The eyes Hester turned back to the doctor were full of bewilderment. Her breathing would not steady. There was no rational explanation for what she had seen. It was unscientific. And Hester knew the world was totally and profoundly scientific. There could be only one explanation. "I must be mad," she whispered. Her pupils dilated and her nostrils quivered. "I have seen a ghost!"

Her eyes filled with tears.

It produced a strange sensation in the doctor to see his collaborator reduced to such a state of disheveled emotion. And although it was the scientist in him that had first admired Hester for her cool head and reliable brain, it was the man, animal and instinctive, that responded to her disintegration by putting his arms around her and placing his lips firmly upon hers in a passionate embrace.

Hester did not resist.

Listening at doors is not bad manners when it is done in the name of science, and the doctor's wife was a keen scientist when it came to studying her own husband. The kiss that so startled the doctor and Hester came as no surprise at all to Mrs. Maudsley, who had been expecting something rather like it for some time.

She flung the door open and in a rush of outraged righteousness burst into the surgery. "I will thank you to leave this house instantly," she said to Hester. "You can send John in the brougham for the child." Then, to her husband, "I will speak to you later."

The experiment was over. So were many other things. John fetched Adeline. He saw neither the doctor nor his wife at the house but learned from the maid about the events of the morning. At home he put Adeline in her old bed, in the old room, and left the door ajar.

Emmeline, wandering in the woods, raised her head, sniffed the air and turned directly toward home. She came in the kitchen door, made straight for the stairs, went up two steps at a time and strode unhesitatingly to the old room. She closed the door behind her.

And Hester? No one saw her return to the house, and no one heard her leave. But when the Missus knocked on her door the next morning, she found the neat little room empty and Hester gone.

I emerged from the spell of the story and into Miss Winter's glazed and mirrored library.

"Where did she go?" I wondered.

Miss Winter eyed me with a slight frown. "I've no idea. What does it matter?" "She must have gone somewhere." The storyteller gave me a sideways look. "Miss Lea, it doesn't do to get attached to these secondary characters. It's not their story. They come, they go, and when they go they're gone for good. That's all there is to it."

I slid my pencil into the spiral binding of my notebook and walked to the door, but when I got there, I turned back. "Where did she come from, then?" "For goodness' sake! She was only a governess! She is irrelevant, I tell you." "She must have had references. A previous job. Or else a letter of application with a home address. Perhaps she came from an agency?"

Miss Winter closed her eyes and a long-suffering expression appeared on her face. "Mr. Lomax, the Angelfield family solicitor, will have all the details I'm sure. Not that they'll do you any good. It's my story. I should know. His office is in Market Street, Banbury. I will instruct him to answer any inquiries you choose to make."

I wrote to Mr. Lomax that night.

AFTER HESTER

The next morning, when Judith came with my breakfast tray, I gave her the letter for Mr. Lomax, and she took a letter for me from her apron pocket. I recognized my father's handwriting.

My father's letters were always a comfort, and this one was no exception. He hoped I was well. Was my work progressing? He had read a very strange and delightful nineteenth-century Danish novel that he would tell me about when I returned. At auction he had come across a bundle of eighteenth-century letters no one seemed to want. Might I be interested? He had bought them in case. Private detectives? Well, perhaps, but would a genealogical researcher not do the job just as well or perhaps better? There was a fellow he knew who had all the right skills, and come to think of it, he owed Father a favor-he sometimes came into the shop to use the almanacs. In case I intended to pursue the matter, here was his address. Finally, as always, those well meant but desiccated four words: Mother sendsherlove.

Did she really say it? I wondered. Father mentioning, I'll write to Margaret this afternoon, and she-casually? warmly?-Send her my love.

No. I couldn't imagine it. It would be my father's addition. Written without her knowledge. Why did he bother? To please me? To make it true? Was it for me or for her that he made these thankless efforts to connect us? It was an impossible task. My mother and I were like two continents moving slowly but inexorably apart; my father, the bridge builder, constantly extending the fragile edifice he had constructed to connect us. A letter had come for me at the shop; my father enclosed it with his own. It was from the law professor Father had recommended to me.

Dear Miss Lea,

I was not aware Ivan Lea even had a daughter, but now I know he hasone, I am pleased to make your acquaintance-and even more pleased to be of assistance. The legal decree ofdecease is just what you imagine it tobe: apresumption in law of the death ofa person whose whereabouts have been unknownfor such a lengthof time and in such circumstances that death is the only reasonable assumption. Its main function is to enable the estate of a missing person tobe passed into the hands of his inheritors.

I have undertaken the necessaryresearches and traced the documents relating to thecaseyou are particularly interested in. Your Mr. Angelfield was apparently a man of reclusive habits, and the date and circumstances of his disappearanceappear not to be known. However, the painstaking and sympathetic work carried out by one Mr. Lomax on behalf of the inheritors (two nieces) enabled the relevant formalities tobe duly carried out. The estate was of some significant value, though diminished somewhat by a fire that left the house itself uninhabitable. But you will see all thisforyourself in the copy I have made you of the relevant documents.

You will see that the solicitor himself has signed on behalf of one of the beneficiaries. Thisiscommon in situations where the beneficiary is unablefor some reason (illness or other incapacity, for instance) totake care of his own affairs.

It was with a most particular attention that I noted the signature of the other beneficiary. It was almost illegible, but I managedto work it out in the end. Have I stumbled across one of the best-kept secrets of the day?But perhaps you knew it already? Is this what inspiredyour interest in the case?

Fear not! I am a man of the greatest discretion! Tellyour father togive me agood discount on the Justitiae Naturalis Principia,and I will say not a word to anyone!

Your servant, William Henry Cadwalladr

I turned straight to the end of the neat copy Professor Cadwalladr had made. Here was space for the signatures of Charlie's nieces. As he said, Mr. Lomax had signed for Emmeline. That told me that she had survived the fire, at least. And on the second line, the name I had been hoping for. Vida Winter. And after it, in brackets, the words, formerly known as Adeline March.

Proof. Vida Winter was Adeline March. She was telling the truth. With this in mind, I went to my appointment in the library, and lis tened and scribbled in my little book as Miss Winter recounted the aftermath of Hester's departure.