‘A ghost?’ Emma repeated in a wondrous shocked voice. ‘Yes, Nelly, that is what I’ve just seen… a ghost.’ Suddenly, Emma was on her feet and confronting the anxious Nelly. In quiet and intimate mood, she asked Nelly to cast her mind back to the day of their transportation, to the very moment when Emma had been delivered of a girl-child and afterwards been bundled into the waggon, leaving the newborn for dead in the gutter. Nelly remembered it all, and for more reason than did Emma – for it was she who had misled Emma into believing that the infant had been stillborn, when in truth Nelly had long suspected that the child had lived.

‘Go on, Emma gal,’ she urged now, being caught up in Emma’s growing excitement.

‘You may or may not recall the delicate timepiece that I kept hidden in my boot?’ When Nelly lapsed into deep thought, then vigorously shook her head, Emma went on, ‘It was the only thing I had of my father’s, Nelly… and it was my secret. I was mortally afraid that it might be discovered and confiscated.’ Emma clutched her small fist about the gold clasp and raised her eyes heavenwards. When she looked again into Nelly’s puzzled face, her lovely grey eyes were swimming with tears. ‘On that unforgettable day when I lost my girl-child… I also lost the timepiece.’ She opened her hand to disclose the tiny clasp. ‘This was part of it, Nelly and I have not seen it from that day to this.’

‘That can’t be!’ Nelly gasped. ‘Yer must be wrong, darling… somehow, yer must be wrong!’

Emma slowly shook her head, saying in hushed tones, ‘I can’t understand it, Nelly. How on earth has it come to be here… in this house… so many years later?’ She was greatly puzzled. ‘You found it on the carpet, you say… soon after Marlow and I left for Australia?’

‘That’s right.’ Nelly pointed again to the very spot. ‘Just there, like I said. So if it is the same as yer lost that night… what’s it doing back here?… And who fetched it, that’s what I can’t understand. Who fetched it into this house?’ She shook her head, telling Emma, ‘Naw, gal… it can’t be the same trinket. There must be hundreds like it… thousands, I dare say.’

‘Not like this one, Nelly,’ Emma told her. ‘My father had the timepiece and the chain especially made for my mother. He told me himself… it was his own design.’ She raised the clasp between her finger and thumb. ‘See the shape and curl of the petals, Nelly? It is the very same. I would stake my life on it.’ Suddenly she was entreating Nelly. ‘Oh, Nelly, Nelly… think hard; how could it come to be here? Did you entertain any visitors? Did any gypsies call?… It is possible that some wandering vagabond found the timepiece and sold it on. Oh,

Nelly… I must know. I must recover it if it is humanly possible.’ She was frantic. ‘Think, Nelly! Who did you bring into this house?’