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"I fear the book has disappointed you," he said.

"It has behaved precisely like a book. I am the one who has asked it to answer questions its author never imagined."

He sat beside her, leaving the book where it lay. "What did you hope to find?"

"Something plain. A name, perhaps. An account of what frightened my mother. Then I should not be obliged to watch Uncle Albrecht suffer while we wait for a man who has already lied to tell the truth."

"You are not responsible for what your mother was unable to remember."

"I know that with my reason. My heart remains unconvinced."

Darcy looked toward the window, where the garden showed the first unmistakable colours of autumn. "Georgiana once believed she ought to have foreseen every deception practiced upon her," he said. "I believed the same. It took me a long while to understand that wishing to have known something does not mean one was capable of knowing it."

Elizabeth laid her hand upon his. "You have become very wise, Fitzwilliam. It is inconvenient to have one's own arguments returned so carefully."

"I learned from an accomplished instructor."

Her smile faded when Lady Matlock entered carrying a letter from Mrs. Ashby. Their injured companion was improving but still unable to put weight comfortably upon her ankle. Tom Ellis's arm remained bound, and Betsey had refused to enter a travelling coach since the accident. Mrs. Ashby asked whether Elizabeth would write the maid a few encouraging lines, for the poor girl believed she had failed in her duty by being trapped when her mistress needed help.

Elizabeth reached for paper. "I shall tell her she did precisely what was needed by surviving and permitting the farmer to rescue us."

"She will believe it more readily from you," Lady Matlock said.

The countess waited until Elizabeth had finished her note, then drew a chair close. "I have another concern. You have been trying to remember your mother's nightmares as if recollection were an obligation. You must not make yourself ill in pursuit of a scene you were never meant to witness."

"I remember a fall," Elizabeth said. "I remember her waking and saying something about a hand. But I do not know whether she meant a man reaching for someone or someone reaching to push him."

Lady Matlock considered this. "Would you tell Albrecht?"

"Only with care. He has begun to hear accusation in every shadow."

"Then we shall speak with him when Darcy and your uncle are present. No one will take the weight of it alone."

Lady Matlock placed the little notebook in front of Elizabeth. Its first pages were filled with questions the family had once asked about Minna's identity; others bore ordinary notes in Elizabeth's handwriting, lists of books and reminders to write to Jane. A blank page lay between them.

"I have watched you trying to become your mother's witness," the countess said. "But you were her daughter. You were a child, and she loved you. That is all she had any right to ask of you."

Elizabeth ran her thumb along the paper's edge. She wanted to answer that a daughter ought to remember more, ought to have been cleverer, ought somehow to have kept the last years of Minna's life from disappearing into questions. The old impulse to earn a place by being useful rose in her with such force that she was briefly sixteen again, standing outside her uncle's library.

"I know," she said, though her voice did not convince either of them.

The countess did not repeat herself. She took the notebook, opened it to the blank page, and wrote the date at the top. Beneath it she added, in her careful hand: Things Elizabeth remembers because they were happy. She passed it back without explanation.

Elizabeth sat looking at the words. Then she wrote about the sound of Minna laughing when Henry dropped a spoon into his tea. Her hand shook once, but she continued. When Darcy came later, he found her still writing. There were no crimes upon the page.

Albrecht came that afternoon. His earlier warmth had not entirely left him, but he appeared older, as though several years had passed upon him since the magistrate's revelations. The Earl had urged him not to confront Adelheid until there was a clearer account of what the evidence actually proved. He agreed, though it pained him to return each evening to lodgings where the woman he loved asked ordinary questions about his dinner and did not know that his trust had begun to unravel.

Elizabeth explained what she remembered in as much detail as she could. She spoke in German first, because the words belonged to that language and she feared English might change them. "Do not let him fall," she said slowly, testing the phrase. "Or perhaps, 'He will fall.' My mother was crying. I remember her saying a name, and I thought it was my father's. It may have been Friedrich's."

Albrecht's eyes closed for a moment. When he opened them, he did not demand certainty she could not provide.

"Did she ever tell you of a terrace?" he asked.

"Only in dreams. Once she said something about stone beneath her feet and the night air. My father told me she had been frightened by an accident before he met her. He did not believe she could recall it clearly."

"Friedrich fell from the west terrace," Albrecht said. "It was said he lost his footing. The stone was wet, and the balustrade stood above the courtyard. I was called after the servants found him."

Elizabeth looked at him. "Where was my mother?"