‘I finished my work too quickly. It made the boys look bad.’

Archie laughed, sipped his tea again and then placed his cup and saucer on the small bedside table where it would probably remain.

‘Tell me about the women who inspire you,’ he asked.

It was Sarah’s turn to laugh.

‘They are mainly women who refuse to do as they are told,’ she said. ‘Who ask questions and demand answers. I have been exposed to all manner of unconventional types at Queen Street.’

‘Such as?’

‘Elizabeth Rigby, Catherine Crowe. Women who supported themselves through writing. Forthright in their opinions. I remember Mrs Crowe scandalised Hans Christian Andersen by inhaling ether after dinner one night.’

‘Were they not mothers too? I know that your Mrs Wollstonecraft was.’

‘Mrs Crowe had a son, I think. And no husband because she left him. He was a brute, apparently.’

‘Unconventional indeed,’ he said, though his mind was clearly racing. He paused for a moment, then said: ‘If you have help with the child, you could continue to study. I am not alone in thinking that a broad education is necessary for women if they are to be properly equipped for raising their offspring.’

‘But surely a broad education should be put to greater use, beyond the home? If the intellectual faculties of women are equal to that of men, should they not be encouraged to do more than merely oversee the education of their children?’

‘Of course. I only meant that not everyone objects to female self-improvement.’

He spoke softer now, begging her candour.

‘If you could do anything, what would you do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I think that you do.’

‘If I were entirely free to choose? If my gender was no impediment?’

She paused as though contemplating the question, but he was right. She already knew the answer.

‘I would like to be in Will Raven’s position: a doctor working alongside Professor Simpson.’ Then she sighed. ‘But such a thing is impossible.’

‘And yet you work alongside the professor now.’

‘It’s not the same.’

‘No. But it is a start.’

She got up and started straightening the blanket on the bed.

‘Dr Simpson says that a woman has obtained a medical degree in America. Perhaps I should go there.’

She thought he would dismiss the notion as fanciful. Instead Archie said: ‘Perhaps you should. If you have the means and there is nothing to keep you here.’

She found his sincerity arresting. It was something that hadn’t occurred to her before, not a circumstance that she had entertained, yet he truly believed it a possible course of action. Her head spun. To travel beyond the narrow confines of Edinburgh!