‘He sounds so excited.’ Caressing the letter, Molly was loath to let it go. ‘I’m glad for him.’ She smiled, but the smile never touched her heart.

‘He asked after you,’ Rosie pointed out. ‘He still thinks of you, darlin’.’

Handing back the letter, Molly nodded. ‘I know.’ But it didn’t seem as if he still loved her; not in the way she loved him. ‘He seems to have got over me,’ she said. ‘I’m glad about that, for his sake.’

‘We’ll see.’ Rosie was not so sure he had got over Molly. And she knew for certain that Molly was not over him.

Molly’s mind flew to where he was. Would she ever see him again? she wondered. Would she ever feel his arms round her and hear him whisper in her ear?

It didn’t seem likely. She had sent him away, and now she had no rights to him.

She could not blame Alfie for that.

‘Molly?’ Rosie called her name for the second time.

The girl had been so deep in thought she hadn’t heard. ‘Oh Rosie, I’m sorry.’ She pushed Alfie from her mind. ‘I was miles away.’

‘Aye.’ Rosie’s heart went out to her. ‘As far away as America, with our Alfie.’

Molly smiled sadly. ‘Did I do right?’ she asked. ‘Sending him away like that?’

Rosie gave it some thought. ‘It was right for him, lass. Wrong for you. But, in the circumstances, I don’t see what else you could have done. If you’d kept him here, he would have insisted on taking care of you, and that would have meant either leaving the children with your da, or Alfie taking them on as his own. He’d have had to get a job in the cotton mills and hated every minute of it, but he would have done it for you and the kids.’

‘And grown to hate me for it.’

‘No, Molly, he would never do that.’

‘But his soul would be destroyed and it would have been me who did that to him.’

‘You just asked if you’d done right in sending him away,’ Rosie pointed out. ‘I think you’ve answered your own question, lass.’

‘Thank you.’ It was what Molly needed, to be reassured that she had made the right decision, for Alfie, if not for herself.

A moment later, Molly went out to the back yard. ‘I think it’s time you came in now,’ she told the children. ‘You’ve been out long enough in the cold.’

Her suggestion was met with a wall of protest. ‘Not yet, please.’ Georgie spoke for all of them. ‘We’ve got to make another snowman, for Eddie.’

Eddie was in his pram, clapping his hands and laughing as they rolled the snowman’s belly up, bigger and bigger. His nose was red and his eyes were watering, but he was happy enough.

A quick check of his little hands and face and Molly thought a few more minutes would not hurt. She wiped his nose and gave him a hug, and warned the others, ‘Ten minutes and you’re all inside, whether you like it or not. Right?’