Her grey eyes barely moved. ‘There was a house of dolls.’ Her look was wistful. ‘I had never loved a thing so much as that. It was Iskar, and in my games the dolls were all those who lived here. I imagined that I were living here too, with all the warmth and riches. But at night my mother wept.’ She paused. ‘She was so unhappy. Then my mother killed herself, here at Iskar.’ The room seemed to breathe; the candle shivered on its wick. I could not take my gaze from her.

‘And I took the dolls and when I imagined they were Evangeline and Miss Gillies, I put all my rage into those tiny bodies.’ She stopped as though shocked by her own words. ‘And that rage somehow went into them, and things went bad – bad between them when they had been friends before.’ She paused. ‘But they were kinder to me than ever, all of them, all of the Gillieses, and they gave me a home and trained me up to be Miss Gillies’ own maid. They taught me my letters, and later I regretted it.’

‘You used the dolls again when I was here?’

She flushed. ‘It helped to bring them here.’

‘And the ones of Mary and me?’

‘Not to harm you. To do the opposite – I left you both safe beneath the bed in the doll’s house – only you took them.’

The boards creaked as she shifted her weight. ‘I did not like that I had had the power over the dolls. It was wrong, and that is the confession I took to the minister. I told him everything. Nearly everything.’

‘What didn’t you confess?’

‘The widows’ whistle.’

And I felt its weight in my pocket and recalled the way it had moulded to my desire and shuddered.

‘What did Argylle say?’

She shrugged. ‘He was kind. He told me to make amends as best I could and to pray for forgiveness. He told me to keep my silence.’ She looked up. ‘Perhaps that was wrong, but I believe that he wanted to protect me.’

‘How did you come to have a widows’ whistle?’