"He was," she said softly. More tears spilled and she began to cry in earnest, covering her face with her hands. Lands, but she was so beyond the point of any return at that time and the carefully contracted wall that held in her grief and mortification topple. She didn't cry loudly, she sobbed quietly in her seat for several long moments before she could even come up with a form of reply.

"No, he didn't do wrong. It would have been a mistake to marry me and he left me because I am not over me Harold. I don't begrudge him." And it was true, Freddy was a good man, but marrying him would have been bad. "Me brother thinks I am bad for even entertainin' another man so soon after Harold died and made it clear he wants nothin' to do with me now." She pulled out a hanky from the inside pocket of her sweater, revealing her sunday best dress.

"I rent me home, but I could buy it if I wished." Harold had been a doctor after all.