And our bush poets—Mr Paterson and Mr Lawson and others—are, I am told, held in high regard. I have little time for novels myself, tending more towards the historical and philosophical. When I was a boy, my father read to me each night from the journals of Mr Watkin Tench—of whom you will have heard?’

But, no, Miss Trent had not heard of Mr Watkin Tench.

‘Then I trust you shall know the pleasure of discovering his accounts of the earliest days of the colony. They certainly made a strong impression on my youthful mind. And I am named for him, too—my baptismal name is Alasdair Watkin Dunlevy.’

He bowed to her as he said this as though he were meeting the Governor-General. And it was a fine name, he had always thought so: Alasdair Watkin Dunlevy—it was, surely, the name of a future prime minister. Of a great prime minister.

Verity had left the window and now at last she sat down, though not on the settee beside him but on one of the upright chairs. Again he noted her eyes sliding away from him, the unnatural pallor of her face.

What was it she did not tell him?