It is early morning by the time Morse leaves the Nick. "Back to hospital to check on Miss Thursday," he thinks, wondering what comes next, what to say. As he enters the hospital, his thoughts reach back in time...to that dreadful night...

She was waiting on the stoop to his flat. They descended the stairs, entered the flat, she turned to face him, he looked into her eyes...

She had a black eye.

A flare of anger replaced the awkwardness he felt by having Miss Thursday in his flat...

...A black eye...made by the git he saw outside her flat, the one who removed his wedding band, unlocked the door and entered like he owned the place.

"Where is he?" he demanded.

"You don't understand." she replied.

"Where is he?"

"Morse, it was my fault. I provoked him."

"Don't say that."

Then she looked at him with her heart in her eyes and said "I've made a mess of everything."

"Go home." He said, knowing she needed a safe haven.

"I can't."

He looked at her, trying to decipher their spoken words. There was only one answer.

"Marry me." he heard himself say. Followed by silence. His heart on his sleeve. Vulnerable. Then he noticed a glimmer of hope on her face...was she going to say "Yes?" He stopped breathing. In that breathless moment he imagined a future for them...but as the silence stretched on, the image became clouded, moving just out of reach, hidden in the twisted branches of the overgrown forest of his heart, trying to untangle itself. Then she said "Morse, I don't want your pity."

Pity. Yes, he was pitiful.

A poem by Yeats came unbidden to his mind:

A pity beyond all telling

Is hid in the heart of love:

The folk who are buying and selling,

The clouds on their journey above,

The cold, wet winds ever blowing,

And the shadowy hazel grove

Where mouse-grey waters are flowing

Threaten the head that I love

Why didn't he follow her that night?

"Where are you going," he had asked her.

"To collect my things," she answered.

"You're not going back to him."

She shrugged and he knew the answer.

Morse is shocked backed to reality by an announcement over the hospital public address system. "Doctor Weiser, report to Fosteck Ward." He lifts his head and realizes he's standing outside Miss Thursday's room. Tall Doctor approaches him and says, with concern in his voice, "She is stable and improving." Morse nods, enters her room and drags a chair up to the bed. Exhausted, he sits and leans back against the bed, closing his eyes.

It is now 1:00 am.

The clock ticks out of time with the heart monitor, but both are steady.