I am free, you see," she said, "to love or to withhold love. Love and dependence need no longer be the same thing to me. I am free to love. that is why I love you and it is the way I love you. If you have come here, Kit, because you think you owe me something, because you believe I might crumble without your protection, then go away again with my blessing and find happiness with someone else." "I love you," he said again.
Mary BaloghAnd he knew at that moment that love world never die, that it would never fade away altogether. The time might come when he would meet and marry someone else. He might even be reasonably happy. But there would always be a deep precious place in his heart that belonged to his first real love.
Mary BaloghSuddenly, and for the first time, he was at the center of his own life, living it and loving it.
Mary BaloghBut only a person in the depths of despair neglected to look beyond winter to the spring that inevitably followed, bringing back color and life and hope.
Mary Balogh