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…”
    Alan took her by the elbow, gently but firmly. “I don’t think that’s possible, Linda.”
    She turned to face him again, and glanced nervously over his shoulder towards the silent camp. “Alan … I’m seeing someone else, now.”
    â€œAnd I bet you’re really enjoying it,” he replied.
    She stared up at him again, and for a fleeting moment all the scorn and sarcasm and phony toughness was gone. Instead, she looked hurt beyond belief; in that brief second, he saw the welter of harm and misery he’d heaped upon her, not just through that foolish instant of lustful indiscretion and the horrific moment of truth when he’d finally, guiltily owned up to it, but through the aftermath of it as well; the forlorn desert of betrayal where he’d suddenly dumped her, alone, humiliated, heartlessly abandoned to the first boor who might happen along.
    What was past was past, people said; you couldn’t roll back time. Sins could be forgiven no matter what their severity, but could wounds really be healed … deep wounds, which left you emotionally shattered? And at what point did reconciliation become exploitation? Alan knew only one thing, though … after three weeks, it had been too long already. Way too long.
    Slowly, he ran his hand down her cold, flat belly ’til he reached the band of her panties. It didn’t stop him. He pushed his hand under and pressed on down. Still she gazed up at him, bewildered, injured. A moment later, he was running a single finger through her silky folds, already moist and warm. She finally reacted at that and tried to hit him. He caught her arm, however, and kissed her, crushing her body to his.
    Only a split-second passed before she responded fiercely, throwing her arms around his shoulders, reaching up on tip-toes in the lapping, sun-dashed water …
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    It was shortly after breakfast, when the group decided not to wait for those still out and about. The lure of the barrow was too strong. Whatever everyone was up to, the Professor said, it would be their loss.
    The final blockage of soil proved stubborn indeed. Presumably packed into place as a form of primitive cement for the portal-stone, it had been strengthened with pebbles and braced by wicker-work cross-pieces. The Professor, Nug, Clive and Barry each took turns to hack and cut at it with the pick and hand-axe, which in the cramped confines of the unlit tunnel became an ordeal in itself. As the outside temperature rose, so it rose inside the hole, until it was stifling and airless. What was worse, much of the impacted earth was so dry that, once disturbed, it tended to fill the air in a black, gritty fog. As someone remarked, between coughs and wheezes, “you’d be better wearing a gas-mask down there”.
    The entire thing entailed almost an hour of such strenuous, unrelenting work. But they kept at it, tirelessly, encouraged all the way by the sure knowledge that their goal was just within reach.
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    Alan and Linda lay together on a lush and springy mattress of marsh marigolds.
    They kissed deeply, hungrily, their tongues entwined, sinuous as serpents. Blissful, seemingly endless moments followed, broken only when it suddenly struck the girl that her briefs had now come off entirely and that she was completely naked in the arms of her former lover.
    â€œThis … this is wrong,” she moaned, trying half-heartedly to pull away from him.
    Alan refused to release her. “This is exactly the opposite of wrong. This is the way it should be, and you know it.”
    â€œWe can’t …”
    He ran his lips across her throat. “You want it and I want it. Who says we can’t?”
    It was too much for her. After several weeks of abstention, and the subsequent yearning desire, which the loyal, puppy-like presence of Barry had done nothing to dispel, the heated presence of the male she had shared her bed so rapturously with for