An hour passed, and then the second. He walked for a time but never out of sight of the motorcar. Hamish was his constant companion, the voice dinning in his ear, the war seeming to crowd in on him.

And then she was coming through the door, her face so pale he went to her at once, and took her hands. She had left her pretty hat somewhere. “Was it very bad?” he asked.

“Worse than—oh, Ian, you should see him. He’s lying there looking at nothing, his poor face so scarred I hardly knew him.”

They were in a very public place, people passing on the street around them, faces turned to stare. He led her to the motorcar and put her inside.

She said as he got behind the wheel, “I was told there was a little church near the Gruuthuse Palace. Could we walk there, do you think?”

He found it for her after going astray near the Begijnhof, where the Benedictine Sisters lived in their little white cottages in a tree-lined courtyard. Two or three were sitting in the sun, warming themselves, a small cushion on their knees, weaving the fine webs of their lace, bobbins flying in nimble fingers. There Meredith bought a small handkerchief to cover her dark hair in the church.

The Church of Our Lady was known for its tall, striking tower. It soared above the surrounding buildings, and Rutledge found himself thinking it was an ideal mark for German artillery firing on the town.

Down a side aisle was a chapel with a small but perfect white marble statue standing on the altar. It was, he realized, Michelangelo’s Madonna and Child. She was seated, the child at her knee, the smile on her face movingly sweet. Rutledge’s godfather, the architect David Trevor, had traveled in Europe on a Grand Tour as a young man, and he had told Rutledge that this face, young, serene, without shadows, was the same as that of the Virgin in the Pietà in Rome’s St. Peter’s, only there it was marked by sorrow and loss. The comparison, he had said, was heart-wrenching.

Rutledge stood in the back of the chapel, staring up at that face while Meredith knelt near the altar, head bowed, but not, he thought, in prayer. If she was looking for anything here, it was strength. Or courage.

Hamish had been there in the back of his mind ever since the night Meredith Channing had come to his flat. A dull, unceasing monologue of despair, the words nearly indistinguishable, but he knew them by heart.

Fiona. He could hear that whisper as Hamish lay dying before the blessing of the coup de grâce. You took my happiness from me. I’ll take yours.