Alexander came up the river at dawn the next day and had the boat set him down on the bank as near to the Ark as he could get. John saw him from the window in the stable yard, taking off his cape and his waistcoat and even his trousers and leaving them in the stable. He shouted for Joseph to work the pump, stripped off his shirt and washed under the stream of icy water before rubbing himself briskly dry with a sheet and pattering to the kitchen door all but naked.

Cook let out a delighted little scream of shock but Alexander Norman paid no attention to her and walked past her to the hall.

‘Forgive me,’ he said briefly to John. ‘But there is a lot of sickness in the City and I wanted to take no risk of bringing it to you here. Are you free of it in Lambeth?’

‘Half a dozen dead in the village this week,’ John said grimly. ‘I thank you for taking care. You can borrow a shirt and breeches of mine.’

‘Is she better?’ Alexander asked.

John shook his head. ‘The fever grew worse overnight and Hester says she is still hot.’

‘But it isn’t …?’ Alexander could not bring himself to name the plague.

‘Hester says not.’

The two men looked into each other’s anxious faces and for the first time since his return to England John knew the pleasure of finding a man who could understand what he was feeling. His own worry was graven deep into Alexander’s face. They both looked as if they had spent the night praying. He reached out his arms and Alexander gripped him tightly.

‘Please God it is not …’

‘Please God,’ John replied.

‘She is so precious to me …’

‘I know, I know.’

‘I sent her away from the City the moment I thought there was a risk …’

‘It’s in Lambeth anyway. There is nowhere you could be sure that she would be safe.’

‘But not her …’

‘I feel so fearful,’ John said very low. ‘I think of her mother and her prettiness – and Frances is so like her – and I think that perhaps there is a weakness?’

Alexander shook his head. ‘There’s no way of tracing where it comes from or who takes it,’ he said. ‘That’s the very devil of it. You just don’t know. Is everyone else well? Johnnie? Hester?’

‘We’re all well,’ John said. ‘And God knows we would all willingly take it for her.’

Alexander bowed his head for a moment. ‘D’you forgive me for marrying her?’ he asked irrelevantly.

John gave a short laugh. ‘For everything she has ever done or ever can do, if only she will be well again,’ he said. ‘I knew I loved her but I never knew that the very thought of losing her would be like my own death to me.’

‘And the baby?’