"Thank you, Ruth."

Edward said to the young woman before she left. All that she had said held the ring of truth to it, the advice was well-meaning and delivered in earnest. It was of the sort where he wished it was an easy thing to ally the mind with the heart. As it stood he stayed in his room long into the night, his thoughts running in circles until sleep finally overcame him. For the first time in a long while, he found that his sleep was peaceful and undisturbed by dreams.

The following morning he found himself feeling more energized than he had in quite some time. Not the manic energy that occasionally possessed him when some new idea for an experiment took him, but the energy of a man who was prepared to face the day. He bathed, shaved, and dressed himself. When he was finished he looked into the mirror and frowned at what he saw.

Ruth's words flashed through his mind once again and he remembered what his last thoughts had been before sleep had claimed him. It had been what she had said but not her voice, it had been in the voice of his departed wife. He'd realized something by running in circles, that this was not what she would have wanted for him. That Ruth had said what his wife would have said if she'd found him in that state and that... It didn't change things entirely, he still felt the loss like an aching hole in his heart. But the guilt had eased, it no longer added a knife to the ache that kept the hole from healing. He was not yet better, but for the first time, he thought there was a chance he might actually be able to move on.

With that thought, he called for Mister Lane and he asked the butler to arrange something. The man was surprised but he made arrangements and by the early afternoon, for the first time in more than a year, Edward's hair was cut. The long mass of unruly curls was trimmed back short and neat. Combined with him having shaved he looked nearly like a new man as he decided to head out into the garden for some fresh air to fortify himself.