‘No.’ She leaned against the wall and took a sip of her tea. ‘Very well, I am curious. What you did today … You are an extraordinary doctor, Caleb.’

He shook his head. ‘No. I’m not. I was a doctor in Charlottesville before the war.’ He paused. ‘And a field surgeon during the war. I became very good at amputating limbs. That doesn’t make me extraordinary.’

She frowned. ‘But didn’t you say you were a Quaker? Surely the Quakers do not believe in conflict?’

He let out a long exhalation of breath. ‘I said my father was a Quaker. Not me. I am afraid the day I walked off the farm to take up a scholarship to study medicine was the day I renounced my father’s beliefs.’

‘I see. What did your father have to say about that?’

‘He forgave me,’ Caleb said, his voice raw with emotion. ‘Again and again, he forgave me for the decisions I made in life.’ He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. He looked down at the floor as he said, ‘He was a better man than I will ever be.’

In the silence that followed he stood, abandoning his mug of tea, and stepped past her into the clear night.

Leaving her tea on the table, Adelaide joined him and they stood side by side, looking up at the stars as they had done on Christmas Day.

‘I think your father would have been proud of you tonight,’ Adelaide said at last.

‘I was a prisoner for the last fifteen months of the war,’ he said. ‘I had spent three years hacking off broken limbs and pulling Minié balls from the bodies of boys barely old enough to shave, and I thought I had seen the worst one human being can do to another. Then came Elmira. No food, no water, too many bodies crammed in together. It bred disease like nothing I had seen, and worst of all, there was nothing I could do. I had no means to ameliorate the suffering. That was when I swore to God that I would never practice as a doctor again.’

She turned to him, seeing his profile in the dim light of the lantern. His eyes were lost in dark shadows but the pain radiated from him like a physical force. She reached up and touched his face, the tips of her fingers grazing his unshaven cheek. He caught her hand and held it fast, turning her to face him.

His forefinger slid along the line of her jaw, and she froze. Even her breath seemed to have stopped in her throat as Caleb traced a line of fire over her skin that made her quiver beneath his touch. He cupped the curve of her head, his thumbs caressing the soft flesh beneath her jaw, drawing her towards him.