"Who's to hear? And now the brother's coming back. What's that going to do to our little plan, eh?"

"Go away, Desmond. Leave things as they are."

"Very nice for you, eh? But what about me? I've got to marry the girl. You had the old man. It's only right. She's not as well padded as we thought... but she'll do very nicely."

"She won't have you."

"She's going to be made to."

"How?"

"That's what we have to fix."

"What do you plan ... to seduce her... rape her. I wouldn't put that past you."

I was so overcome with rage that I moved. The stool jerked from under my feet. I leaped to the floor.

They would have heard the noise.

I dashed from the room to my own ... and here I am.

I am so frightened. Tomorrow I shall leave the house. I will go to Mrs. Masters and tell her what I know. I will wait there for Magnus to come.

My handwriting is so shaky. It is scarcely legible. What was that? I thought I heard a noise. Footsteps...

I can hear voices ... Something is going on down there.

They are coming ...

RAYMOND

I lost count of time while I was reading Ann Alice's journal, and when I came to the end it was quite light for morning had come.

I had been there with her. I felt I knew her and her lover, her stepmother and the sinister Desmond Featherstone. I was completely frustrated by the abrupt ending and was filled with an intense longing to know what had happened on that night which I knew was the night of her death because of the date on her tombstone.

I could feel her fear... the steps on the stairs. I could see her hastily thrusting her journal into the drawer, not shutting it completely so that the telltale scarf was just visible.

And what had happened? Was the prized key in the door, or had she forgotten to lock it? Oh no, she never would do that. She had been so insistent about that key. Yet after what she had heard she would be in a state of extreme terror.

What had happened?

And how strange it was that I should be the first to read those words which had been written nearly a hundred years ago. It was almost as though they had been written for me. I was the one who had uncovered her grave, who had been the first to step into her room and find the journal.

I was impatient to tell my brother Philip what I had discovered. I even thought of going to wake him up, but I decided against that. I must be patient. He was an early riser and he would be at the breakfast table at half past seven.

I was there before him.

"Philip," I cried, "an extraordinary thing happened last night."

Then I told him and he was as excited as I was. But what interested him particularly was the map.

"Go and get it," he said. So I did.

He studied it intently.

"I know the area," he said. "These islands... well, we're aware of them ... but this Paradise Island ... It sounds rather fanciful."

"Well, we have the Solomon Islands. Why not the Paradise Island?"

'Til show it to Benjamin. He's bound to know something."

Neither of us ate much. We were so excited. I suggested that we tell Granny M what I had found. She would be most put out if she were not informed.

We went to her room where she was having her usual tea and toast with marmalade on the special tray she used for her breakfasts in bed... her one concession to her years.

She listened intently and her first remark was a reproof for me.

I had been told not to enter the room. It might have been dangerous.

"I had an urge, Granny," I said. "It was irresistible."

"In the middle of the night!" added Philip.

"So I took the candle and went up."

"Very brave in view of all the talk of spectres," said my brother. "What would you have done if you had met a headless corpse with clanging chains?"

"When you have read the journal you will not talk so flippantly of the dead," I told him earnestly.

I went up to my room and brought down the journal for them to see. They were astonished.

"And you sat up all night reading that!" said Philip.

"Well, wouldn't you? In any case, once I had started I couldn't stop."

"I should have waited until morning."

"What do you think of the map, Philip?" asked Granny M.

"It's not done by an amateur. I know the area. That's clear enough. But I have never seen this Paradise Island before. I want Benjamin to have a look at it. We'll make some comparisons."

"It will be interesting to hear what he has to say," said Granny M. "Leave the journal with me. I shall read it."

It was a strange morning. I felt wide awake in spite of a night without sleep. I went up to the room again. It seemed different from last night. I suppose that was because the workmen were there. I could not settle to anything. I kept thinking of Ann Alice. It was almost as though I were living her life and expected to see the wicked Desmond Featherstone appear at any moment.

Reading the journal had been a shattering experience for me.

At luncheon Granny M could talk of nothing else but the journal. She had stayed in bed all morning reading it.

"It's a terrible story," she said. "What do you think happened to that girl?"

"Do you think they came up and murdered her?"

"I think it very likely."

"And then walled up the room?"

"Why should they do that?"

"I don't know. They buried her ... We know that. I was the one who found her grave."

"It is a mystery that we cannot hope to solve. I wonder what that map will reveal. This island the young man talked about... where is it? Perhaps it never existed. We don't know much about the young man. The girl was so besottedly in love with him, doubtless she didn't see him clearly."

"Oh, I am sure he loved her. He believed in that island. They were going to find it. I wonder what happened to him."

"Yes, so do I. Perhaps he went to the island after the girl died."

"Imagine his coming back and finding her dead!"

"Well, it will be interesting to hear what Benjamin has to say about the map."

I was so eager to know that I went over to the shop that afternoon. I found Philip and Benjamin surrounded by old maps.

Philip shook his head at me.

"There's no sign of it anywhere."

"If it existed it would have been discovered by now," said Benjamin. "These seas have been charted."

"It is possible, I suppose, that it could have been missed."

Benjamin shrugged his shoulders. "Just possible, I suppose." He tapped the map. "This has been made by someone who knows what he is doing."

"Yes. He was a professional."

"Mr. Mallory was telling me about the discovery of the journal. In my opinion, this young man made a mistake about the locality."

"But if it were somewhere in this area..."

"It is hardly likely. It would have been discovered by now. You say this map was made nearly a hundred years ago. We've made long strides since then." He shook his head. "One never knows. It could be wrong, of course. I imagine he drew it from memory."

"I should love to find that island," said Philip.

"If it exists," added Benjamin.

"It exists," retorted Philip. "I feel it in my bones."

We sat talking. To me it was like taking a journey through the ocean. I listened to them. I caught Philip's eagerness. I loved him dearly. He had such wonderful vitality and when he took an interest in something it was never half-hearted.

He was obsessed about that island as I was about Ann Alice. Our curiosity differed slightly. I yearned to know what had happened on that night. Philip's thoughts were all for the island.

Often later I thought back to that afternoon in the shop and many times I wished I had never found that map.

Philip could talk of nothing else. I would often find him with old maps stretched out before him.

"It could have been in an entirely different part of the world," he said.

"Listen ," I replied. "He was a map maker. He would no more mistake the locality than you would."

"Everyone can make mistakes."

His intensely blue eyes looked into space. "Annalice," he said, "I want to find that island."

He wouldn't leave it alone. It was an obsession. Granny M noticed it and was disturbed.

Gow and his men had finished the roof and were working on the room. All the soft furnishings had been destroyed. They were in tatters. But some of the furniture was quite good and would be restored.

I went through her clothes. I wanted to do that myself. The gloves, the scarves, the hats and gowns ... all her personal belongings. I instructed the servants to wash some of the dresses. Many of them were perished but those which were not I put into a trunk in the attic with her hats and shoes.

I treated them reverently. I felt very close to her and sometimes I had the extraordinary notion that she was watching me and thanking me.

I went up to the room before they started to mend the woodwork and paint the walls. Gow was there. I asked him about the stains on the walls.

He said it was hard to tell what had caused them after so long. It might have been damp ... discolouration.

"It seems to be splashed," I pointed out. "Could it be ... blood?"

"Blood, Miss Annalice? Well, it could be, I suppose ... By the look of it... yes it could be. I wouldn't have thought of that though. Damp and time do odd things to buildings. Why should you think it was blood, Miss Annalice?"

"I just wondered."

"Well, whatever it was we'll soon have these walls looking like new. It'll be a nice room when we've seen to the window."

"And the window will be exactly where it was before?"

"Have to be. That was where it was walled in like. You'll be able to see it from outside now the creeper's cut away. I reckon that's why they let the creeper grow there. There's a difference in the bricks, you see. Oh, this will be a nice room when we've done with it."

Now they have done it. The restored furniture is there. The bed, the chest of drawers, the chairs. This is how it must have looked when Ann Alice sat in it and wrote her journal.

The servants still will not go there after dark. They say it is creepy.

But I often go and sit there in the early evening. Sometimes I speak to her. "Ann Alice," I say, "I wish you would come back and tell me."

Sometimes there seems to be a presence there. But maybe that is only my fancy.

The house and everything seem different since the revelations which came on that night of the storm. She comes into my mind so often and at odd moments I could almost feel that she is beside me. There is some special bond between us. We are of the same blood; we have almost the same name; we have lived in the same house. It is only time that separates us. I often think: What is time? Is it possible to bridge the gulf?

I never say such things. Granny M and Philip are far too practical. They would laugh at my fancies. But Philip has his fancies too.

Constantly he talked of that island. I can see plans forming in his mind. So can Granny M. And she is very uneasy.

One day at dinner Philip said: "I have always wanted to explore new areas, to chart right on the scene. I've always been intrigued by the practical side of the business."

I knew him so well that I was not surprised when he went on to explain that David Gutheridge, a botanist—this was a friend of his with whom he had been at school and who came of a seafaring family—was planning to go on an expedition to the South Seas. Philip went on: "He has suggested I go with him."

Granny M was silent but she expressed no surprise.

"It has always been what I wanted to do," said Philip. "There are some very sophisticated instruments in use now... some of which were never dreamed of a hundred years ago. I would like to check up on some of our charts. I think ... and Benjamin agrees with me... that they might be a little in error here and there in these waters."

Granny M came to my room that night.

"He's determined to go," she said.

She looked rather pathetic suddenly—something I had thought she never could.

"I knew it had to come," she said. "It's natural"

"You wont try to stop him?" -

She shook her head. "No. It wouldn't be right. It's his life ... his profession. He's right in a way. We cannot stand still in one place. He should go out into the world. Benjamin should have done. If he had he would be right at the top now. Philip must go. I have always known it."