‘It’s called hope,’ Trevor smiled. ‘Ronnie’s given her something to look forward to. To be honest, I’m amazed. I never thought of him as the type to sweep a girl off her feet. Figuratively, that is,’ he added as he saw the irony in the idea of sweeping a consumptive off her feet when she was already lying in a hospital bed. ‘And then again, knowing Ronnie, I never imagined he’d fall in love with anyone. Like Laura I always assumed that any marriage he made would be a merger.’ ‘I think Maud’s still reeling from the shock.’ If Evan could have afforded to send Maud to a kinder climate in the hope of effecting a cure without Ronnie coming into the equation, he would have. He had no doubts whatsoever about the depth or sincerity of Ronnie’s love for Maud: the man’s actions spoke volumes on that score. But Maud’s feelings for Ronnie were something else. She was so bound up in the hope of finding a cure and the excitement at actually travelling to a foreign country that she hadn’t given a single thought to marriage, or what it entailed, let alone what marriage to a man like Ronnie might mean.
