It was close on ten o’clock when I heard her stir, and then she came frantically through the door, still trying to button her jumper, as if somehow believing I’d discovered her name and sent for whoever it was she’d run from. When she found me sitting there with a cup of tea in my hands, looking out the window at the rain, she stopped, suddenly shy.

“I was dreaming,” she said. “I thought-I didn’t recognize my surroundings when I woke up.”

A nightmare, I reckoned, rather than a dream.

“Let me make you a fresh cup.” The bruise was darker today, and there was heavier blackness around her left eye as well. It would be a week-ten days-before it faded completely.

“No, this will do nicely,” she told me, coming forward to pour her own tea. With her back to me, she said, “You must be wondering how I got this-this-” Not able to find the right word, she gestured in the general direction of her face. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t wish to speak of it?”

“Someone struck you.” I let the words fall between us. “I told you, I’m a nurse. I can’t help but know that much,” I went on. “As I said, it’s your affair, of course it is. But if for a while you need sanctuary…” I let my voice trail away.

She was torn. I could see that. At a guess, she’d dashed out of the house in the clothes she stood up in, too shocked or frightened to think beyond the need to get away. It would only have occurred to her later to give any thought to where she was going and what she would do when she got there. In fact, I wondered if perhaps she had very little money with her, unprepared to pay for food or hotels or other clothing.

If she was telling the truth about living in the country, perhaps even reaching the train to London had seemed an impossible task. I wouldn’t have wanted to walk from my parents’ house in Somerset to the nearest railway station. Yet when I glanced at her shoes, I could see that they hadn’t seen hard use on a country lane in winter.