She felt a body sit beside her on the bench, heard the whoosh of a sigh. Was it James himself come to forgive her? She could almost see him sitting there, fresh-shaved the way he was on Sunday mornings, ruddy from a quick survey of his kingdom outside, drinking tea out of his good porcelain cup, reporting to her which flowers were waking this week, and which ones past their prime.

If only he would take her hand now, and tell her about the flowers, she would never let it go. But when she opened her eyes she found Godwin in a heap beside her, slouched with his fists in his pockets and staring at the ground.

“I would rather be fighting with her,” he said. “About almost anything.”

“Some women,” she said, “they come through it. We don’t know why.”

“I think she is stronger than all of us,” he said. “But only from being broken so many times. How much more can she take?”

“We mustn’t give up. As long as there’s still fight in her.”

“Fordyce tells me to keep faith. That from a man with more science than anyone I know.”

“He’s right. You must believe.”

“I know, Blenkinsop. Of course I do believe. But not like you. Or Mary.”

“No sir. You’re an atheist.”

He smiled, and looked to a distant stand of tall trees swaying in unison, clouds pillowing above them. “Yet sometimes when I walk with her in the wide-open fields, I think I experience it the way she does—that I see Him in the clouds and hear Him in the wind—in every object, a living soul, and in Nature all that is holy.”

Mrs. B was used to men wanting to talk in their weak moments, telling her their secret fears, regrets, their hopes. But she felt weak too. And no one talked like Mr. Godwin. She found herself hungry for it.

“You know, I didn’t like her at all when I first met her,” he said. “I found her overbearing and brash, and frankly, unfeminine. Then our friend Johnson gave me this new book of hers—new then anyway—and thought I ought to read it.”

Mrs. B handed it to him just as she’d found it. “I saved your place.”

“Oh, I’ve read it fifteen times by now,” he said. “Every page is as good as every other.” He ruffled the pages across his thumb. “If ever there was a book calculated to make a reader in love with its author, this is it.” He closed it and passed his hand across the cover, a bible of his own. “I love her imagination. Marvel at how her mind attaches so readily to the sublime and the good. Her sorrows fill me with melancholy, dissolve me into tenderness … but it is her genius that commands all my admiration. I am simply in awe of her.”