Laurence Melford, too, had been as good as his word, and had delivered fifty-thousand dollars for the return of Collis’s calotypes of Sarah. Collis had already used the money to place an order for the Sierra Pacific’s first lengths of rail, at fifty-five dollars a ton, and for their first locomotive, a small tank engine from Zerah Colburn’s works at Paterson, New Jersey. Collis had told Leland that he would christen the locomotive Jane McCormick, and although Leland had been unimpressed, Jane had softened considerably towards Collis, and had even sent Hannah a basket of preserves.

Collis himself had been quiet, and industrious, but Hannah had sensed that he was unsettled. Several times during the winter she had walked into his study on the second floor of their handsome, comfortable house and found him standing by the window, staring sightlessly down at the street below, with his hands in his pockets and his forehead pressed against the glass.

He was looking older. There were wisps of grey hair on the right side of his head, and his cheeks were becoming angular, and lined. He found that he was increasingly forgetful. He would leave a half-finished drink on a table and go pour himself a fresh one. He forgot Hannah’s birthday, and had to make up for it by buying her a diamond-and-sapphire ring which cost him nearly two thousand dollars.

The truth was that he was beginning to feel that his dream would never happen. And far from exciting him, as they had Theodore, the political events of the year had disappointed and depressed him. Why hadn’t Lincoln called for a railroad right away? Now that the South had gone secesh, what was everyone waiting for? Collis was stretched to the limit on credit, and beyond, and unless the new administration gave them the go-ahead within the next few months, he could see the glorious Sierra Pacific Railroad announcing itself bankrupt without a single inch of track laid.

One evening in April, when the warm winds of early summer were blowing across the Sacramento Valley, Hannah stepped out on to the back veranda and found Collis sitting in the rocker, his legs straight out, his hands in his pockets, and a cheroot clenched between his teeth. She stood beside him silently for long minutes, her face gentle, her hair drawn back in combs, her pink dress turned lilac by the dusk.

‘You’re unhappy, aren’t you?’ she asked him at last.

He took the cheroot out of his mouth. ‘Unhappy?’

‘You’re expecting something from life that life won’t give you. What is it? Is it fame? Or is it just affection?’

He looked at her. ‘You give me all the affection I could wish for.’

‘I can’t give you fame.’

‘I’m not sure that I want it. I just want to be fulfilled.’

‘You will be,’ Hannah assured him, resting her hand on his shoulder.