Her breath caught in her throat, and she clutched at my wrist almost painfully.

“Is Mrs. Austen yet emerged from her apartments?”

“I do not believe so. You wished to speak with her?”

“It is nothing — a trifle. Any hour will do. But Mr. Collingforth — it was suicide, I presume? He was driven to take his own life, from the bitter knowledge of his guilt?”

“A man may perhaps slit his own throat,” I replied, “but he is unlikely to then tie a stone to his legs, and trundle himself into a millpond. No, Miss Sharpe, I must believe that poor Collingforth was murdered, like the late Mrs. Grey — tho' for reasons that are as yet obscure to us.”

The governess shuddered visibly. “Good God! That I might be allowed to forget! That dreadful woman—”

“Miss Sharpe—”

“You do not know how her face has haunted me,” she cried, staring up at me blindly. “Like a demon, or a witch, in her bloodred dress.”

I stared at her, aghast. Something more than a dread of violent death was at work in Miss Sharpe — some thing that touched quite nearly on Mrs. Grey herself. I remembered, of a sudden, the little governess's marked reserve at the race-meeting, and her horrified regard for the lady's corpse. Had not her present fever commenced as Mrs. Grey's life ended? — Perhaps they had met before, in Town, when Anne Sharpe was more the lady's social equal, and the girl had despaired at meeting with her again in such reduced circumstances.

“Can not you tell me what this is all about, Miss Sharpe?” I enquired gently.

The governess stiffened, and regained something of her composure. “You are very kind, Miss Austen,” she replied, “but I assure you I merely suffer from the head-ache.”

“Then Dr. Wilmot should examine you.” I turned briskly for the door. “Mrs. Austen wishes to consult him in respect of young Edward, who is not at all improved in his fever; and if the physician is summoned on behalf of one, he might as well have the dosing of us all!”

Miss Sharpe half-rose from her seat and clutched at my arm. “I beg of you, do not disclose my indisposition to Mrs. Austen. That, of all things, I could not bear.”

“But, my dear—”

“Can you not perceive that she already believes me decidedly unsuited to the governance of her children?” Miss Sharpe cried fiercely. “She thinks me a poor, troublesome creature, too delicate for the trials of education. I do not know why she has endured me this long. I shall be turned out without a reference, before a twelvemonth is complete; and how I shall manage then, when all my friends have deserted me—”

“You must calm yourself, Miss Sharpe.” Alarm sharpened my tone, and she winced as tho' a blow had been struck. I sank down by her chair. “Indeed, you distress yourself unduly. I am certain that my sister can find nothing to abhor in your considerable talents; she speaks very highly of your accomplishments, and is full of admiration for your success with Fanny — whom we all know to have arrived at a most trying age. You are to be congratulated, rather than dismissed!”

The governess shook her head, and all but stopped her ears at my words, as tho' I had subjected her to the most thorough abuse; she declared herself unworthy of such kindness, and very nearly intent upon giving notice, so acute was her sense of failure. I attempted to reason with her further; but at length, determined that the wisest course was to put her to bed — and thither she was sent, with orders to take some tea on a tray, and a stern injunction not to set forth until her spirits were entirely recovered.

When I had seen her safely into her bedchamber, I sat a little while in my own; and considered of Miss Sharpe. Broken rest or a case of the migraine could hardly explain so elevated a condition of nerves. She looked quite wild, as tho' all peace was fled from her heart forever. She had certainly been most unwell since the day of the race-meeting. Was that a mere matter of unlucky coincidence — or the working of a deeper evil? She could have had nothing to do with Mrs. Grey's end. The very notion was repugnant — and fantastic in the extreme, for Miss Sharpe had been seated opposite myself for the duration of the heats. Something in the day, however, had destroyed all her complaisance. Only the next morning, she was ardent in her desire to exchange Kent for London. Her disappointment at the failure of the French to overrun the country must be instructive.

Such signs and tokens I revolved for their meaning a while longer — and then quitted the bedchamber in search of my niece Fanny.

I found her in the passage outside the kitchens (the children's favourite haunt), attempting to keep a shuttlecock aloft with the help of young William. A well-feathered shuttlecock shall always have the power to tempt me; I am a proficient of the battledore of old; and so I joined the children straightaway, to their screams of delight. On several occasions we kept it aloft with three strikes of the battledore, and on one memorable instance, for six. And when at last the cock had fallen behind a mountain of bundles left standing in the hall — the work of the invasion packers — and defied retrieval, to William's dismay, we all retired to the kitchen itself, to plead for shortbread and lemon-water.

“Fanny,” I said, after Cook had satisfied our first pangs of thirst, and gone about the business of dressing a guinea hen, “whatever has occurred to unsettle Miss Sharpe?”

She turned upon me a clear green gaze, so much like her mother's. “It must be an affair of the heart, Aunt Jane, I am certain of it.”

“You have read your novels to good effect, Fanny. A romantic young lady will always find trouble to stem from an affair of the heart; but in Miss Sharpe's case, I cannot believe it. She goes nowhere and sees no one — and yet, for much of the past week, she has been decidedly unwell. What can have precipitated her distress?”

“Not me,” William declared stoutly. “I always run when I see her coming.”

“She may go abroad very little,” Fanny said carelessly, “but she has had a letter. I know — I saw it.”

“You saw her correspondence? For shame, Fanny!”

“Not to read,” she protested. “Just to see. Russell brought it to the schoolroom, on a little silver tray, once the post had come.”

“But Miss Sharpe surely has received a letter before. She must have a wide acquaintance — her previous life having been lived in the world of Fashion. There can be nothing extraordinary in this.”

“Oh, Aunt Jane,” Fanny cried irritably, “you are determined to plague and vex me, you troublesome creature! — Do you like that phrase? I learned it by heart, from one of Madame D'Arblay's works.”

“It is admirably put. Madame D'Arblay may always be depended upon for insults in the first style of elegance.”

“But what I would tell you, Aunt, is simply this: Sharpie always receives her letters on Tuesdays. They come from her friends, the Portermans. General Sir Thomas and Lady Porter man are excessively fond of her, you know, and correspond most faithfully. Directly she receives her letters, she sets Eliza and me to learning a piece of verse, and composes an answer while we are bent over our books.”

“I perceive that Miss Sharpe is a creature of method. Perhaps we may hope for the imposition of order upon your sadly muddled life. I fail to see, however, that her method lends itself to your present theory. There is little of the heart written in it.”

“But this letter — the important one — came on Wednesday, Aunt Jane, which you must agree is contrary to all expectation.” Fanny paused to savour her triumph.

“Unless the mails were delayed.”

“But it was not the usual Tuesday letter from the Portermans, because the hand was entirely strange; and I saw that Sharpie caught her breath when she accepted it from Russell.”