‘He is eight years older than me – so twenty-seven now. When he came, I liked him.’ She drifted for a moment, almost overtaken by those early tender feelings which this memory roused in her. ‘Though he is rather serious,’ she added.

How could she explain it to Aunt Hatt, who did not share their faith? She had thought Charles was the message from God that she had been waiting for, the blazing sign like a burning bush, telling her what to do with her life.

‘He came to see us the first day he arrived. Mr and Mrs Davis, the people he was lodging with, only live about a quarter of a mile away.’

In her mind she saw him, as she had so often, his long-legged figure striding the village lanes, a black top hat resting on his wavy hair, his black ulster unfastened and billowing in the breeze as if there was never time for such fripperies as buttons.

‘Of course, we all made him welcome. He was . . .’ A blush spread through her as she recalled how that visit had affected her. He was softly spoken, and fixed his gaze very directly upon anyone he was talking to with what seemed like startling candour. He had been so magnetic, yet so frail somehow, that within half an hour of his being there, she had known she would never be quite the same again. ‘He was very nice,’ she finished. ‘And we could see he had been ill in some way.’

‘Rather like your own father at the same age,’ Aunt Hatt said.

Margaret looked up, startled. She had not realized anyone else knew this. ‘Yes. A sort of nervous collapse. Charles – Mr Barber – was quite open about it. He had been working in Salford, had spent himself in his work for the poor. There was a slight twitch, a tremor at the outer corner of his right eye – and he was very pale. You could see he had been under strain.’

She realized that her hands had begun to shake and she pressed them together in her lap. For a moment she could not go on.

‘So, you fell in love with him?’ Aunt Hatt asked simply, as if falling in love was an obvious, everyday matter, not the overpowering, tormented thing that Margaret remembered.

Head down, she nodded. ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

She looked up again, her eyes filling with tears. ‘Oh, Auntie – I thought I was in love with him. I was . . . I just . . .’ She began to cry again, hands over her face.

‘Oh, my lovey,’ Aunt Hatt said. She leaned over and touched Margaret’s shoulder for a moment, then sat back and waited.