Maxwell knelt beside her chair.

“You don’t have to rush.”

“I went down. Arthur was at the bottom of the cellar steps. Julian was standing above him.”

Julian’s voice remained controlled.

“Arthur had been drinking.”

“He was alive when I reached him.”

The room seemed to contract.

“He tried to speak. Julian pulled me away.”

Eleanor stared at the piano.

“Then I smelled smoke.”

Mrs. Bell covered her mouth.

“Ruth took the baby outside,” Eleanor said. “I couldn’t find Maxwell. I went back upstairs.”

Maxwell shook his head.

“I remember the hospital.”

“You were unconscious when they brought you out.”

“And Father?”

Eleanor closed her eyes.

“I couldn’t lift him.”

No one spoke.

Outside the curtains, rain began tapping the glass.

“Julian found us at the hospital,” she continued. “He told me Arthur was dead. He said the fire had destroyed everything. Then he showed me a photograph.”

“What photograph?” Elena asked.

“Samuel’s house.”

Eleanor looked at her.

“You were in Ruth’s arms by the kitchen window.”

Elena felt the room tilt.

“He said accidents happened to wooden houses. He said I had already lost my husband.”

Maxwell rose slowly.

Julian shifted toward the door.

Mrs. Bell remained in front of it.

“He made you choose,” Elena said.

Eleanor nodded.

“I let the world believe my daughter had died. Ruth and Samuel took you away.”

“But the adoption?”

“Samuel wanted something in writing. Something that would let him protect you if I died. I signed papers.”

Julian made a dismissive gesture.

“Private papers. Legally meaningless.”

Eleanor looked directly at him.

“You searched my room for them.”

Maxwell was breathing through his mouth.

“All these years. You could have told me.”

“When you were nine?” Eleanor asked gently.

“When I was nineteen. Twenty-five. Last week.”

His anger was not cruel. That made it harder to hear.

Eleanor looked at the tablets Mrs. Bell had brought from the bedroom.

“In the beginning, I was frightened. Later, I was ill. Sometimes because of what happened. Sometimes because of what they gave me.”

Maxwell stared at the porcelain dish.

“You told me she refused visitors,” he said to Julian.

“She frequently did.”

“You sent me recordings.”

“Of her actual behavior.”

Eleanor’s fingers tightened in her shawl.

“Once, they recorded me after I woke and didn’t know where I was. I was calling for the baby.”

Maxwell took a step away from his uncle, as though proximity had become unbearable.

Elena remembered nights when Eleanor had cried until dawn.

She had been told grief sounded like madness.

Nobody had suggested madness might sometimes be grief deliberately prolonged.

“Why hire me?” Elena asked.

Julian said nothing.

She turned to Eleanor.