Amala was startled to hear the door to the sitting room close, and she looked up to see Henry staring at her in a way that had once been common, except there was nothing familiar in the meaning of his gaze—the problem was that she had no idea what that meaning might be, and she’d once been able to read him so easily. When he hadn’t come to lunch, she had felt concerned and eventually she had returned to where they’d been talking earlier with the hope that he’d still be here. She found it ironic that he’d now come looking for her. But she felt skeptical—perhaps even afraid—of what his reasons might be, and she couldn’t keep from staring at him, feeling as if something had changed since they’d talked earlier.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look as if you’re afraid of me. Have I changed so much that I would frighten you?”

Amala turned back to the view out the window. “You don’t frighten me.” She didn’t add that her feelings did frighten her; perhaps they always had. Perhaps that was the heart of the problem. “But we are certainly not the same people we used to be.”

“No, we certainly are not,” he said, stepping slowly toward her. “But I have to believe that somehow . . . somewhere . . . deep inside both of us . . . what we once felt for each other is still there.”

She looked up to see him standing directly at her side. The quickening of her heart seemed to verify what he was saying. “So, now that we’ve finally started to talk again . . . I have a question for you, Amala.”

He hesitated, and she realized he seemed to be waiting for her permission to ask his question, which made her suspect it was perhaps something monumental. “I’m listening,” she said and heard him take in a deep breath and let it out slowly before he went on.

“Do you think we really lost all of that love we both felt so intensely for each other? Or did we just put it away because it seemed the only option at the time? Because it was the right thing to do and we’re both people who try very hard to do the right thing?”

Amala could hear her pulse beating in her ears as his implication began to settle in. This was not what she’d expected. But it was what she’d hoped for, although she’d believed it would take much more time and many more conversations before they would be able to talk about such things.