Not wanting to startle her, he said quietly, “Is there anything I can do?”

She said huskily, “Go away. No.”

He moved closer, still some six yards from her, but near enough that his voice wouldn’t carry to anyone else.

“I brought back the war, that’s all it was. Simon had built a very high wall, but not high enough. It was—Elizabeth came to see what was wrong, she must have heard us—and she thought I’d badgered him. Blame me for what happened.”

Aurore turned to face him. There were streaks of tears on her face. He felt a surge of self-disgust, as if he himself had been the one to make her cry. “You brought back the war. Yes, I think that was true. But it was Elizabeth who used it for her own ends. He won’t turn to me for comfort anymore. Did you know? He shuts me out, as if he doesn’t want me to see what he believes is weakness in him! He thinks—if this museum is a success, I’ll admire him, look at him with love and pride for what he’s accomplished. He thinks—he thinks that it will wipe out the past. I saw him break, you see. A man can forgive a woman anything but that. If I’d slept with half the British army, he could forgive me. If I had betrayed his soldiers and got them killed, he’d find a way to forgive me. But not this!”

He understood her better than she realized. He found himself wondering if perhaps Jean had been clever enough to know that he might come to hate her in the end, if she’d married him after seeing him in hospital, broken and in despair. Then he knew it wasn’t an excuse he could make for her—Jean had been half embarrassed, half horrified by what she couldn’t understand. She’d been so tightly wrapped in her own dread she hadn’t seen the urgent need to reach out and comfort him.

He said, “There were men who came home damaged. Physically, most of them. Emotionally, a good many of them.”