Neil became awake by degrees of growing consciousness of his own discomfort. He wanted to keep dreaming. He had been dreaming of a time when he was very young, when Giulia was still alive, and when he had thought he had known what it meant to feel safe. But no matter how many times he tried to slip back into the dream world, the hot dampness of his surroundings and the ache in his head reminded him, naggingly, of reality. Finally he surrendered, and opened his eyes. The window. If he opened it, maybe the heat would stop.

He sat up, frail and trembling. The room spun wildly around him. It was some time in the night. Candles were lit, and the curtains were drawn.

"Open the window."

His wife did not heed his cry. He turned his head, throbbing, towards where she always sat when he was ill, in the chair by his bed.

She was sleeping. She was slumped over the bed, her dark head resting on her arms, her pale face hidden.

"Hey," he croaked. "Open the window."

But she would not wake. Her chest swelled silently in and out. She held a rag in one hand, that she must have been using to wipe his brow. He went to shake her awake, and hesitated. How long had she been there? As long as he had been sick. And he had been sick – four days? Five? For he had been sick. After returning from Lady Duvalle's, he had come down with the vicious cold that was circling the village. It had knocked his frail health to its knees again, and brought his wife to her knees beside it.

He let her sleep on, and struggled his way out of the fever-damp bed. When he managed at last to get out of the tangle of sheets, he sank slowly to the floor on impotent knees.

He sat there for a while, catching his breath. It was better there. He was out of the sticky dampness of his own sweat. A draft came along the floor, and cooled his aching limbs. Finally, he managed to stand, and totter over to the French window. His hands fumbled blindly with the latch, and the window opened, and he stumbled out onto the balcony, and only caught himself on the balustrade.

"That was very silly," he reproved himself, and realized he was a little out of mind right now. He sank down on the floor of the balcony, and rested his head against the stone wall. The night wind cooled his cheeks. The raging fire within him began to flutter out, and the pounding in his head dulled.

What had he been dreaming about? Giulia. He tried to remember the dream, but it had vanished on him. All he knew was that she had been there, and that he could not go back to her.

She was gone. He had nothing of her but his childhood memories of Florence, and the times she appeared in dreams, and the vaguest, vaguest threads of memory that swelled and subsided within him. A memory swelled. He had kept Giulia's things, he had brought them to England, if they could help him remember... He launched himself off the floor, feeling weak, but as though most of the fever had been emptied from him, and swayed back into the room.

Verity was still sleeping, half on his bed, half in her chair. She had not moved.

He went on past her, and past the bed, to the japanned cabinet where he had kept his things from Italy. He knew it, as though he had never forgotten. Giulia's dresses, they were -

He stared in confusion at the empty shelves. There was nothing in them, but a greenish silver dress, sloppily folded, some jewellery boxes, books, and a few mementos. For a moment, he thought his memory was at fault again. He could clearly recall dozens of gowns in all colours. Perhaps he had not stored them here – perhaps.

He burned them.

The clarity of the memory convinced him that it was true, the flames leaping up over the burgundy silk, the violet muslin, yellow ribbons, and all. He had burned his wife's dresses, all of them, but for the green and silver. He pulled it out now, and draped it over his lap. For a moment, he could recall Giulia wearing it, dancing – and then the woman in the dress was not Giulia, but Verity. She had worn it. That night. That first night.

The memory was vague and incomplete. But he knew the result: he had burned his wife's dresses, after seeing a living woman in one of them.

Clumsily, he folded the dress and pushed it back on the shelf. There was an ache at the back of his throat that had nothing to do with fever. He swallowed and breathed out slowly. He didn't regret burning them. On the contrary, he was grateful that his past self, in that time he could not remember, had had the strength to do so. He doubted his current self would have been so courageous.

He pushed the doors of the cabinet shut. There was a book on the floor. It must have fallen out with the dress. He stared at it. Didone Abandonata. The libretto of the opera. One of the final lines came dancing out of his memory, clear and firm as the ground beneath him:

E folgori e saette, e turbini e tempeste rendano l'aure e l'onde a lui funeste. Vada ramingo e solo; e la sua sorte così barbara sia, che si riduca ad invidiar la mia.

"And to him make fatal the lightning and thunderbolts, the wind and storm, the gale and waves. Alone let him stray; let his misfortune be so great that mine own envies it." He laughed, until he began to cough. He had been reading this, yes, the day he had driven to that fatal ship. And the wind and the rain, and all else, had been fatal to him.

"I would rather your misfortune than mine," he remarked, to the sleeping figure in the chair. She did not stir. "You at least know what yours is."

He picked up the book, and flipped through it, trying to find the passage. It fell open to the middle, however, and two pages stuck up stiffly.

He parted them carefully. Paper crinkled and tore. A thinner sheet dropped to his knees.

His heart lurched suddenly. It had nothing to do with fever, and nothing to do with opera. A feeling of anger and hopelessness flooded him – and fear. He picked up the letter with shaking hands. He had written on both sides of the paper, and cross-form, to save space. It took him time to decipher his own writing, and when he did, he read it, as though it had been written by a stranger.

Dear Verity,

I'm going to get this all wrong. This is only a letter and I need to talk to you. I really must talk to you. But knowing I'm going to get it all wrong, please read it anyway.

I'll start with the accusation: that I kissed Jane. My defence: I plead guilty, and beg forgiveness. I was a fool. I was lustful, and prideful. I believed she loved me, and I enjoyed the idea of it – not because I have affection for her – but because I am a fool who thinks himself the better for enticing women's hearts. I did it, and I was wrong to do it. If you fear it was anything more than that, please believe me when I say it was not. It was only that one kiss, and I do not, and never have loved her. Do you understand my weakness for what it was, then? Not the unfaithfulness of a lustful or amorous man, but the unfaithfulness of a vain one. You might argue it makes no difference. I certainly have insulted you beyond measure, trivialized your affection for me, attempted to make a game of love. I'm sorry. I cannot apologise enough. But I have never lusted or loved Jane. I have not given my affections to her. You own my affections in their entirety.

And so I must tell you the depth of that entirety.

Ours was never intended to be a marriage of love. Ours was a marriage of compromise. Intentions go fortunately astray. I know how you love me. I have known for a long time, in the tone of your voice, and the touch of you hand. I believe you love me still, though you have sent me away without a word. You would not be hurting so greatly if you did not. Verity, please, believe me when I say I am sorry. My heart hurts for having hurt you. And my heart-

I wish I could tell you this is person. I would stammer and stutter and you would make me feel a fool, but a letter is so inadequate a vessel for sentiment. It isn't enough. I don't know how to – I will try again. I will abandon the poetry. I am no good at it, and it is not as apt as plain, undressed truth:

I love you.

I know I said I never could love again, but I do. I love you. Verity, I love you, I love you, I love you. Can you believe me? That I love you, and that I'm sorry? Can you forgive me my transgression, and accept my feeling? It came upon me so slowly, and so strangely, that I did not know what it was at first – but, perhaps it was not slow at all. I loved you, at least a little bit, from the moment I saw you standing by my window at dawn. And it kept growing greater, from then on. I didn't know. I only ever knew what it was to love passionately, to love with the energy of youth, and that energy is spent, and now I have only the quietness of age. I did not recognize it for what it was.

I should have known when we first made love that I loved you. You were so eager and I – I blamed my affection on appetite. You can call it a man's appetite for carnal delights. And I did, always, lust after you. But that was different. By then it was love, and I was blind, and could not see it as such. Perhaps it was my pride. I sometimes thought I was betraying Giulia by marrying you so quickly after her death. I hope it doesn't wound you that I still love her. I didn't know that a heart was capable of loving twice, in the same space. I do love you. After I kissed Jane – which I repeat, though it wounds me, and wounds you too, because I know I was wrong, and am begging you to understand, and forgive if you can, the extent of my transgression – I sat on the steps of our house – our house, not mine – our home – and I despaired at myself. I knew I was going to have to tell you. I didn't know you'd seen. I have never hated myself so much, nor loved you more. I knew then, that it was love. I knew too late. I'd cast all manner of excuses upon it, given it all sorts of nicknames, but only love could hurt that much, only knowing that I had betrayed the one I loved.

Don't disbelieve me. I beg of you. I shall return in three months, and repeat these words: I love you. I have always loved you. And then I'll marry you – if you'll have me. Please, my love, marry me. Forgive me, and marry me, and love me. This must be the third or forth time I've asked you. But it's the first time I'm asking because I love you. Because I love you, and you love me, can we forgive each other, and be married – a real husband and wife? I want to love you for the rest of my life. I shall love you, regardless – but I want to love you in happiness, under the bonds of matrimony.

We did not meet each other in happiness; let us go now together into it, and stay there together until we die.

With all my heart,

Neil

He had loved her.

He was crying. He wiped the tears from his eyes, but they kept welling up, and it was a long time before his vision was sharp enough to read the letter again. It didn't change the second time, but now he noticed phrases that gave him more comfort than hurt. And now he realized that she had never read it – likely, had never known it was there. Vaguely, he recalled pressing the letter between the pages – foolish, foolish, how utterly foolish of him!

He got to his feet, and walked over on his still trembling knees to look at her. She turned her face in her sleep, and he saw how tired she was, and his heart ached.

He had loved her.

And despite everything, he could not remember what it was to love her. The woman sleeping before him was as though a stranger. A beautiful stranger, who all too clearly adored him – an adoration that frightened him, until now, because he did not know whence it came.

He sat on the bed and watched her sleep. It seemed impossible that she could sleep, in such a position, between the chair and the bed, but she must have been too exhausted to feel any consciousness of the discomfort.

"You should go to bed," he said softly. "And let me hire a nurse."

She did not stir. The natural thing to do would have been to wake her, and show her the letter. He realized now that she had never known that he loved her. Loveless, she persevered in adoring him. Loveless, she had carried his child, and stayed by his side, and held on tight. Loveless, she had loved him.

But he couldn't tell her. He could not bear to tell her he had once loved her – when that love was lost long ago. It was too, too cruel. It was better for her to believe she was never loved, than know what she had lost.

She moved in her sleep, and he made up his mind.

~~

A/N: I guess this is the chapter everyone's been waiting for. Finally Neil gets the letter. Finally, finally, finally. I'm also curious - when people say this book made them cry, do they mean actually, or is it just hyperbole? I'm hanging out to bring someone to tears, proper tears, and I'm pretty sure this chapter was my best shot at it.