"Adèle," he murmured, and opened his eyes. Even doing that took great physical effort.

She had dark eyes and dark hair, worn rather formally in a topknot with wavy tendrils at her temples and neck. She wore no makeup. She was wearing a dress of some flimsy stuff, low and scooped at the neckline, drawn in by a wide ribbon beneath her breasts. The sleeves were short and puffed. Empire style, he thought. Regency.

She was looking at him with such naked love in her eyes that his heart turned over.

Adèle? How did he know her name? How had he known he would open his eyes to see her? How did he know he loved her more than life?

"John?" She released her hand from his and lifted it to his face. She set the backs of her fingers against his forehead. They felt cool. He saw the ring on her finger-the rings. They both looked very shiny and new. "You slept for a while. The fever seems to have cooled a little. Would you like a drink? Water? Lemonade?"

He did not want her to have to leave the room. She could fetch water from the bathroom. Had he had the flu? "Water, please," he said.

She sat up and got off the bed and reached out to pull a strip of silk beside the bed. Of course, he thought, his eyes following her movements. One of the servants would bring it. And, yes, definitely Regency. Her dress-it was made of muslin-fell soft and straight to the floor from beneath her bosom. She was small-he knew that he had to raise his chin only a little to be able to rest it on the top of her head when they were both standing.

His eyes roamed the room, seeing with a curious mixture of surprise and recognition the ornate canopy above the bed, the finely carved bedposts, the velvet curtains, which were pulled back so that he could see the rest of the room. He could see the ornate Adam furniture, the gilding on the high ceiling.

He must have dozed again for a few moments. She was taking a glass from a tray held by a maid-the same maid who had removed the blood-spotted cloths some time ago.

Flu? He had been coughing blood.

She turned back to the bed with a smile. He had never seen such luminous tenderness in anyone's face as there was in hers. She half knelt, half sat beside him and lifted him-there seemed to be no strength in him at all-until his head nestled on her shoulder. The water tasted good, though it was not very cold. He half expected to feel it burn his throat, but it did not. He drew a deep and careful breath, expecting to feel a burning in his lungs, but he did not.

"Thank you," he said. "You are an angel, pure and simple, Adèle."

"You will feel better for the rest," she said. "The journey was a long and rough one, John. It was madness to come so far. But I know now what you meant about this place." Her cheek was resting against the top of his head. "It is the loveliest place on earth. And I am glad we came. I think you will get better here."

He could tell from the bright warmth of her voice that she did not believe her own words. He was dying. He had come here to die.

"I already feel better," he said.

What he did feel was strange-a massive understatement. A few minutes ago he had been lying in this very room with another woman-with Allison, his fiancée. Both room and woman had changed. Even he was different. He could see his legs encased in tight pantaloons with silk stockings instead of in jeans and socks. He could see his waistcoat. He had seen the ruffles of his shirt cuffs when he had lifted his hand briefly to the glass-and his hand was thin and emaciated. Yet he knew he was not asleep. And he knew he was not mad. He knew all this though his mind was sluggish on the details.

He saw her rings again when she set the glass down beside the bed. She was his wife. He held out his hand to her on the bed and she placed hers in it. He raised it to his lips and kissed the sapphire of her ring. Damn, but he was weak.

"But I should not have done this," he said.

He was not quite sure what he meant by the words, but she knew, all right. He could hear the tears in her voice when she spoke. "John," she said, "please do not. Please do not keep on saying that. I know that it was I who asked you to marry me. It was unpardonably forward of me to do so, and I never would have done it if I had not thought that perhaps you needed me."

"Adèle," he said.

"No," she said. "Talking takes your energy. Just rest. Please rest, my dearest love. John, I wanted to marry you. More man anything else in this world. I love you so very dearly. I have always loved you, from the moment you lifted me down from that stile when I was four and you were eight and the other children were jeering because I was stuck and frightened."

He smiled at the memory of the infant with the soft baby curls and huge eyes.

The memory?

"This is what I have always dreamed of," she said. "Being your wife, John. Being wim you like this. I do not care for how long-" She broke off suddenly and he could hear her distress in the silence. "But you are going to get better. I know you are. I feel it. I am going to make you better. They said you needed a dry, warm climate and so you went off to Italy for a whole year and came back worse. I do not care what they say. This place will be good for you. And I will be good for you."

He pulled on her hand until she was lying beside him again. He turned onto his side to face her.

"You are good for me," he said. "You are all I could ever need, Adèle. How foolish I was to go to Italy and waste a whole year I might have spent with you. But no matter. We have the rest of our lifetimes together."

Her eyes were bright with tears, brimming with love. The rest of a lifetime. How much longer did he have? A few weeks? A few days? And yet, weak as he felt, he did not feel ill. He should, shouldn't he? He had tuberculosis- consumption. Didn't he?

"How long have we been married?" he asked her.

She looked frightened for a moment. Perhaps she thought he was delirious. Then she smiled. She had a dimple in the middle of her right cheek. It had been there since she was a child-How did he know that?

"For shame," she said. "Have you forgotten the number of days? But it was a long journey for you-four days, with the wedding just the day before we set out. It has been five days and four hours, sir. We are an old married couple."

Yes, he knew how long they had been married. He had remembered as soon as he asked the question. He knew, too, that the marriage was unconsummated, that she fully expected it would forever remain so. She had married him anyway.

"I love you," he whispered to her.

Her eyes filled with tears again. "Yes, I know you do, John," she said, "even if not quite as you would have loved a bride if you had had more opportunity to choose. But I know you love me. I am content."

Had he ever given her the impression that he did not love her totally, to the exclusion of all other women? He knew he had. He knew it as soon as he asked the question, silently this time. He had always loved her as a friend. He had loved her, too, as a woman, though there had always been a niggling doubt. Was it just habit that made him believe that he loved her? Did he really love her? Was he prepared to give up all other women in order to spend the rest of his life with her?

Finally the question had become immaterial. He was dying. He had come back from Italy to find her still unmarried at the age of twenty-four, still waiting for him, still loving him. And so he had married her.

But looking at her now, he could hardly believe that he had ever doubted the depth of his feelings for her. There was something about her just a little too soft, a little too dependent, he had thought. He might prefer someone rather more forceful, someone with a more vivid personality. He could not understand why he had never before fully appreciated her strength of character. She had remained true to a dying man. She had married him, knowing that there was no future with him-because she loved him.