She whispered to him that she loved this valley, then looked up at Rowan, touched his face and closed her eyes for the final time. She was at peace.Gwenyth was there, only a few feet away, for Catherine had decided somewhere in the recesses of her mind that she had found in Gwenyth both an angel and a true friend.There had been nothing for Gwenyth to do but sit at Catherine’s side, as bidden. Not that she minded. There was something gratifying about being so needed and able to perform some small service for another human being in pain. There was equally something agonizing in it, finding such a trusting friendship with someone she was destined to lose so quickly.At the very end, Gwenyth had been pleased to see that Catherine had recognized Rowan and asked him to take her out into the countryside. Annie told Gwenyth that she’d seen such a change before, that, sadly, it often came right before death, a last shining reprieve before moving on to heaven, for surely there was nowhere else that such a sweet lady as Catherine might go.Rowan spent the weeks leading up to Catherine’s death in a cloud of rigid silence.
