He saw Mistral rise and come down the aisle towards him. Her face was alight with happiness, her eyes mystical as if she had kept company with the angels and had not yet completely returned to earth.

She was almost level with his pew before she saw him, still on his knees, watching her. She stopped, her hand going to her breast in an exquisitely graceful gesture. He rose then and taking her other hand on his he raised her fingers to his lips. He could not speak.

‘I knew you would come,’ she said simply, and his fingers tightened on hers.

They stood looking at each other for a breathless moment and he thought that he had never known that any woman’s beauty could be divine until this moment.

‘I want to talk to you,’ he managed to say at length a little unsteadily.

‘I am alone,’ Mistral replied. ‘Jeanne was not well this morning, so I came here by myself.’

‘Then I can say what I have to say now, and at once,’ Robert answered and drew her closer to his side.

As if in answer to an unspoken command Mistral sat down in the pew and after a moment Robert seated himself beside her. There were shafts of sunshine coming through the coloured glass window over the west door and one of them just touched the top of Mistral’s golden head.

‘Is it wrong for me to talk to you here?’ Robert asked, his voice very low.

‘No, of course not,’ Mistral smiled. ‘We bring our sorrows to God, why shouldn’t we bring Him our happiness too?’

‘You are happy then?’

She nodded as if her heart were too full for words, but he saw that she was trembling and felt her fingers quiver beneath his.

‘You know what I want to say to you,’ he said. ‘I want to ask you to marry me, to honour me by becoming my wife. I love you, my darling. I love you more than I believed it possible for a man to love any woman. I will protect and care for you for the whole of your life, if you will trust yourself to me.’

He knew her answer without waiting to hear her speak the words. He saw it in the radiance in her eyes, in the glorious, glowing happiness which seemed to light her whole face. But he waited – waited until very softly he heard her whisper.

‘I love you, too!’

He put his arms round her and drew her close. He felt her quiver and then – he found her lips. Together they knew an ecstasy and a wonder that was not of this world. For a long, long moment they were joined together – one and undivided then it seemed as if human nature broke beneath the strain and Mistral hid her face against his shoulder.

‘I love you,’ Robert said. ‘Oh, my sweet, my little darling, I love you so.’