‘I mean – I have to go home – for good.’

She was silent now, just staring at him in shock.

He took a deep breath and then let it out slowly in a sigh. ‘Lizzie – my daughter – is critically ill. She – she won’t live longer than a few months.’

‘Oh, Philip.’ At once she was all compassion. ‘How dreadful! I’m so sorry.’ The words seemed inadequate, but what else could she say?

‘I’m – being posted to a station near home. My-in-laws have pulled strings and got it arranged. I wish they had consulted me first, but I suppose they felt they were helping. For once, Grace really seems to need me . . .’

She looked into his troubled eyes. With deep intuition she said, ‘And you need to be with her – with Grace – too, don’t you? And with Lizzie?’

He nodded. ‘But what about you, Kate? I don’t want you to think – I mean I don’t want you to be hurt . . .’ he said, anguished.

‘It’s all right,’ Kate said. She heard the words come out of her mouth as if it were someone else speaking; so calm, so understanding. Yet inside, there was a fluttering of panic just below her ribs and her heart was crying out; ‘Not again, oh, not again!’ She wanted to throw herself against him, beg him not to leave her, not to go. But one look at the torment in Philip’s face made her draw on all her reserves of strength for his sake. The poor man was being torn in two. And she did understand what he must be feeling for his daughter. Only a few weeks ago she would not have done so, but to her own amazement, holding Danny’s son in her arms had wrought changes in Kate. There had still been the poignant longing that this child should have been hers – and Danny’s – and yet there had been so much more. So this, she had thought, was what having children was all about. Holding a tiny, helpless, scrap of humanity in her arms, knowing it was totally dependent on its parents, well, somehow it was sobering and in one moment banished all selfishness.

And that was what Philip must feel for his child, perhaps even more so for a ‘less than perfect’ mite. She had only ever thought of Grace Trent as a shadowy figure, who, by her devotion to her daughter, had shut Philip out of her life. But now, Kate felt pity for Grace – and pangs of guilt thrust their way through her emotions. She couldn’t let Philip shoulder all the blame or start feeling guilty about her too.

‘I knew what I was doing – what I was getting into when we began our affair . . .’ She tried to reassure him.