There were letters in it, the deed to the inn, several old envelopes of papers that seemed to go back in time to Miss MacCallum’s father, and a collection of odds and ends that must have been considered family treasures—a man’s pocketknife made of stag’s horn, a pocket watch that had an elegantly engraved case bearing the name MacCallum, a pair of ivory crocheting hooks with a matching ivory thimble, and a little medicine flask made of silver with a fine engraving of the Tollbooth in Edinburgh. And a letter bearing Rutledge’s own handwriting. The letter he had sent from France to a grieving young woman who had just learned that the man she loved was dead.

He could hear Hamish lamenting in his ear, anguish clear in the soft Highland voice.

“It had to be written,” Rutledge told him. “It was kinder than hearing from the Army what had become of you.”

“And none of it would ha’ happened if we’d no’ been so tired and afraid. . . .”

“No. It had to be done. It was done. I had no choice.”

“Aye, it must seem that way now. In the safety of a house that was never bombarded for days at a time!”

“You chose to die,” Rutledge reminded him, but knew even as he said the words that they were a lie. None of them had chosen to die—though he had tried in the months afterward to put himself in the way of a German shell or machine gunner’s sights. They had all wanted to live and come home. . . .

He took each of the other letters out of their envelopes and scanned them quickly. The first came from Fiona, carrying the news that her grandfather had died. The next was also to Ealasaid MacCallum with word of the death of Fiona’s brothers. After that, Fiona had written to tell her aunt about her position in Brae, describing the Davison family and how different the countryside around Glasgow was from the beauties of the mountains to the north.

I will be happier here, she wrote. It is not as lonely, and these people are wonderfully kind to me. The children are a delight. . . .

But the following letter was very different. It read: