2
The house of Oriane seemed, somehow, darker and emptier than it had before, and it held an air of stillness, as though its owner had been gone for far longer than a day or two. Florian felt his skin shiver as he and Margot walked into the little kitchen, he holding high the lamp borrowed from the jade parlour at Landricourt. ‘Where was it that we found the coat?’ he asked Margot.
Margot went straight to the rocking-chair by the hearth. The gauzy garment was still there, its delicate embroidery shining over-bright in the soft lamplight. Margot picked it up, handling it as though it might fall to pieces under the force of a single exhalation — and it looked as though it might. She laid it over one arm, carefully, carefully, and turned back to Florian.
But he was not where she had left h
