This she accepted and they moved on to small white roses and the not-quite-open spikes of foxgloves, to poppies he thought no gardener had sown, and a great thriving bush of rosemary where they stood a while, crushing the needles and smelling their fingertips.

When he got her back to the third floor she climbed into her bed, a blind, awkward creature too long out of its element. He asked her whether she had enjoyed her walk. He did not hear her answer and inside ten minutes she was asleep. When Rizzo came through Lacroix confessed to the outing and wondered aloud if they had been reckless. Rizzo looked at the sleeping woman—a regard that seemed both rigorous and tender—then turned back to Lacroix.

“Very soon,” he said, “I will give her into your care, Lovall. I have no uneasiness.”

The next morning the city was caught in the skirts of a storm. The islands out west were taking a battering, or you could guess it so. It was weather to lose your hat in but Lacroix had not brought a hat to Glasgow—a hat was on the list of items he hoped to purchase (though he wanted something particular, probably of straw, straw and green silk, the kind of article no military man would ever wear)—and he arrived at the hospital with his hair dripping, his face slick, the taste of the rain in his mouth. He sat by Emily’s bed drying himself with his handkerchief. Emily was eating toast. There were a great many crumbs, not all of which could be collected with propriety. Three beds along a new patient had been admitted, a new woman. Her hair on one side had been shaved away and there was a remarkable scar, red as lips along the white of her scalp. Like a sword-blow. He was glad Emily could not see it.

He told her about the weather. She said she had listened to it, had listened as you might listen to music, should listen.

“Rizzo likes Haydn,” he said.

“We could go to the basement and look at the people they call the unfortunates. Or you could look at them. There’s a man down there teaching them to sing.”

“I know a place we can go,” he said. “Though it may not be as exciting as the basement.”