That sweet, sleepy moment had been lost to her until now, swept away by tragedy and grief and guilt, obscured by her own self-hatred and the terrible tale he'd told her.

What Lysander had done in battle was unthinkable, wasn't it?

Or was it? Gemma forcibly set aside Edmund's oft-stated opinions and considered the matter for herself.

Lysander was no physician. He had been a man alone on a field of suffering, injured himself, facing a hell she could not grasp.

Edmund had been a good man, a paragon. But paragons could be uncompromising, like a statue chiseled from stone. When Gemma had assisted her husband in the army medical tents, surrounded by the agonized, dying men who could not be helped, hadn't she sometimes wished he would unbend enough to give those poor doomed soldiers some ease?

Who was she to judge Lysander?

It'd been he alone, abandoned on the storming battlefield, holding desperately to someone he cared about, someone shattered and suffering, someone who pleaded for release from unimaginable pain.

Topknot wandered closer, sniffing at Gemma's hem. Gemma did not reach to pet the dog's silky ears, for she knew Topknot would only flinch from her touch.

She was quite certain she would not be able to bear that right now.

When she felt the soft weight on her knee, she went entirely still. Surprised, she looked down in wonder at Topknot's black-and-white muzzle resting there.

The dog let out a deep sigh, almost a groan. As Gemma carefully let her hands fall to tentatively caress the patchwork fur, she marveled at how perfectly Topknot's mournful noise reflected her own deepest feelings.

We are all different now. I cannot go back to the life I lived before, or to the woman I was before. She could not make time close over Lysander's presence in her heart, like water closing over a dropped stone.

He had come to the dale and he'd changed it. He had changed everyone he touched: cantankerous Mr. Bing, the angry village, suspicious Shepherd Orren, fearful Topknot, even poor, misunderstood Bad Pony.

Gemma healed people. She kept their bodies well, but Lysander did something else. He saw what they needed in their hearts and he gave it to them.

In his silent, tireless way, he had inspired the village, a pony, a dog, a woman, and even an old curmudgeon like Bing to think beyond mere survival. To hope for more.

I am not who I was before. I am not content with safe routine and tentative medical actions.

I want more. I want to be more.

Her breath left her with the impact of her realization.

I want to be a doctor.

She wanted to study and learn as much as she could to help her dale. This certainty swept over her like a flood, yet she had never felt more grounded and stable.

That is who I am meant to be.