About this story
Salt Patch keeps a freshly papered partition with a cavity behind it the size of a man's arms, and Hester's sealed confession, written for the Judgment Seat alone, tells how the wall was taught to open. Forty-two chapters carry an inn register's two false lines to the yellow room at Holchester, where the new Lady Lundie walks in.
How it opens
Croquet mallets clicked across the lawn while thunder gathered beyond the Scottish hills.
Anne, you have watched the summer house longer than the game.
You taught as her governess, but years of confidence had made the title inadequate.
If he keeps you waiting again, I shall ask the question he avoids.
Choose
He has promised to settle everything today.
I need an hour alone, and I need you not to follow.
Ask me tonight, when my answer will no longer endanger you.