"Ronny--"
She stood up to greet him, as if it had been she who was staying there and he who had incredibly arrived.
"They told me you wouldn't be long," she said.
"I? You haven't come because you were ill or anything?"
She smiled and shook her head. "No. Not for anything like that."
"I didn't write, Ronny. I couldn't."
"I know." Their eyes met, measuring each other's grief. "That's why I came. I couldn't bear to leave you to it."
"I'd have come before, Michael, if you'd wanted me."
They were sitting together now, on the settle by the hearth-place.