I told her about my mother, which interested her, and that I had found some other friends from the past whom I was visiting the following weekend.

“What a lot of friends from the past you have!” she cried.

“You are really a dark horse, Carmel Sinclair.”

Fortunately there was too much to absorb her in her new house for her to be very interested in me.

I had a note from Lucian. He was coming up to London in the middle of the week and suggested we have lunch together at Logan’s.

This threw me into a dilemma. I should have to tell him that I was going away again. He had been in my thoughts a great deal since he had asked me to marry him, and there had been many times when I had wanted to say yes. Very much I had wanted it. I thought how unhappy I should be if he had to go away. I felt envious of Gertie, whose life ran so smoothly. That was how I should have felt if I had been certain of Lucian. There was just that barrier which I could not cross. I did not know even if it were a barrier. There was just something I could not understand and I must know what it was before I could marry him.

I knew now that Lawrence could never be anything but a good friend. Of course, some people married good friends and were very happy. There was my mother and Harriman Blakemore -and now Kitty and Jefferson Craig. A marriage of convenience, if ever there was one. But for what motive? Not financial gain, but genuine desire to help on one side and on the other an over-riding need for support. My mother and Harriman.

Kitty and Jefferson Craig. There was no pretence between them.

I was thinking of telling Lucian what I had told Gertie. That I was going to see a friend from the past. Well, I was . but there was more to it than that.

Then the thought came to me. If I were not frank with Lucian, why should I expect him to be with me?

I decided then that I must tell him that I had seen Kitty Carson, that I was going to stay with her and that I was becoming more and more caught up in what had happened at Commonwood House during that fatal time when it had become part of a cause celebre.

I met him at our now familiar table at Logan’s.

When we had ordered, he said: “Something has happened. Tell me.”

I hardly knew where to begin, so I said: “You know I have always been interested in the Marline case.”

His face changed. He frowned slightly.

“Oh, it is so long ago. It’s all over. What good could anyone do now?”

“I don’t know. But I have seen Kitty Carson.”

“What?”

“Let me explain. You know I stayed with my mother. I told you how she had married Harriman Blakemore and how they would like to see you one day. I am going to arrange that. When I was there, we talked a lot about the Marline case. You see, my mother was interested in Commonwood, for obvious reasons, and we talked about the old days.

Harriman suggested that, as a man called Jefferson Craig had campaigned for Kitty, he might know something of her whereabouts. “

“What made you go to all this trouble?”

“I suppose it was due to knowing them all so well and my conviction of the doctor’s innocence.”

“If he were innocent, who killed Mrs. Marline?”

“That is the mystery. Suicide possibly, but I can’t believe that.

However, Harriman had this idea, and Dorothy Emmerson had once written to Jefferson Craig and had an address. So I wrote to Kitty care of him, and she got the letter right away because she had married him.

The out come of all this was that we met in Kensington Gardens.

It was easy to talk there. I had found a quiet spot and there are not many people about at ten o’clock in the morning. “

He stared at me unbelievingly and I added: “There it is. And that is where I am going.”

“I can’t see …”

“You think I should not have done this?”

“Perhaps, when something like this has happened, it would be better not to become involved. I think it is something you should put out of your mind and forget.”

“There are some things one cannot forget, however much one tries.”

“What did she tell you?”

“How she suffered. She has a daughter now. Jefferson Craig married Kitty so that the child should have the name of Craig. He seems to be a wonderful man. Harriman is too. How lucky both Kitty and my mother are! Poor Kitty, she suffered so much.”

He was staring ahead of him.

“Yes. Both of them seem to have found very good men.”

“Kitty admits how fortunate she has been in that respect. Her great fear is that, although her little girl has the name of Craig, some day someone might discover that she is the daughter of Edward Marline. She says that will hang over her for ever.”

“It is very remote,” he said.

“Yes, she knows that, but it is there. And, Lucian, it is possible.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“So I am going to her. I shall meet Jefferson Craig. Dorothy Emmerson is most impressed. She says he is a very clever man.”

He was silent and I guessed he was thinking that my preoccupation with this unsavoury event was unhealthy and rather foolish. Yet, at the same time, he had looked rather disturbed when I had spoken of the shadow which Kitty had said would hang over her daughter.

He changed the subject and we talked of other matters, of Gertie’s return and my next visit to the Grange, which would be after my return from seeing Kitty. Then my mother wanted me to go to Castle Folly, and she had said that it would be very pleasant if Lucian accompanied me.

But some pleasure had gone out of this meeting, and I felt the barrier between us was stronger than ever.

I was very surprised that evening to find that a note addressed to me had been delivered at the house. It had been pushed through the letter box and I was surprised to see that it was in Lucian’s handwriting.

I opened it with eagerness and read:

My dear Carmel, I must see you tomorrow. It is very important. I have something to tell you without delay. We must go somewhere where we can be undisturbed. You told me you had met Kitty Carson in Kensington Gardens and there was hardly anyone there at ten in the mornings.

Could you possibly meet me there tomorrow at that time? I will wait for you at the Memorial. I shall be there in any case.

My dearest, this is very important. I love you.

Lucian.

I read and re-read the note. He had called me ‘dearest’ and he had said “I love you.” That gladdened me, but the mysterious urgency of it faintly alarmed me.

I scarcely slept that night and in the morning at ten o’clock I was at the Memorial, to find Lucian already there.

“Lucian!” I cried.

“What has happened?”

He took my arm.

“Let’s sit down in that quiet spot you mentioned.”

We hurried there. His face was stern and very solemn.

As soon as we were seated, he said: “It is about the Marline case.”

I was astonished.

“Yes, yes?” I said eagerly.

“You are convinced that Edward Marline did not commit that murder. I think I know who did.”

“Lucian! Who?”

He was staring straight ahead. He hesitated, as though he found it difficult to speak, then he said slowly: “I think … I did.”

“You! What do you mean?”

“I mean that I fear I may have been responsible for Grace Marline’s death.”

That’s impossible! You weren’t there. “

“Carmel, I think I may have been responsible,” he repeated.

“I mean her death may have been due to me. It has haunted me for a long time.

I try not to think of it, but sometimes I wake in the night with a horrible sense of guilt, and I think of that man who hanged for something which could have been due to me. I think of the governess . and now her daughter . who have this hanging over them for the rest of their lives . because of what I did. “

“How could you have had anything to do with it? You hardly saw the woman. You weren’t there.”

“I was there,” he said.

“Do you remember the day before she died? I shall never forget it.”

“I remember,” I said.

“You and Camilla came to tea.”

“Yes. We were in the drawing-room downstairs because Mrs. Marline was in the garden and it wouldn’t matter if we made a noise. We talked of opals. You remember that?”

I nodded.

“Camilla said our mother had had some fine ones, and Estella, or it might have been Henry, replied that their mother had an opal ring. He wanted to show it to me.”

It was all coming back to me that warm afternoon. Tom Yardley had wheeled Mrs. Marline into the garden and there we were, in the drawing-room, laughing because we did not have to worry that we might make too much noise since She was in the garden and out of the way. I had been disappointed because Lucian had gone off with Henry, leaving us girls together.

Lucian went on: “Henry was determined to show me his mother’s opal, because he was sure it was as good as any thing my mother had: and I was eager to see it. Henry said: ” Come into her bedroom. It’s all right. She’s in the garden. I know where she keeps it. ” We tiptoed into her room. She was safe in the garden, in the shade of the oak tree. Henry found the opal.

“Look!” he cried. It was then that it happened. I knocked over the table at the side of her bed as I went to take the jewel. There were two bottles of pills on it. The tops were not properly screwed on and they were scattered all over the floor.

“I was dismayed, but Henry said: ” Look, pick them up in a minute. Just look at this. Look how it flashes. I reckon that’s a very fine opal one of the best. ” I was about to proclaim the superiority of my mother’s when I heard Mrs. Marline say something to Tom Yardley and the chair began to move. Henry put the opal quickly back and I started to pick up the pills. There was one idea in our minds. We must not be caught here. I picked them all up. I had put them into the bottles.

They were on the table where they had been and we ran giggling from the room just in time. Carmel, I did not think about that incident until later . much later. I awoke one early morning. The possibility had dawned on me. I had mixed up the pills. They were two different kinds, I was sure now. Mrs. Marline had taken the wrong ones. “

“I can’t believe that, Lucian.”

“I have been trying to tell myself it couldn’t have been like that. I never stop trying to assure myself. But it is a possibility. I should have come forward. I should have told what had happened. But I could not have saved Edward Marline. He was already dead. I was away at school at the time of the trial and the execution, and knew nothing of it until it was over. It was not until a long time after that I realized what could have happened. The idea suddenly came to me. It might have been due to my action. Those pills were in different bottles to distinguish them. They might have looked different. In my haste, I had not thought of that. My one purpose was to get the pills back in their place before I was discovered. Mrs. Marline might have intended to take a small dose but taken a fatal one.”

“Lucian, you are building up a fantasy. How do you know there were two sorts of pills, just because there were two bottles on the table?”

“I saw some newspaper cuttings about the trial once. There was a great deal about the medical evidence and those pills figured largely in it.

What the pills contained was described. There was one which was to be taken only if she were in great pain-and no more than one a day.

Then there was a milder sort, of which she could take three a day. I supposed they were both at her bedside. You can see how it might have happened they were spilt. They were hurriedly picked up and put back anyhow. It is almost certain that some would have got into the wrong bottle. “

“But suppose you did mix them in your haste? There would be some difference in the pills. One would be larger, or of a different colour. You might not have noticed it, but anyone in the habit of taking them would.”

“There was no suggestion at the trial that she had taken the wrong ones by accident. There was no suggestion that they had been put into the wrong bottles. They did not know they had been spilt, of course.

All that was said was that she had taken a massive overdose of strong pills which had proved fatal. As it was so long after they hanged that poor doctor that this occurred to me, I tried to convince myself that it was too late to alter anything. There was nothing I could do to save him. But I can’t stop thinking of Kitty Carson and her daughter, who have to live their lives, as you say, under a threatening cloud. I can’t forget it. It has haunted me for a long time.