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56 He had never seen her in anything but his canvas jacket. She was like a flower in that soft pink thing. A sudden vision of the cottage—of her, like this in the cottage on the mountainside, with the storm raging outside, possessed him.

"I did mean it," he said fiercely.

And then, as he became aware from her puzzled expression that his voice and eyes, in spite of him, were implying something even more astonishing, he turned away and began fingering something on the mantel. Even his clumsy fingers were shaking. He held one hand up for her to see, then shrugged and smiled.

"It's usually as steady as a lighthouse," he told her.