They found the hotel, Finterie Lodge, a few miles off the main road, a low, gabled, whitewashed house converted from a former shooting lodge by Jeff and Cherry Barton, the present owners. It catered mostly for fishermen, walkers and honeymooners and had six bedrooms, neither too quaint nor too plush, but extremely comfortable; there was a well stocked bar downstairs – including an unbelievable selection of malt whiskies – a large cheerful sitting room, excellent drying facilities for sodden clothes, a warm welcome and, as it turned out later, excellent plain food cooked by Cherry herself – a cheery dumpling of a woman who might have stepped straight out of one of her own robust, well-flavoured casseroles. As Giles had thought, it was exactly what Christopher and Marnie wanted.

Marnie went to lean out of the bedroom window after Jeff had helped them carry their cases upstairs, to cover a sudden nervousness at the intimacy of sharing a room for the first time, very conscious that either of them might disappoint the other; that old hurts might reopen so that they could not respond to each other in the way they longed to do. She breathed in a great lungful of air. ‘All my life I shall remember the scents of Scotland,’ she said. ‘I got drunk on it the first day at Glendrochatt and it’s the same here. It’s moss and gorse and heather and peaty water and the cry of curlews all rolled into one.’

‘Does birdsong smell?’ asked Christopher, coming to join her and putting his arm round her shoulders. ‘I didn’t know that.’

‘It does here,’ she answered firmly.

‘A poet in the making! I must look to my laurels.’ He took her face in his hands and kissed her and felt her quick response, but thought she still looked anxious. He wondered if she was thinking of her last disastrous love affair. ‘Shall we go down and have a cup of tea and then take a look at the river?’ he suggested, thinking such mundane activities might banish any awkwardness between them.

‘Yes, let’s,’ she said, grateful for his perspicacity.

Before they had left Glendrochatt, Christopher had rung the Reverend Donald McBain to ask if he and Marnie could come and see him, only to be told that he was away. The unforthcoming female who answered the telephone had eventually admitted he would be back that evening. Perhaps they could ring later then, suggested Christopher, but he was firmly told that the Reverend would be tired when he got home and it was made very plain that a telephone call that night would not be welcome. She supposed they could try the next morning, but she really couldn’t say whether he’d be up to talking to them or not. It didn’t sound very promising.