Dr. Beatie had said, “Stephen-you aren’t healed yet. Do you understand? Emotional distress could put you back here, in a worse state than before!”

Both of them knew it was a lie. There could be no worse state than the one he’d somehow, miraculously, survived. He had had to kill the Captain before Dr. Beatie could set him free. He wished now it had been Matthew Hamilton who had died.

He caught himself, knowing it was wrong to wish such a thing. But God, he was tired, and alone, and sometimes afraid. He wanted things the way they had been in 1914. Before the war-the trenches-the nightmares. Before Matthew Hamilton had walked into the clinic waiting room to comfort Felicity and told her-what? Lies? Or the sordid truth? That her fiance was a coward.

After a time Stephen got out to crank the motorcar, the sound of the powerful engine roaring into life and filling the cold silence. He would freeze to death if he sat here, uselessly mourning.

Setting his teeth, he turned the motorcar and without looking again at the darkened house behind him, drove back the way he’d come.

He couldn’t see behind the silken white curtains that covered the window under the eaves a pale face staring out into the night, watching the puff of exhaust whip across the rear light, a wraith shielding its brightness until it was out of sight.

Matthew Hamilton rose early, quietly throwing back the bedclothes and the counterpane that covered him, then tucking the ends around his wife’s bare shoulder. Looking down at her, he marveled again at his luck. Then reminded himself that it wasn’t his luck at all, but someone else’s misfortune, that he had married this lovely, loving woman in his bed.

Wryly turning away, he dressed quickly and then set about making up the fire so that the room would be warm for her.