David was sitting in the fireside chair when she came back down, and she made them both a cup of cocoa and joined him. Sunday had gone into the village to visit Flora and Jamie, as she often did, and Livvy had gone out with her friends, so now with the twins settled it was just the two of them.

‘So, do you have any idea where they might be sending you?’ she forced herself to ask. She wasn’t sure that she really wanted to know.

He shook his head. ‘None at all. It’s all very hush hush for obvious reasons but … I’ll write to you, if I may?’

‘Of course you must write.’ Suddenly the tears she had been holding back spurted from her eyes and ran down her cheeks and with a sigh he was down on his knees in front of her holding her hands.

‘I … I’ll miss you,’ she sniffed.

‘I know,’ he said gently as he stroked a lock of her glorious dark hair from her cheek. ‘And I’ll miss you too; more than you’ll ever know.’ His face was troubled as he wrestled with himself and then suddenly everything he had wanted to say for so long came spilling out of him. ‘Oh, Kathy, you must know by now that I still love you? I’ve never stopped loving you—’

She opened her mouth to stop his flow of words, but he held his hand up to silence her. ‘I know you don’t feel the same. Your heart obviously still belongs to the twins’ father, whoever he is, but I had to tell you how I felt before I went just in case I don’t come back …’

‘Don’t say that,’ she said in an anguished voice and threw her arms about his neck. ‘I do love you, David, but not in the way you want me to. I love you as a dear friend, and I still can’t bear the thought of you being hurt.’

At that moment Sunday appeared and seeing the tears on Kathy’s cheeks and their arms about each other she asked with a hopeful smile, ‘So what’s going on here?’

As Kathy haltingly told her, Sunday’s face became solemn. ‘Then may God go with you,’ she told David. ‘And just be sure to keep in touch.’

‘I will.’ He rose slowly and headed for the door. ‘I’ll be round again on my next afternoon off, if I haven’t been shipped out that is. But if I am, I’ll be sure to let you know.’

Kathy could only nod; she felt far too upset to speak and she was even more upset when the door had closed on him and her mother rounded on her.