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remnants had clearly found a living to their liking. Walking along, lost in thought, he was overtaken by a girl who passed hurriedly.
    Although she was dressed in a nondescript blouse and a billowing skirt, something familiar about her form made him hurry to catch up. Who was she? Blonde hair pushed up inside a pretty cap — yes! “Catherine!”
    She stopped and turned. He saw by her colouring that she was stricken with astonishment. “You came back!” How could he have forgotten that fraught night? He had been given shelter by her worthy parents, and offered padding next to the Garretts’ dying fire, on that one and only visit. Something had made him open his eyes, and he had become aware of a singular presence enfolding him as he lay. He looked up and by candlelight saw her face, very close to his, closer in fact than any young lady had ever been.
    “Ssh,” Catherine had murmured, finger to lips.
    She had leaned in close, so close he felt the feather touch of her light hair as her cheek brushed his, sending tingles down his spine. “I heard my brothers talking. Laughing and joking. Long into the night. At the general store, there’s a notice about Navy deserters. They’ve decided you could be one of them.”
    James had tried to absorb it all.
    She leaned in, looking deeply into his eyes. “You have to go, I fear.”
    Befuddled, James began to gather himself. But she hadn’t moved. Their two faces, poised, began to merge. He reached out and pulled her close. For one exquisite moment, their lips met. It seemed to him that her whole life went into this touch; for one delicious instant he felt his being joining with hers.
    She broke away, flustered, and went to unbar the door. He gathered his coat and his pouch and hurried out.
    Had it not been for Catherine’s quick thinking, he might now be under the grass in the New Carlisle cemetery. The memory of her late-night kiss set his cheek burning once again. He had said then that he would return, a promise he was now keeping.
    “Oh yes,” he said, “did I not make a promise?”
    “Two years is hardly keeping a promise.” James winced. “But Catherine, now that I remember, was it not you who made the promise?”
    She blushed and dropped her eyes. “I... don’t remember.” She walked on and he quickly fell in beside her.
    “So what are you doing here?” she asked.
    “Coming to see you, of course. Why else would I venture into this den of iniquity?”
    “What rubbish,” she joked, with a slight edge.
    “Yes,” he murmured, “rubbish... of course.”
    They walked on for a few moments, in silence. She was even prettier than two years ago, slimmer, having shed some of her baby fat. Surely, even a match for the lovely Sorrel. Lovely complexion, no doubt, and such a sturdy body.
    “And what makes you so hasty?”
    “I had brought two dozen eggs to sell,” she held out the empty basket, “and now I am hurrying home to help Mama with her supper.”
    There was a pause as they hurried on.
    “Pray won’t you join us,” she invited at last. “I’m sure my mother and father would be only too pleased to see you again.” But there was something in her tone that James could not quite fathom.
    “By all means, thank you,” he replied brightly. “I have thought for a long time of your splendid family with great affection, and have anxiously awaited this return.”
    “Not so anxiously as to return in good time,” she replied tartly.
    Now how could he answer that? Something was amiss. What should he make of “in good time”? “I was hard at work constructing my meagre dwelling and trying to clear land for an eventual farm.”
    “Good for you,” she countered, less than effusively. He wondered what would happen when her brothers gathered from their fields for the evening meal. “How are your brothers?” he asked, in a roundabout way of reminding her of their adolescent treachery.
    “Working very hard now,” she replied. “You know, they were properly