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Elizabeth fell asleep thinking of home.

In her dream, she stood beside a narrow window.

There was no cushion beneath her hand. Her fingers touched bare wood, cold along its outer edge. Beyond the glass she could see a piece of wall, but the light was failing, and she could not tell what lay below it.

She held a little book against her breast.

Somebody moved outside the door.

Elizabeth turned. The door was shut, with a bar of darkness between it and the floor. She heard no voice, only a footstep which stopped and then began again, going away along a passage.

Her hands were already busy. They folded a length of stiff cloth over the book, once from each side, then from the ends. The cloth had an unpleasant smell, though she could not have named it. She wanted the book covered. She wanted it put away before the person returned.

At the right-hand end of the seat, a small piece of moulding moved beneath her thumb.

The wooden panel below it loosened.

She took hold of the edge and lifted it toward herself. Behind it was a shallow dark space. The parcel fitted upon the ledge within. She pushed it farther back, keeping one hand beneath it until she was certain it would not fall.

A sound came from the passage.

She replaced the panel. Her thumb pressed the moulding until something caught.

Then another hand closed over her wrist.

Elizabeth woke in her bed at Pemberley and pulled her wrist free of the fold of sheet caught about it.

The green curtain hung beside her. Her candle was out, and a little grey light showed at the window. No one stood near the bed.

She sat up.

For the first time, the place in a dream had looked like somewhere she knew.

Not precisely. The glass had been different, or the light had. There had been no cushion, and she could not recall the court beyond the window. But the seat had been deep, with the same short return where its right-hand end met the wall.

Elizabeth got out of bed and put on her dressing gown.

She went to the window without lighting a candle. Dawn gave her enough light to see the old wood beneath the cushion. There was a panel at the right-hand end, scarcely wider than her outspread hand. She had seen it before without considering whether it opened. It looked like the other pieces of joinery which finished the seat.

She touched the moulding above it.

Nothing moved.

Elizabeth tried the place nearer the wall. A little dust caught beneath her nail, and she drew her hand back.

She would not pry at Mr. Darcy’s woodwork in her nightclothes because of something she had dreamed.

She returned to bed and lasted there until Sally came with the hot water.

“Is Mrs. Reynolds below?” Elizabeth asked.

“In her room, I believe, miss.”

“Will you ask whether she can come to me when she has a moment? There is something about the window seat I should like her to see.”

Sally glanced at it. “Has the draught troubled you?”

“No. I am quite comfortable.”