Awakening by Maud Diver

"O greying of my dawn, suspiring into rose: O grey veils of dusk, that obscure the tender flushing of my dawn! " -- FIONA McLEOD.

At a small deal table, set across the oval window of her third-floor bedroom, Audrey Hammond sat writing. It was the selfsame corner room where they had all drunk tea with Signor Martino in the far-off beginning of things. And now -- only four days ago, they had been shocked and saddened by a letter from Broome announcing his death. It transpired that sooner than miss Nevil's hour of triumph, he had come straight from a sick-bed, in defiance of doctor and sister. And within two weeks the most murderous month in the English calendar had done its work.