aven hurried back to Sarah’s bedside as soon as the morning clinic was over, just as he had done the day before. Mrs Sullivan had been good enough to sit with her. He knew there was little she would be able to do other than rush to Queen Street to summon him if Sarah suddenly deteriorated, but he would not have been able to pull himself away to attend the clinic otherwise.

‘There is little change,’ Mrs Sullivan said when he arrived.

Raven wondered whether this was good news or not. He could hardly expect her to be up and about her usual business given what had happened to her. Little change was better than sudden sinking. He would settle for that.

Sarah was still deathly pale, but her pulse was lower than the day before and there was no sign of fever. The abdominal dressing was dry, which concerned him. He had expected some drainage from the wound and the absence of any effusion could mean that pus was collecting inside.

Raven had sent word to Dr Ziegler that he could not come to the Maternity Hospital that day. Ziegler was an understanding fellow, but Raven knew he would have to find someone to look after Sarah soon. Perhaps he could send her to Queen Street when she was well enough to be moved. That would not be for some time, though. If ever.

He was finding it difficult to be optimistic, concerned that any complacency on his part could lead to disaster. But he also knew that all he could do now was await events, hope that he had done the right thing and that Sarah would recover.

‘I have made a pot of soup,’ Mrs Sullivan told him. ‘You should get something warm down you. You look nearly as bad as she does.’

As she said this, Raven tried to think when he had last eaten. After returning from Milton House yesterday, he had stayed at Sarah’s bedside and woken in the night having once again fallen asleep in the chair. Mrs Sullivan had made a meal for him at some point in the evening, but it had lain there and gone cold while he slept.

He ladled himself a bowl of soup and carried it from the kitchen into the bedroom, eating it from his lap as he sat in that same chair. He did not wish to admit it to himself, but he preferred to stay here and watch Sarah breathing, in case these proved the last times he might do so.

He had wolfed down half of it when he heard the jingle of the doorbell. He put the bowl down and was on his way to answer when Martha Dempster appeared in the hall, having let herself in.

‘How is she?’ she asked, an anxious look upon her face as though she expected bad news.

‘No worse. Some signs of improvement,’ he said, although this sounded more hopeful than he felt.