She sighed, gazing at space.
"And the cold! Well—this is July, and I must try to put it from my mind. But at times it seems to be still in my bones—deep bitten to the very marrow. Ai-me! I have seen two years of centuries. Their scars remain."
She rocked slightly forward and backward where she sat, her fingers interlaced, twisting and clenching with her memories.
"Ai-me! Hunger and cold and men! Hunger and—men. But it was solitude that nigh undid me. That was the worst of all—the endless silence."
The rain now swept the roof of bark above us, gust after gust swishing across the eaves. Beyond the outer circle of the lantern light a mouse moved, venturing no nearer.
"Lois?"
She lifted her head. "All that is ended now. Strive to forget."
She made no response.
"Ended," I said firmly. "And this is how it ends. I have with my solicitor, Mr. Simon Hake, of Albany, two thousand pounds hard sterling. How I first came by it I do not know. But Guy Johnson placed it there for me, saying that it was mine by right. Now, today, I have written to Mr. Hake a letter. In this letter I have commanded some few trifles to be bought for you, such as all women naturally require."
"Euan!" she exclaimed sharply.