"Just this one." Jamie looked at him.

"Madame Emma Richaud? Five hundred guineas."

Angelique said, "She's my aunt, she and Uncle Michel, they brought me up, Mr.Skye. Mama, I called my aunt that for she was mother to me, my own died when I was young. They needed help and Mal... Malcolm kindly sent them that. I asked him to."

"Jamie, I'd like a copy of these, a list please." The solicitor was talking again. "You are required to hold them in safekeeping." He reached for the half-dozen letters but Jamie was there before him: "I'd say these were private."

"Private to whom, Jamie?"

"To him."

"I will get a court order to see them and have them copied if I consider them to be valid."

"You certainly may do that," Jamie said through his teeth, cursing himself for blurting out about the safe until he could get Sir William's advice.

Angelique said, "May I see them, Jamie, please? I suppose they are part of my husband's effects. At the moment they seem so few."

Her voice was so gentle, so sad, no shred of begging, that he sighed and said to himself, Laddie, you're in so deep now it doesn't matter. Sir William will have to decide legalities. Then, suddenly, he was back at yesterday eventide, on the jetty, the three of them so lighthearted, laughing, confident, with any future Hong Kong stormclouds seemingly so far away, seeing the two of them off in the cutter for their wedding night, Malcolm saying, "Thanks, my bonny friend, guard our tail, it's going to need guarding.

Promise?"' He had promised, sworn he would do that, and guard her equally, wishing them long and happy lives, and waved, last on the shore. How right Malcolm was. Poor Malcolm, did he have a premonition? "Here," he said kindly. Without looking at the letters she put them in her lap and again folded her hands, again motionless. A draft waved a vagrant strand of hair near her temple.

Otherwise she was quite like a statue.

The chink of coins attracted Jamie's attention. Skye had opened the little bag. It contained Bank of England golden guineas, and notes. He counted them aloud.

Angelique's eyes did not move from the maw of the safe.

"Two hundred and sixty-three guineas."

Skye put them back in the leather sack. "These should go to Mrs. Struan at once--she will of course give you a receipt."

Jamie said, "Perhaps it's best that we, you and I, Heavenly, we go and see Sir William.

I've never been involved in this kind of matter before and I'm out of my depth--Angelique, you do understand, don't you?"

"I'm out of my depth too, Jamie, adrift too. I know Malcolm was your friend and you were his, as you are mine too. He told me many times. Please do whatever you think best."

Skye said, "We'll see him now, Jamie, sooner the better, he can decide on the ownership of these. Meanwhile..." He walked over to give her the little bag but she said, "Take it with you, take everything, and these too," she handed him the letters. "Just leave me the photograph. Thank you, Mr. Skye. And thanks, dear Jamie, and I'll see you when you return."

They waited for her to get up but she made no move. "You're not going to stay here are you?

Surely not?" Jamie said, perturbed, it seemed so macabre.

"I think I will. I spent so much time here, in this room, that it's, it's sympathetic to me. The door to my suite is open if I... if I need to rest. But please, would you take Ah Tok away, poor thing, and tell her not to come back.

Poor woman, she needs help. Ask Dr.Hoag to see her."

"Do you want the door closed?"

"Door? Oh, it doesn't matter, yes, if you wish."

They did as she asked and made sure Ah Tok was handed over to Chen who himself was still distraught and in tears and went out into High Street, both of them relieved to be in the open again but lost in their own thoughts. Skye was planning and sifting the quicksands that lay ahead, Jamie unable to plan yet, his planning brain devoured by the tragedy and, he did not know why, concern for the Noble House.

What is it about her? he was asking himself, unaware of the promenade, or gusting wind, surf grinding up the pebbled beach, or the smell of rotting seaweed. Sadness suits her.

Can it be that...

She's a woman now! That is what's different, she has a depth and poise that wasn't there before. She's woman, no longer girl. Is it because of the catastrophe, or because she's no longer virgin--the mystic change they say happens, or is supposed to happen at the transmutation? Or both, with perhaps the finger of God helping her to adjust?

"Christ," he said, despite himself, thinking aloud, "what happens if she has a child?"

"For her sake, I pray she does," the little man said.

When they left, Angelique closed her eyes and breathed deeply. Soon she was soothed and got up and bolted the door, then opened hers.

Her bed was made up, fresh flowers in a vase on her dressing table. She went back into Malcolm's suite, bolting her door, and sat back in his chair.

Only then did she look at the photograph --the first of his parents she had seen. On the back was October 17th, '61. Last year.

Culum Struan appeared much older than his years, forty-two, Tess neither old nor young, pale eyes gazing directly at Angelique, the thin line of her lips dominant.

Tess turned thirty-seven this year. What will I look like when I'm her age--in nineteen years, more than twice my age today? Will I have the same hard cast to my features that shout an unloving marriage and crushing family burdens-- hating her father and brothers, them hating her, both sides trying to ruin the other--that began in her case so romantically, eloping and married at sea, like we did but oh my God, with what a difference.

Her eyes looked out of the window and to the bay and the ships there, a merchant steamer leaving port-- captain and officers on the bridge, the mail ship surrounded by tenders, the Struan cutter there, and Prancing Cloud. Elegant, straining to up anchor and up canvas to sail the wild winds.

That's what Malcolm always said about their clippers, she thought, that clippers sail the wild winds.

She closed her eyes and rubbed them and looked again. No mistake. All day her eyes had an unexpected, startling clarity of vision.

She had noticed it the moment she had awoken this morning, every detail of the room in focus, curtains, dead flowers in a vase, flies circling, four of them. Within seconds there had been a knock and Ah Soh's voice, "Missee? Med'sin man wan you see-ah, heya?" as though, her hearing also more acute, the sound of Ah Soh's footsteps had brought her smoothly out of sleep.

What was even stranger was the clarity of her mind, all the weight seemed to be gone, not the sadness but how clearly it considered problem after problem without consternation, never mixing them, suggesting answers, and never the usual heart-hurting fear, not even a little. Concern yes, that was only sensible, but no more nauseating panic and indecision.

Now she could remember that day and that night in all its details without a crushing, inhuman, insensate blankness. Have I been numbed?

Forever? Is what Dr. Hoag said this morning correct: "Don't worry, you're cured of any problem. So long as you can cry from time to time, and not be afraid to go back in time if that's what your mind wishes to do, then your life will be fine, better every day. You have youth and health, your life is before you..."

Mon Dieu, such platitudes they talk, doctors. After Hoag, Babcott. More of the same. He had been gentle and tall and tender, a tenderness that could turn into heat if she would allow it. No more heat, she thought, not until I am free. And safe. Safe and free.

Her body was rested. No blinding headache, not even a little one, no screams inside. Knowing at once where she was, who she was, and why she was here, and why alone, and what had happened.