She heard a knock on her bedroom door. Sister Julienne was due to visit; and she had been tired so she had asked to receive her guest upstairs rather than downstairs in the sitting room. Lying on her side, facing away from the door, she called out; "Come in," softly.

She heard the door open, and gentle footsteps moving towards the chair at her bedside. Carefully, she rolled over onto her back and onto her other side, and nearly fell straight out of bed when she saw that her visitor was not Sister Julienne.

"Dr. Turner!" she exclaimed quietly, and tried to sit up as quickly as she could.

He for one looked distressed to have caused her such alarm.

"Don't do that," he told her gently, urging her to lie back down against her pillows, "It will only disorientate you if you sit up too quickly."

"Thank you," she told him once she had settled herself more comfortably, "I'm sorry I'm in bed like this. I would have got up if I'd known you were coming. I was expecting Sister Julienne."

"She's waiting downstairs," he informed her, "She-..."

"Not that I'm sorry to see you," she added hastily, cutting him off mid-sentence, thinking he might take affront at her reaction.

He was quiet for a moment, as if expecting more from her, and then finished what he had been trying to say before.

"She thought there were... certain things we might like to talk about. That we ought to talk about, she said. So she asked me if I'd drive her here, and I said I would be glad to."

"That was kind of you," she remarked, not looking up at him.

"I wanted to see you," he told her plainly.

When she was silent in reply, he asked her; "Do you know what she had in mind for us to talk about?"

Not that he did not have a fair idea himself; but part of him wanted to see what she would say, whether she would come straight out with it. And, quite to his surprise, she did.

"I read the letter you wrote to me," she told him, "I think it had something to do with that."

"I know you did," he replied, "Sister Julienne told me on the telephone before you'd woken up properly."

There was a long silence.

"Obviously, she couldn't tell me then what you thought of it," he continued, his voice strained with awkwardness and the blunt edge of hurt, "And she hasn't told me since. Sister, I didn't mean to offend or upset you by writing to you, truly I didn't."

"How could I have even thought that you did?" she asked him, "It was a wonderful letter. It was," she amended herself hastily, wondering if she had said too much, "Very kind."

He watched her closely but she would not look straight at him.

"I never wanted you to have to read it," he told her, "But I couldn't bear the thought of you... going with saying to you. Of you never knowing."

Then, she did look at him directly, though still timidly.

"Equally, though, Doctor," she told him, "You never meant me to read it and to survive."

"That is true," he replied, quite calmly, after a brief moment, "But just because I never intended it does not mean that I am grateful that that is what transpired, particularity when I think of... other eventualities," he finished rather weakly, "In fact, I quite prefer this way to the way I envisaged you would read the letter."

"That's not surprising," she told him with a small smile.

"No," he agreed, "Because this way you're still here."

The thought of it being any other way made him want to break down and weep; bury his head in his hands, her shoulder, kiss her hands, her beautiful face, and hold her to him. So, knowing that he could not, he returned her wan smile. Still, he felt his lips tremble a little.

Again, they were silent for a few moments. Her eyes broke away from him and looked out of the window, where bright light was pouring in, and falling on the foot of her bed. Her lips parted a little, as her concentration momentarily waned and then returned, as her focus fell back on him and, without meaning to, their eyes met more fully than they had done yet. Though for second the moment it created was a little confusing, it seemed to breathe a sense of conviction into him.

"Do you mind if I say something very blunt, Sister?" he asked her.

"That rather depends on what it is," she replied quietly, "Go on."

"The fact of the matter is that you did read the letter, and you did survive. What are we going to do about it?"

For a moment he thought he'd been too blunt, and she looked sharply away. After a moment, though, her eyes returned to his again, and she answered honestly, in little more than a whisper;

"I don't know."

It would have been foolish of him to expect her to know anything at this point.

"What do you want to do?" he asked her, and added, perceiving what her immediate response may be, "And, no, that isn't the same question."

"I still don't know," she repeated after a moment, "I'm sorry."

He shook his head gently.

"Please don't be sorry," he told her, "If there's anyone who ought to be sorry then it's me. I didn't really expect you to know what you want."

"Do you know what you want, Doctor?" she asked him, "Now that I'm still here?"

He nodded.

"Yes," he murmured, "But it would be unfair of me to ask it of you."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment. That was all she needed to know in order to be able to guess.

"I need time," she told him, very carefully, "I need time to think."

"Of course," he told her, "Of course you do. And you have it. It would be wrong of me to force your hand in any way."

Her eyes opened ad slowly met his. Exchanging another look, it seemed he was spurred on to boldness once more, and, his eyes never leaving hers, he told her;

"I know I shouldn't say this to you, Sister, and I must ask God to forgive me for it. But I've wanted you for so long, I can wait a little longer."

The words, those words, spoken in his voice- his beautiful voice, she thought- which such steady feeling and gentle resonance, seemed somehow to pierce her through the skin, deep through her veins, down to her very self, her soul. For a moment they took her breath away and her lips parted open a little in the sudden surge of raw emotion. She blinked, gazing back into his eyes once more. Her fingers were simultaneously cold on top of the bedspread and filled with the semblance of fire that flooded her blood in that moment.

"I've wanted you too," she whispered back, unable to look away, in the mad honesty that had taken over her mind, "More than I could hope to say. God forgive me."