It was easy to see how it happened, they said.

I felt sure in my heart that Flora could not face the truth; twice she had killed and she could not live with that knowledge. I believed she had started the fire in the nursery and had wanted it to be thought that she had jumped free of the fire. She had betrayed the secret to Gaston Marchmont and she could not trust herself to go on living and preserving the secret which must never be told.

We took Lucy back to St. Aubyn’s. She stayed there for a while, but she wanted a house of her own and Crispin would see that she had it. It would be on the estate nearby, of course. There was a cottage which was empty. The widow of one of the estate workers had died some three months before. Crispin was arranging for it to be redecorated and made ready for Lucy.

I talked with her. She was different towards me now and I did not have the feeling that she was trying to get away from me.

There was a new friendliness between us. She was my husband’s mother.

I guessed how she was feeling. She had cared for Flora over so many years. It had been a time of great anxiety and now it was lifted, but at first she could only be aware of a deep void. She explained this to me. I think she was excusing herself for the way in which she had behaved towards me in the past. I remembered her nervous comments.

“That’s nice,” she used to say, her eyes uneasy, so that I had felt she was waiting for me to go, for of course I must have shown my curiosity rather blatantly. But there was friendship between us now.

She said to me: “I shall be glad to be near.”

“Crispin wants that,” I told her.

“He has been so good to me always. Even before he knew, he was kind.”

Once she said: “I can regret nothing that gave him to me.”

“I understand,” I told her.

“You and I must be friends,” she went on.

“I bore him and you have made him very happy. He is the centre of my life and he has been from the moment I saw him. It was a wicked thing to do, but it seemed the only way then and it brought great good to him.”

“I know,” I said.

There was another letter from Tamarisk. The mission was flourishing beyond their wildest dreams. She wished we would come out and see it.

Lucy visited Flora’s grave every Sunday after church. We joined her sometimes and then we would go back to her new home and spend an hour or so with her.

One day Crispin and I were out riding when we passed the remains of the old cottage. I could not look at it without a shudder. It seemed ghostly, even in the sunlight.

“It’s time we built there,” said Crispin practically.

“Let’s go and have a look at it. They could start clearing next week. The builders haven’t much to do just now.”

We tethered our horses to the gate post which still stood there, and passed through the garden where Flora used to sit with her doll facing the mulberry bush.

“Be careful,” warned Crispin as we entered what was left of the house.

He took my arm and held it firmly as we went into what had been the kitchen. Most of the wall had broken away.

“It will be easy to clear this lot,” said Crispin.

We went through to the stairs which were still intact.

“They’re firm,” said Crispin.

“It was quite a good staircase.”

We mounted them. Half the roof had gone and the ash smell still hung on the air. I gazed at the blistered w< Am and scorched bricks.

And there on the floor, I saw it was lying on its face.

I picked it up. The glass had splintered and it fell away as I touched it. And there, looking at me, were the seven magpies.

There were smudges of grime on the picture. The paper was brownish and damp.

I took out the picture and the frame fell to the floor.

“What is it?” asked Crispin.

“It’s Flora’s picture the one Lucy framed for her.” seven magpies for a secret never to be told. “

He looked at me, reading my thoughts as I tore picture into tiny pieces. I threw them up; they were cau on the breeze which came from where once there had a roof; and the pieces floated away.