Monk wondered who Hanning had been and why his widow should call so soon. Was it duty, compassion, or some need of her own?

"I'll ask Miss Latterly." Perdita swung around and hurried away. She had found an answer. If something ran out of control, Hester would be there to take care of it.

Something in Gabriel had relaxed at the mention of Hester's name. He too was relying on her.

Impatience welled up inside Monk. These people were adults, not children, to be needing someone else to deal with difficult encounters. Then he looked again at the lines of tiredness in Gabriel's face, the side that was undamaged. He needed all the strength he could find to battle physical pain and the terrible memories he could not share with his young wife who had no idea what he had seen or felt. India to her was a red area on the map, a word without reality. All he had been taught about the roles of men and women, about courage and duty, responsibility and honor, demanded he support her, protect her, even keep from her the harsher and uglier sides of life. Men did not weep. Good men did not even permit others to know of their wounds.

And it was not Perdita's fault that she was confused and frightened. She had been protected all her short life. She had not chosen to be, it was her assigned role. A few women, like Hester, broke out of it, but it was a long and painful series of choices, and it left them too often alone—and for all the words of praise and gratitude, still faintly despised, because they were different... and perhaps threatening. Both Gabriel and Perdita could rely on her now, in their time of need. They would possibly even love her, after a fashion. Perhaps part of them would also resent the very fact that she knew their vulnerability and their failures.

When they were recovered she would leave, and they would choose to forget her as part of their time of pain. And she would begin again, and alone. He had never appreciated her courage in quite that light before. It was an inner thing, a knowledge she would hold inside herself, knowing its cost but for her pride's sake not sharing it.

"Would you prefer to see this lady alone?" he asked, not standing up but facing Gabriel very frankly.

As if he had read at least something in Monk's thoughts, Gabriel smiled back.