I felt dazed. It was much a tangled web of lies and deceit and who would have thought that Digory would be linked to it and should be the one to bring me the truth?

“I’m sorry, Digory,” I said. “I can’t think clearly. This is such a revelation. Oh, Digory, why did you have to do it? Why couldn’t you have seen it was no good? We would have looked after you … given you a start.”

I heard the sound of horse’s hoofs.

I said: “Someone is coming. Perhaps they’re looking for you. You’d better hide.”

I tried to pull him towards the shelter of the shed, but I was too late.

Maria was there. Deliberately she slipped off her horse and tied it to a bush. We stared at each other.

She said: “They’re both here. What luck. It makes it easier.”

She seemed as though she were talking to herself.

“You’ve told her then,” she said to Digory.

“Yes, he has told me,” I answered. “I always knew it was false but now I know the truth and how you were able to do what you did.”

“You’re the only one who knows … well, the two of you … and that’s how it’s going to stay.”

Calmly she brought out a small pistol.

“What are you doing?” I cried. “Do you think you’ll get away with this?”

“Yes,” she said, “I do.” And quietly: “I have to.”

I saw that her hand was shaking. She was a very frightened woman, and that knowledge gave me courage. She does not want to kill, I thought. She is a cheat, a liar, fraud, but she does not want to commit murder.

I said: “They will catch you. They will hang you for murder, hang you on a gibbet.”

I saw her lips twitch. “They won’t catch me.”

“Of course they will.”

“No …” She shook her head. “There’s been a prowler in the woods. Everyone’s talking. They’ll think … And I’ve got to.” It was as though she were speaking to herself. “I can’t lose Luke. I can’t lose Cador …”

She had lifted her hand. Digory moved clumsily towards me as the shot rang out. I felt something touch my shoulder and then there was another shot. The grass was rushing up to meet me and Digory was lying on top of me. I saw flashing lights; something was happening to my shoulder … and then there was darkness.

When I regained consciousness I was in an unfamiliar bed. There were people in the room. I could vaguely hear their voices; they moved about me like shadows. Then I slipped once more into darkness.

This was my condition for several days, although I was unaware of the passing of time.

Then I awoke one morning to acute discomfort. I was swathed in bandages and aware of nothing but pain.

A woman came to my bedside. I did not know her.

She touched my forehead. “Go to sleep,” she said.

I shut my eyes obediently. It was what I wanted to do.

They gave me something to drink and I was very, very drowsy.

When I awoke someone was sitting by my bed. A voice: “Annora … dearest Annora.”

“Hello, Rolf,” I said. I felt I was beginning to come back to life.

I was in the Manor. They had brought me there. I had been there for two weeks and I knew now that I had been close to death.

I could not quite remember what had happened. There were times when I thought it was something to do with Midsummer’s Eve. And when I thought of it afterwards, I supposed it was.

I heard the story gradually.

One of the maids had found us in the woods. Greatly daring she had come to the clearing, and she had seen us lying there. She had run screaming and hysterical back to Cador. Isaacs and Mrs. Penlock had thought she was being fanciful, she was so hysterical. But when she said she thought it was Miss Cadorson and there was a man there and a lot of blood, Isaacs came with several of the men.

They were deeply shocked to find us.

Bob Carter was there and he took the news to Rolf, who immediately came hurrying to the woods.

He told me about it afterwards.

“You were lying there, so still, so white, with your blouse scarlet with blood. And he was there … half covering you. The bullet had gone into his back. It got his lung. The doctor said that from his position he would have saved your life.”

I could scarcely bear it. I had meant to do so much for him. Poor Digory, who had never had a chance, and who in the end had given his life to save mine.

Rolf said I should be taken to the Manor and he would get nurses to look after me. He wanted me under his roof. The doctor thought it a good idea, for Croft Cottage was small and lacked certain amenities.

So I was taken there and Rolf told me that he sat beside my bedside every day willing me to live.

It seemed that the first bullet had hit me just below the shoulder and the second had not touched me because Digory had been there to shield me.

I said: “I am remembering. He moved towards me just as she fired.”

“He saved your life. I wish I could show him what I feel about that,” said Rolf. “I wish I had a chance to repay him … not that one ever could, but I could have tried.”

I said I wanted to know what happened.

Rolf said: “The doctors forbid all that sort of talk.”

“But I must know.”

“You will. All you have to do now is rest. But you are out of danger. You are with those who love you.”

“Those who love me …?”

“Your family is here, Annora. Your uncle and aunt, Helena, Matthew, Jonathan and Tamarisk. Claudine and David … all of them.”

“I know then that they were expecting me to die,” I said.

“Don’t speak of it. I could not have borne it.”

“Do you mean that, Rolf?”

“You know, don’t you?”

“You speak as though you care for me.”

“Of course I care for you. I always have. You always knew it.”

“I didn’t. I thought you did not care for me any more. It was not for myself …”

“It was you, remember, who rejected me.”

“Foolish creature that I was. Rolf, kiss me … please.”

He did gently, and very tenderly.

I said: “I have been lying here and yet not here. I was floating off far away from the world … and unhappiness. I seemed to have left all that behind.”

“Don’t … please.”

“Not now you’re here, Rolf. And you look at me as though you love me and you talk to me as though you love me. If that is true I want to get well. I want to be here … with you.”

I was getting better though I was very weak and still suffering from pains in my shoulder. The wound had yet to heal and that, they told me, would take time.

Gradually I learned what had happened.

I could not help feeling sorry for Maria in spite of everything. I kept thinking of the blank despair in her face when she had fired that shot. I could picture her dreaming her dreams. Digory had made me see that home where she had lived and dreamed of England. Her father was a settler, her mother an ex-convict. I daresay they had both yearned for home at some time and had conveyed that yearning to Maria although she had never seen—at that time—the place they called Home. Cador became a sort of Mecca to her. She made Digory talk of it over and over again. And then when the drowning incident occurred she saw her chance. She had the forger who could provide her with a marriage certificate; and she had come to England full of daring, with him as her solicitor, seeing it all as simple.

Then when Digory had come back and recognized her she was caught. She must have thought the chances of his coming back were very slim. If she had considered that seriously for a moment she would have realized what a dangerous position she could be in.

Luke Tregern had married her. He was the calculating villain. He had seen his great chance; he would get his hands on Cador. But he was less simple than Maria. He saw all sorts of pitfalls. He did not believe that my family would let the matter rest. He guessed that my Uncle Peter—that man of great ability and manipulator of his fellow men—would take some action—and how right he was in that. It must have occurred to him that although Maria was in possession at the time, she might not remain so. So he had decided to syphon off money and invest it abroad. He had mortgaged the property as far as he could and had banked the money in Australia under a false name and he intended to escape there when it was necessary.

That scene in the woods when he and Maria had come face to face with Digory, told him that the moment had come, more quickly than he had thought it would. He had been preparing himself for some time for sudden departure. So he was ready. As soon as he knew that Digory was in the neighbourhood and had seen Maria he prepared for flight.

He was picked up in Southampton where he was waiting for a ship to take him to Australia.

It was ironical that when he was brought up for trial he was sentenced to fourteen years’ transportation; and eventually departed for Australia in a very different manner from that which he had planned.

As for Maria, when she learned that I was still alive, before she could be brought to justice, she went down to the shore and walked into the sea.

That was the tragic end of her dreams.

I had visitors every day. Helena brought Jonnie, who looked at me with enquiring eyes and wanted to know why I was all tied up.

I told him I had had an accident and would soon be untied.

He regarded me solemnly and asked me to tell him a story. Rolf came in and found us together.

“This is your house,” announced Jonnie.

“Yes,” replied Rolf. “Do you like it?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to live here?”

“With you?”

Rolf nodded.

“And Auntie Annora?”

“Ask her.”

He looked at me and said: “And Mama and Papa and Geoffrey … We could all come. Here I’d have a pony.”

Helena came in and took him from the bed. She regarded me with concern. “You mustn’t tire yourself,” she said anxiously.

Uncle Peter came.

He said: “I’ve had things checked.”

I looked at him enquiringly.

“This Maria,” he said. “You didn’t think I was going to let them get away with it, did you? If you had left it to me it wouldn’t have gone so far. Soon as I heard the verdict I sent a man out to Australia … a detective to scent out the truth. It took a bit of time but at last we traced it. She was living on her father’s property. He had had convict labour and one of these was Digory. That was how she came to know about the house. Her mother died a few years ago. This Stillman was Maria’s father. There was never any question of it. The whole thing was a fabrication. And it ought to have been seen as such right from the start. I always said you should have let me deal with it.”

“I know, Uncle Peter.”

“Well, there’ll be no haggling now. Cador will be back … where it belongs.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” I said.

“You get well … quickly.”

“I promise to do my best.”

Rolf sat by my bed.

He said: “You are well enough now to talk.”

“What about?” I asked.

“Us. I think we should try again, Annora. And this time, please don’t decide right at the last moment to stop the ceremony.”

“I won’t, Rolf. I’ll be there.”

“What a lot of time we’ve wasted. Where did it all go wrong?”

“On Midsummer’s Eve … years ago … when I saw that figure in the grey robe urging on that cruel mob to violence.”

“You thought that of me!”

“You had the robe. I couldn’t believe it. It bewildered me. It gave me a jaundiced view of the world. I think I stopped believing in anybody from then on.”

“But I told you. I was in Bodmin on that night.”

“I know you told me. I wanted to believe you, but I couldn’t forget. I know now that even if you had been there I should still love you. I shouldn’t have allowed my doubts to get in the way. I know now that it was Luke Tregern who was there that night in the robe. Digory saw him.”

“He must have taken it from my drawer. I remember showing it to him. He was interested in the old customs. I remember telling him how they went back to pre-historic days. I caught him once wearing a coat and hat of mine. I came in and found him preening before a mirror. I was amused. Tregern was the sort who set great store by bettering himself.”

“It wouldn’t go, Rolf … the memory of that night. It haunted me. On the night before the day when we were to be married I dreamed. I thought I was there and you were in the robe and when I woke up I saw my wedding dress hanging in the cupboard … The door had blown open and I thought for a moment that you were in the room, in the robe. It seemed significant … an uncanny warning. You see I was afraid I was never going to forget. Now that I know it was Luke Tregern I believe I can stop thinking of that Midsummer’s Eve. I don’t think I shall have any more nightmares about it.”