About this story
Chasing moths into the dark, you find Cristel Toller, the miller's daughter you knew as a child, and learn her father has taken in a deaf, jealous lodger who claims her for himself and threatens any rival. The lodger corners you alone, presses a confession titled Memoirs of a Miserable Man into your hands, and demands your verdict on it by morning.
How it opens
After ten years abroad, you returned to inherit the estate of a father you could not mourn.
Mrs. RoylakeThe neighborhood expects its new squire at dinner, Gerard, whatever Germany taught you.
Your stepmother's polished welcome could not make the house feel remembered or yours.
I need one evening without rank, condolences, or strangers measuring my inheritance.
Mrs. RoylakeThen take your moth brush, but the wood has changed since your boyhood.
Choose
Are you Cristel Toller, the miller's daughter?
Look at me as long as you need; we knew one another as children.
I am Gerard Roylake, home at last after ten years abroad.