‘I can assure you, ma’am… we’re only doing our job,’ explained the thinner of the two. ‘Of course we’re sorry if our visit has caused you distress. But we really do need to talk with the Justice.’ He put on his trilby and seemed to make a little bow. ‘And you have no idea of his whereabouts at present?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘But should he return, you will inform us?’

‘I will inform my husband of your visit. Oh, you may depend on it!’ Agnes Crowther swept angrily across the library. Swinging open the door, she assured them in a cutting voice, ‘And when he discovers the reason for your desire to talk with him… the “distress” will not be mine. It will be yours! Good day to you.’

On the two men leaving the house, Agnes Crowther hurried to the window in the great hall. From a discreet distance she watched them walk from the front door to the waiting carriage. She stepped back a pace when they half-turned towards the house, seemingly immersed in deep discussion. Then, when eventually they climbed into the carriage and were taken at some speed towards the road, she continued to stare after them, her face a study in confusion. Her fears were heightened when she realized that an officer was being left behind to stand guard outside the gates.

‘Father will have their heads for this!’ Martha Crowther had been sitting in the library throughout, stunned into silence by the conversation between the two officers and her mother. Now, as she led the way back to the library, her eyes were narrowed with anger, and her uneven nostrils grew to twice their size as she sucked in great helpings of air. ‘How dare they?’ she said in an explosive voice. When her tantrum drew no response from the woman behind, Martha Crowther deliberately slowed her footsteps and turned her ungainly brown head to ask, ‘What will you do, Mother…? Will you tell him?’ Of late, her father’s temper had been unbearably short. The thought of his reaction to this tiresome episode made her visibly tremble.

‘Of course he must be told,’ Agnes informed her. Martha’s state of anxiety had not gone unnoticed, though; to Agnes Crowther’s mind her foolish daughter had created her own deplorable situation, by constantly refusing to be a ‘proper’ wife to Silas Trent. Time and again he had begged her to join him in Australia, where he had taken on Emma Grady’s already prosperous trading company, and expanded it even more. The man had worked hard and, as far as Agnes Crowther was concerned, he deserved the same support and loyalty from his wife as he got from his son, Edward. Martha, however, gave him neither support nor loyalty. And for too long now she had withheld all form of affection from him. Was it surprising, therefore, that her unfortunate husband had sought solace in the arms of the woman who worked alongside him? In Rita Hughes he had found a loyal colleague and, according to Martha’s peevish innuendoes, a generous lover. There was no doubt that the marriage was over. Agnes Crowther, for one, was not surprised.