Now, as she went forward, deliberately making a noise in order not to startle Emma unnecessarily, Nelly did so with a purpose. Unable to sleep herself, she had heard Emma leave her room. For a long time now Nelly had fought with her conscience. There were certain things she should confess to Emma. Things of the past that had somehow found their way into the present, and possibly had the power to affect the future.

Nelly was afraid, convinced that her long-overdue ‘confession’ would signal the end of Emma’s affection for her. All the same, and because she loved Emma above all else, Nelly had decided that on this night she would open her heart and afterwards beg Emma’s forgiveness.

‘Oh, Nelly!’ Emma swung round on hearing her dear friend’s noisy procession across the floor. ‘Couldn’t you sleep either?’ She came forward. When Nelly seated herself in one leather chair beside the empty fire-grate, Emma seated herself in the other. In the lamp’s soft glow, Nelly was pained to see how Emma’s hitherto rich, chestnut-coloured hair was now heavily streaked with grey. The bloom of youth had long left her face, but now a terrible weariness seemed to draw the lines of age so much deeper. But for all that, Emma retained a certain grace and beauty that was timeless.

‘I’ve a good mind ter wake Marlow and tell him how yer haunting the house in the middle o’ the night!’ Nelly chastized, her face a picture of annoyance. ‘Yer knows very well what the doctor telled yer. “Stay in yer bed,” he said, “get yer strength back after being laid so low with the illness.” And what d’yer do, eh?’ she demanded, shaking her tousled head. ‘Well… yer wanders about in the cold night air, that’s what!’

Emma smiled at her old friend’s sharp tongue. She knew that Nelly meant well. ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said, ‘and I was afraid I might wake Marlow. He’s so exhausted… these past weeks haven’t been easy for him.’ She laughed, a gentle unhappy sound. ‘We’re none of us getting any younger, Nelly,’ she said.

‘Huh!… The past few weeks ain’t been easy fer none of us, my gal,’ replied Nelly, ‘what with this business o’ Molly, an’ you being took so poorly.’ Suddenly her voice softened as she asked, ‘Are yer feeling better, gal?… Feel stronger in yersel’, d’yer, eh?’ The doctor said that Emma had been struck down by ‘a particularly nasty fever’. But Nelly knew better; ’tweren’t no matter o’ the fever that had laid Emma low. It were other matters, much more powerful to a woman. Matters of the heart, that’s what had struck Emma down: grief, and longing, and the loss of two children. Yes! Two children, because to Nelly’s mind, Emma had never got over the loss of that new-born girl-child. Nelly could not ease that loss for Emma. Nothing she could say would ever ease it. Indeed, what she had to say could even make that loss more unendurable. Or, in the light of recent events, it might prove to be a godsend. Nelly didn’t know. All she did know was that only days before, she had confided all to Marlow. Now, and on Marlow’s insistence, she had to tell the truth of what happened on that terrible night so long ago. ‘What yer been thinkin’ about, Emma… down here on yer own, gazin’ outside the window like a lost soul?’