Only now had Nelly come to realize just how very long Emma would be gone. Four months. Four endless months that, to Nelly, would seem like a lifetime. Oh, she knew that Marlow had been right in applying for a postponement of the court hearing between Emma and the infamous Caleb Crowther. In her weakened and distressed condition, Emma could never have defended herself properly against her uncle. The authority had conceded to this and, in view of Marlow’s request, together with the recent bereavement of their only son, the hearing was duly postponed to the thirty-first of March, in the year of Our Lord 1887. Marlow intended to keep Emma away until the month before, especially as the groundwork for the case was already prepared.

‘Come on, Nelly gal… get yer pecker up and stop maudlin’!’ Nelly told herself, in a loud whisper that drew a number of curious glances from passengers awaiting their respective trains. ‘Oh, yer may well gawp and wonder,’ she told them, unafffonted, ‘but none o’ you buggers have just seen yer darling off ter the other side o’ the world, I’ll be bound!’ When all she received in return were haughty looks and a few disgruntled murmurs, she snorted aloud and stormed away, saying in a loud, firm voice, ‘Miserable buggers!’

Lingering awhile by the flower-stand and debating to herself whether to purchase a posy, Nelly was interested to hear a conversation taking place nearby. The tall lady – with a head full of feathers and flowers that were tied beneath her chin with a wide extravagant bow – was relating to her smaller, plainer colleague a most detailed explanation of the ‘disgusting affair… when a decent, respectable gentleman or lady could not attend their normal business without being robbed. And in broad daylight!’ She was most indignant.

Amused by the manner of the two ladies who, in Nelly’s opinion, were ‘hoity toity and too blessed with their own importance’, Nelly would have left the station there and then. But the woman, still speaking in loud and injured tones, drew her colleague’s attention to the culprit. ‘Oh, my dear!’ she declared, sounding as though any minute she would fall down in a dead faint. ‘What a dirty, despicable ruffian that young woman was… thin and undernourished, of course. But I am quite certain to have nightmares about her, quite certain, my dear. Such large, piercing eyes she had… black as the devil’s, and a look about her that quite unnerved me. Why, my dear! When the officer escorted her into the station-manager’s quarters, I believe she was quite capable of putting a curse on him… fighting and spitting like a demon, she was!’

At once, Nelly was convinced that here was the very girl she had been seeking these many months: ‘thin and undernourished… large black eyes’, and by all accounts, possessed of a bit of fire in her character. Yes! It was the same thief, of that Nelly had no doubt. Putting on her sweetest smile, and sidling up to the two ladies, she imitated the tall one, saying, ‘Oh my dear… do excuse me, but I could not help overhearing. How frightful for you!’ It was all she could do not to burst out laughing.