"They all want you to come back and spend Christmas with us," said Laura.

But I couldn't, of course; they were expecting me on Vulcan.

When I was on the island now I felt shut in, restricted. It was the first time I had ever been less than contented with my family.

My mother knew what was happening. We spent a lot of time together. "Ah, Suewellyn," she said one day, "you've changed. You've seen something of the world. You know that being cooped up on a little island is not all there is to life. I was right to send you away to school."

"I was happy before."

"But knowledge is always desirable. You couldn't live your life here on a small island. You won't want to stay here when you grow up."

"What about you and my father?"

"I doubt we shall ever leave here."

"I wonder what is happening ... there," I mused.

She did not have to ask where I meant. She knew I was thinking of the castle. For I had read what had happened there, and through her words I had seen it all so clearly.

"After all this time ..." I went on.

"We should never feel safe if we left here," she said. "Your father is a good man, Suewellyn. Always remember that. He killed his brother in hot blood, and he will never be able to forget it. He feels he has the mark of Cain upon him."

"It was great provocation and David deserved to die."

"It's true, but there are many who would say that no wrong is righted by another. I feel guilty in a sense. It was because of me that it happened. Oh, Suewellyn, how easy it is to become involved in ... horror."

I was silent and remembered those words later. How right she was!

She went on: "One day, perhaps you'll go back to England. You could go to the castle. There is nothing against you." Then she started to talk about the castle, and the picture was in my mind as clear as it had been when she showed it to me. I could see it then as I saw it on that day long ago, with its battlemented drum towers and great stone walls.

Then she talked about the inside of the castle. She described those rooms: the main hall, the stone undercroft, the picture gallery, the chapel. It was almost as though there was some purpose in this. I was there ... experiencing it all, seeing it through her eyes. It was as though I were being prepared and the Devil was making it easy for me to fall into temptation. I was superstitious perhaps. Was it surprising, living as I did on the island in the shadow of the Grumbling Giant?

My parents liked to hear about my stay on the Halmer property. They were delighted. This was exactly what they wanted for me. They loved me dearly. I had always known that I had the best father and mother in the world; and that my father loved me partly because I was hers as well as his. Our devotion had been more marked because we had been parted in the beginning; and they were ready to let me go because they believed they knew what was best for me. My mother told me this, for now that I knew their secret there was complete confidence between us.

"All these years," said my mother, "we had to hide the truth. Now there are no more secrets. Oh, how glad I am to be done with them."

She spoke to me very frankly. "I would do it all again, Suewellyn," she said. "Without your father life would have been barren for me. I often wonder about Jessamy and little Susannah. She will be about your age now ... a little older, but not much ... just a few months. I wonder about Esmond and Emerald, and Elizabeth too ... and then those boys, Garth and Malcolm. It must all have changed when David died. The old man must be dead by now. That means Esmond will have the estate. I have thought so much of Jessamy. She is my only deep regret. She must have been desolate. She lost her husband and the one who was supposed to be her best friend at one stroke. Jessamy is the one I think of most. She is the one who has made peace of mind impossible for me as his brother David has for your father. We made a compromise, we two. We had each other, but there were always shadows between us. Happiness was there but memory took it away. Happiness has just been an hour or two now and then ... sometimes a whole day. But remorse is a bitter enemy to happiness. That is why your father wants to build this hospital. Kings in the past used to expiate their sins by endowing monasteries and convents. Your father is a king of a man, Suewellyn. He was born to distinction, born to govern and rule. Like a king of old, he is going to expiate the murder of his brother by building a hospital here. He has such plans, and I am going to help him. We shall do this, and I think it will bring him peace. He is going to put everything into it. You know how we have lived here. He has a good friend in England, a banker ... who has been of great service to him. He is selling everything your father has in England and the money will go into this hospital. We can live on the profits from the plantation. Your father would like to get someone out from England or Australia to help him. He wants to make a sort of colony here. He wants it to be prosperous. But his heart is in the hospital. He wants to bring doctors and nurses out here. Oh, it is a great undertaking. That is how he is going to expiate his sin."

My mother was a great talker and since her revelation it was as though floodgates had been opened.

She had always been the most important person in my life ever since the days when she came to Crabtree Cottage as Miss Anabel, but now that she seemed so vulnerable I loved her more than ever. I knew that she was regretting my growing up because she believed that I must be given every chance to have some other life than the island could offer me.

I went to the Halmers' again for the short half term and I was disappointed because Philip was not there. He was working in Sydney, they told me, and it would not be long before he qualified.

I was determined not to be idle and I insisted on going into the great stone-floored kitchen and helping there. It was the busy time of sheep shearing and there were many men to be fed besides the normal hands; and there were the sundowners who came for a meal and a night's lodging in return for their services. I learned how to make crusty loaves, dampers and johnnycakes. I learned various methods of cooking mutton, for there was a great deal of that on the property. I watched with awe the great pies that came in and out of the ovens. And the days slid by.

I talked to the jackeroos and the aborigines who worked round the property and I enjoyed every minute of it. I loved the tall eucalypts, the yellow wattle and the passion fruit which grew in the garden Mrs. Halmer tended with such care.

I liked the family; I liked their rather casual acceptance of me and the way they welcomed me in the best possible way by almost ignoring me, which meant treating me like one of the family.

I was delighted when Philip came home especially to see me. We rode together for miles. It was all the family property, he told me, and went on to explain how he looked forward to being a qualified doctor so that he could begin to do the work he loved doing.

He asked a great many more questions about my father and I told him more about the hospital. His interest was growing every time we talked.

"It's the kind of project which appeals to me," he said. "To have left England to come out here and do that work is wonderful."

I did not tell him why he had come, but I glowed with pride in my father and told Philip how he had won the respect of the natives after struggle and had even started up the old coconut industry. "My father believes that people are only healthy if they are happily occupied."

"I would agree with that," said Philip. "One day I want to come and meet your father."

I told him I was sure he would be welcome.

"And," he went on, "when you leave school, Suewellyn, you will come and stay with us sometime, won't you?"

I replied that I should have to be asked first. He leaned towards me and kissed me lightly on the cheek. "Don't be an idiot," he said. "You don't have to be asked."

I was very happy. I was realizing that Philip Halmer was beginning to mean a great deal to me.

When I went home that Christmas, workmen were going ahead with the building of the hospital. It was a costly business as all the materials had to be brought out to the island and many workmen were involved. My father was in a state of excitement; my mother was less euphoric. When we were alone together she said: "I just have this uneasy feeling. People will come out here. They will come from home perhaps. I know what it means to have a skeleton in the cupboard. Suppose someone opens the cupboard door which we have kept so satisfactorily shut all this time."

"It will all be forgotten by now," I comforted her; but I was not so sure of that.

She went on: "I just have an uneasy feeling. I can't explain it. I'm afraid of that hospital. I feel there is something ominous about it."

"You're talking like Cougaba ... only in a different kind of English, but the sentiment's the same. Dear Anabel, do you think people look for portents and omens when they live for a long time among the superstitious?"

I myself was a little uneasy about Cougabel. I had grown away from her and I found I did not want to spend so much time with her as I once had. Paddling in a canoe no longer seemed adventurous to me. I did not want to hear stories of the islanders. My thoughts were far away in the outside world.

She followed me round for a while looking at me with big reproachful eyes and sometimes I fancied those eyes held a smoldering hatred. I tried to talk to her then, to tell her about Sydney and school and the Halmer property. She listened but I noticed that her attention wavered. Cougabel could visualize no world but that of the island.