Chapter 34
It was still early when he left Mrs Farnsworth’s, promising to give her her choice from a new box of treasures that was being unloaded in Dover. To the fair Mary, he gave his Chinese enamelled snuffbox. She was delighted. But he knew he would not see her again. She reminded him too much of what he could not have, and should not want.
He hailed a hackney and went directly to a small house on the far side of town that Mrs Farnsworth had described. She had, upon questioning, admitted to knowing Monsieur LaFrance well. She pointed out a painting, a pleasant rendering of a girl in a garden, which was of his creation. Sir Lyle, casting a critical eye over the work, thought it showed talent – but nothing spectacular. He wanted to see for himself a man who knew perfection, who wept bi
