“I stopped,” he said firmly. “She betrayed me.”

“And you turned your love off, just like that?” she asked skeptically.

He looked at her with hard eyes. “Is it any business of yours?”

“Not mine, but-it could be Peter’s business. It might help him to know you still feel something for his mother.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t. Liz lost all power to hurt me on the day she walked out. And I don’t see that it could make any difference to Peter one way or the other.”

“I was thinking of the funeral.”

“He won’t be going to the funeral. It’s no place for a child.”

“That’s for him to say. Of course I won’t force him if he doesn’t want to, but if he does want to it would be terribly cruel to keep him away.”

“He’s a child,” Gavin said, aghast. “How can you even think of taking him into that grim atmosphere, letting him look at graves and coffins and-and people in black?”

“Gavin, it isn’t funerals that are grim. It’s death. And Peter is already facing death twice over. How he copes with it will depend on what happens now. People need the chance to say goodbye. If you deprive him of that chance, he’ll feel it all his life.”

He set his jaw. “I don’t see it that way at all.”

“Well, we’ll let him decide.”

There was a shadow in the doorway, and they both turned to see Peter standing there. He flinched when he saw his father and for a dreadful moment Gavin feared he would run away again, but Peter held his ground and looked at him silently. He looked strained and wretched, and Gavin’s heart ached at the thought of what the child had to bear. “Why don’t we go somewhere and talk?” he asked, as gently as he could.

Peter didn’t react at once. First he glanced at Norah for her agreement, and when she smiled he nodded at his father. Gavin’s lips tightened. Could he have no communication with his own son except with her consent? But he held his tongue and left the room with Peter.