One damp winter morning they had gone together to visit an old lady called Mrs Orchard, who was dying. Her daughter had been very distressed. Charles prayed with old Mrs Orchard while Margaret sat with the daughter and listened to her sorrows. From where they were sitting, by a smoking fire, she could just see Charles in the next-door room of the tiny, brick-floored cottage. He was leaning forward, murmuring prayers. She was conscious of him, of his voice, every second of the time, as if they were joined by an emotional thread. She had a strong feeling that she was destined to be at his side, as if their lives could never now be separated.

In the afternoon they took their walk. They stood watching golden willow leaves floating along the river’s glassy surface. Charles had a gentle smile on his face, as if he could see everything, was sure of everything. She was very conscious of him beside her: male, strange, fascinating, his black boots very large beside her button-up brown ones as they stood together on the bank. Being close to him had given her a whole new sense of her body – her femaleness, the melting excitement he could arouse in her.

‘Don’t heed those whisperings of the devil,’ he said to her, suddenly.

Margaret was startled. She had been thinking about boots and the sweep of his coat and how nicely it hung; of the masculine form that stood beneath that coat . . . She looked up at him, trying to appear as if her thoughts had been rather more theological.

Charles turned to her, looking intensely down at her.

‘If I ever saw a woman chosen by God it’s you, Margaret. The ways of the Lord are always narrow. People – ungodly people at least – think we’re fools or obsessives. But we know, don’t we, the calling of the Lord in every atom of our bodies? You and I, together – we can move mountains.’

His gaze blazed at her. Her cheeks flushed and she felt a thrilling, shameful sensation of heat in the private parts of her body. She was astounded at what he seemed to see in her. There she was, a frail girl, soon to be nineteen years old, while he was closer to thirty, yet he appeared to view her as a grown woman and his – if not equal – at least potential helpmeet. Under this gaze she knew she had begun to grow, to feel herself older and more substantial.

Another afternoon, bright and crisp, he was in a less earnest mood. They tramped up the hill looking down on the valley and when they had looked from the top, over the frosty woods and fields, Charles seemed in a wild, energetic mood. Suddenly he took her hand and said, ‘Come on – let’s run!’