‘Are you all right, Silas?’ said Mrs Gunson.

‘I am.’

‘Let us hurry then.’

Heads down against the falling snow, they tramped away in the direction of the waiting carriage.

There was no time to feel anything, not now. He had a train to catch.

Harriet trod gingerly over the cobbles as she turned onto the steep descent down the lane, trailing her fingertips along the wall, although she knew this would not provide any real assistance if she slipped and fell. She could feel the unforgiving cold of the brick through her gloves. Three figures were walking ahead of her in the distance, black bulks made insubstantial by the falling snow, a dog padding alongside them, and Harriet slowed her pace, acutely aware of her vulnerability as a lone woman abroad in the town. She was relieved to see the silent shapes diminish into the distance.

A set of bells began a muffled call, an afternoon service, or perhaps even an out-of-season wedding. Harriet shivered. Albert attended church regularly whereas Walter had got out of the habit, tired of fending off enquiries about Polly’s health, of pretending not to see the greed for gossip that masqueraded as concern. Silas had been a churchgoer in his own village – he had told Harriet all about the vicar who set him on the road to Sheffield, she would get down on her knees to thank that man, should they be lucky enough ever meet – but he had not, as far as she knew, joined a local parish of the town. There was plenty of time. Silas had only been in the town for less than a year, and had a hard time of it, but had not given up. Could she smooth his path now, or would she make his life more difficult still?

She reached Louisa’s door. She took a deep breath and knocked on it.

The branches of the trees that lined the road they drove under were bare of leaves, as they had been when Silas arrived in town in the early spring. He realised he had not even managed a full year. He watched fat flakes of snow melt on the pavement. If snow was falling at home it would blanket the fields and low farm buildings in white and the streams would grow icicles. It could not smother the turrets and hot chimneys of the town so effectively. He had assured Mrs Gunson and Louisa and his old landlady that he would return, as a visitor rather than runaway, but he knew this was unlikely once he was back at the farm. The fact he was already accepting this weighed on his heart. It was Harriet’s town, not his, and she had made it clear that she did not want him.

The wheels of the carriage sprayed slush onto the pavement and the feet of passers-by. Silas bent forward to fondle Shandy’s ears. She would find herself usurped on their return, no longer top dog. Yet Silas would be promoted. A far cry from his previous status. Would his homecoming make him happier than remaining here? He wished he could convince himself of it.