“Thank you, Patrick.” She looked up at Blackie, and asked, “Can you forgive me, Blackie, for thinking it was you?”

“There is nothing ter forgive,” he answered in a quiet voice. His anger had fled when he had heard this awful news about the beautiful woman he loved.

Blackie was unable to sleep that night. He lay in his bed, his mind restless, his sorrow enormous. Cancer. The most dreaded of all diseases. Nobody ever spoke about it but pushed it away, buried it deep inside. Everyone mentioned their fear of consumption, which some people called tuberculosis, and of pneumonia and typhus too. But never cancer.

He clenched his fists; his body was so tense it was rigid. How could Angela, of all people, have cancer? Surely it was a disease of the old? She was only twenty-four. Young. Vital. Full of life. There had been no sign of illness.

Grasping at hope, he thought for a moment that perhaps the doctors had made a mistake. Could the diagnosis be wrong? He pushed himself up in the bed, and put the pillow behind his head, thinking hard. Mistakes could be made. That he knew. She might not have it.

A deep sigh escaped him, and he slumped back down. Harrogate Hospital was one of the best, with good doctors.… Could it be treated? This new thought gave him a quick rush of hope once more; then it slid away.

The problem was his ignorance. Because no one talked about it, no one had any information. Only doctors knew the details, and the cures, if there were any. Who could he ask? Where could he go?

He squeezed his eyes shut, and suddenly, in his mind, he saw her image. The shining light-brown curls, the wide translucent blue eyes, so full of warmth, her delicate features, her vivid smile, her happy laughter.

The tears rolled down his cheeks and he buried his head in the pillow, crying for her, for the pain she would be enduring, filled with a sense of loss.

Never to see her again, never to know her better, to be friends if nothing else was possible, just to see her sometimes. Angela was close to death; he knew that. Sarah had made that clear. Blackie cried for a long time. He thought his heart was breaking.

Eventually he quelled his tears, and got out of bed, went to open the window. He sat on his bed, his thoughts whirling once again in his busy mind. Earlier, when Sarah had arrived and accused him of attacking Angela, he had been enraged. He could not understand why someone who knew him would believe he could ever assault a woman.

He had been furious with her. But his anger had fled. Blackie knew that Sarah had leaped to a conclusion, not believed Angela’s explanation, because she had realized Angela cared for him, might be protecting him even. Her sister, Angela, was sincere.