I leaned against the wall and looked south to France, and waited.

‘I have made an agreement with her and I will not see her again,’ Daniel said steadily, his voice low. ‘I have paid her a sum of money and when I set up in practice on my own I will pay her another. Then I will never see her or her child again.’

I nodded but I said nothing.

‘She has released me from any obligation to her, and the master of her house and his wife have said they will adopt her child and bring him up as if he were their grandson. She will see no more of me and he will not want for anything. He will grow up without a father. He will not even remember me.’

He waited for me to respond. Still I said nothing.

‘She is young and . . .’ He hesitated, searching for a word which would not offend me. ‘Personable. She is almost certain to marry another man and then she will forget me as completely as I have forgotten her.’ He paused. ‘So there is no reason why you and I should live apart,’ he said persuasively. ‘I have no pre-contract, I have no obligation, I am yours and yours alone.’

I turned to him. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I set you free, Daniel. I do not want a husband, I do not want any man. I will not return to you, whatever agreement you and she have made. That part of my life is over.’

‘You are my wedded wife,’ he said. ‘Married by the laws of the land and in the sight of God.’

‘Oh! God!’ I said dismissively. ‘Not our God, so what does that mean to us?’

‘Your father himself said the Jewish prayers.’

‘Daniel!’ I exclaimed. ‘He could not remember them all, not even he and your mother racking their brains together could remember all the words of the blessings. We had no rabbi, we had no synagogue, we did not even have two witnesses. All that bound us was such faith that we could bring to it—there was nothing else. I came to it with my faith and trust in you, and you came to it with a lie in your mouth, a woman hidden behind you and your child in her cradle. Whatever God we invoked—it was meaningless.’

He was ashen. ‘You speak like an alchemist,’ he said. ‘We swore binding oaths.’

‘You were not free to make them,’ I snapped.

‘You are following reason to its end and coming to madness,’ he said desperately. ‘Whatever the rights or wrongs of the wedding, I am asking you to make a marriage now. I am asking you to forgive me and love me, like a woman, not anatomise me like a scholar. Love me from your heart, not from your head.’

‘I am sorry,’ I said. ‘I will not. My head and my heart are indivisible. I will not cut myself up into parts so that my heart can have its way and my head think it wrong. Whatever this decision costs me I take it entire, as a whole woman. I shall pay the price but I will not return to you and to that house.’