‘I regret having to hurt Walter,’ she told him. ‘And as the days go by, I will probably have other regrets. But as long as you understand what I am feeling — as long as you don’t expect me to go through the rest of my life without a single backward look — then I am sure everything will be perfect.’

Collis bent forward and kissed the gleaming parting of her hair. ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘But don’t expect perfection of me. I have never been perfect, and I never shall be.’

She raised her face to him, and he kissed her forehead, her closed eyelids, and then her lips. ‘I don’t really want perfection,’ she whispered. ‘I want you …’ Then she touched him with her left hand, tentatively, cautiously, like a blind girl reaching up to touch someone she thought she recognised from years and years gone by.

He sat down on the bed beside her and held her in his arms, feeling the warmth and softness of her body through tiers of lace. They were posed like lovers in an illustrated romance, and all they needed was cherubs, with ribbons and posies, and a frame of summer flowers.

‘You frighten me,’ she said softly into his ear. ‘I have dreams about you that I can’t understand. And yet in the hour I first saw you I knew somehow that I would be compelled to love you.’

He kissed her on the lips, again and again, so that she couldn’t tell him any more. He didn’t want to hear her doubts, or how she felt about the nature of their love affair. At first he kissed her gently, but as his feelings were aroused, he kissed her more deeply, and more hungrily.

‘Hannah,’ he said, winding her blonde hair around his fingers. ‘Why the hell did you ever marry?’

‘Sshh,’ she told him.

‘Why didn’t you keep yourself wrapped up in tissue paper?’ he persisted. ‘Why did you ever feel the need to walk up the aisle with a man like Walter?’

Hannah pressed her finger against his lips. ‘Walter’s a good man. Kind, and considerate. And we can’t turn the clock around backwards. If it hadn’t been for Walter, I never would have met you, and so you have that to be thankful for.’

‘I would have met you somehow. I’d lay money on it.’

She smiled. ‘Don’t let’s bet on love.’