A sad group of dilapidated little houses forming three sides of a paved quadrangle, with a shattered fountain and withered trees in the centre.

Ever since she could remember, they had stood there empty, ghostly, with creaking doors and broken windows, their gardens overgrown with weeds.
"Are they yours ?" she asked.

She had never connected them with the works, some half a mile away.

Though had she been curious, she might have learnt that they were known as "Allway's Folly." "Your mother's," he answered.

"I built them the year I came back from America and gave them to her.