It was a busy time of year, made more so by helping at the Corrigans’ harvest: it wasn’t as easy as it had been to get away. Her low spirits at Gortalassa had not revived, although they did a little when, behind the loose stone in the wall at the ruins, she found a note that gave directions of how to get to Shelhanagh House. Come any day you can. Come any time, the message was, on the back of a map, in handwriting she had not known before. The ease with which all this happened - the note written, the directions given, the map drawn, his wanting her to come to the house he talked so much about - gave Ellie more than hope, restoring something at least of what had been taken from her on the slopes of Gortalassa. It had not before been suggested that she should make the journey he suggested now, and she wondered if it could be that for some reason everything was suddenly different. That the sale of the house had fallen through. That the people buying it had made a mistake or, when they calculated, didn’t have the money.
