“My own wonderful darling, get well quickly,” Jim pleaded. “I want to take you away, to have you all to myself. One day very soon we will be married and until then I will make you happy, my poor little love and I will never lose you again.”
The radiance in Fiona’s eyes transformed her whole face.
She felt seriously that she must be dreaming.
Then Jim’s lips very gently touched hers and she felt a little flickering of the flame of life come back into her body.
It was what she had longed for and dreamed of – it was the ecstasy Jim always gave her, the rapture that made them one for all time.
“Forgive me for failing you, my precious darling,” Jim said brokenly. “Forgive me for letting you suffer. It was all my fault.”
“It does not – matter – now,” Fiona answered.
As she spoke, she knew
