Sobbing helplessly, she confessed, ‘I did love him, you see. What Harry and I did had nothing to do with the kind of love I felt for Tom. It was more to do with excitement, and wanting something you couldn’t have. I never stopped loving Tom. But he didn’t believe that. He thought I didn’t want him any more. Oh, Fan, if only I could have told him how much I did want him, how much I still loved him. If only I could have made him believe.’ Her eyes brimmed with tears. ‘But there was Ruthie, you see. For the rest of his life, Ruthie would be there to remind him. And he just couldn’t bear that.’

‘What happened to Tom was a terrible and tragic waste of a young life,’ Fanny said, ‘but it was not your fault. These things happen, wrong as they are. Women the world over make mistakes, the same as men do. Remember how he took a woman off the streets and let her into your house – into your bed. You forgave him that, didn’t you? And don’t say it were nothing compared to what you did, because in my book it were.’

‘He did come to me though, in Nelly’s house.’

‘Oh, aye! When you were inches away from drawing your last breath, and probably only then because his conscience pricked him.’

Bridget thought about that. It was easy to see that Fanny was only trying to make her feel less guilty. ‘I won’t marry Bob Morris,’ she said flatly. ‘Somehow, I’ll have to make him accept that.’

‘Then you’re a bloody fool.’

‘It wouldn’t work,’ Bridget argued. ‘Whatever Tom did, I can’t let another man come into his house, sleep in his bed, make love to me there.’ She shook her head. ‘I’d rather not marry at all than marry and regret it for the rest of my life.’

Fanny nodded, only now beginning to realise how deeply the tragedy of Tom had rooted itself in Bridget’s mind. ‘Listen to me, gal, and listen carefully,’ she said. ‘You must learn to accept that what you and Harry did was not the root cause of Tom’s problem. What you did with Harry may have triggered it off, but it went deeper than that, didn’t it? You know I’m right.’

‘What are you getting at?’

‘Think about it, gal. Here was a man who couldn’t father a bairn. Some men just can’t stand that kind of humiliation. They see it as a failing, a constant reminder that they aren’t real men. I think Tom was one of them. The signs were all there. You said so yourself – being tormented at work and wanting to leave the area because of it, always desperate for you to say you were with child five minutes after you’d made love together. Watching you like a hawk, hoping against hope you’d bear him a child. ’ Bending her head to look straight into Bridget’s eyes, she said gently, ‘Am I right?’