The physic garden had always been one of his favourite places. He enjoyed its scents and its spectacle, its tranquillity and its history, its unique expression of the seasons. Usually a walk through its grounds was a tonic for his worries. But not today. He had been feeling unsettled for weeks. Since the publication of his Legacy of the Germanic Peoples, with its jacket photograph of himself and Nicole, guilt had washed over him and the tide would not recede. He recalled Nicole opening the book for the first time, the smile sliding off her face as she saw her image staring back at her. At first it had shocked her into paralysis. And then the anger exploded out of her. She ripped the book in two, flung away the torn halves, and launched herself at him with a scream. How had he ever justified such a spectacularly selfish decision? The terrible irony was that he loved Nicole even more now than on the day of their wedding, yet with that one act he had blithely broken every promise he had made to her, had reduced the beliefs that framed her into a child’s fantasy, a stale bogeyman ripe for euthanasia.
