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She wondered if he had forgotten the unguarded moments in the wood. "I don't think I want to sleep just yet." She had to gain time in which to frame the question. "How did you know where to find me?" she said at last.

He was silent so long that she thought he wasn't going to tell her. "I was wondering when you were going to ask that." He pulled a May and Baker diary out of his pocket.

For a moment she didn't recognise it as hers.

"I'm sorry." He put it on the arm of the couch.

Slowly it dawned on her what this meant. "You read it?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

"It seemed the only way." His face was expressionless.

"All of it?"

"Enough."

In the silence that followed she could hear the grandfather clock in the hall. Outside, she thought she heard shrieks of delight. Surely it couldn't be toboggans at this hour of the night?

"Please don't be embarrassed, Miss Leigh. It was very touching. And it did make it possible for us to find you - in time." His voice was strained.

How could she avoid being embarrassed when he himself patently found it difficult to go on?

"I, too, know what it feels like when the magic breaks through." He still had his back to heir. "You can have no idea what it's like to see it recorded in the other person's hand."

For a moment she couldn't take in what the words implied.

"I know, of course, you didn't mean them like that," he said levelly.

"Like what?" She managed to find the words.

"The way I did." The muscles in his jaw were taut. "I'm afraid I allowed my feelings to run away with me just then. However, since I've started I may as well finish."

She had to sit sideways to see his profile now.

"I think I began to fall in love with you that first day in my office, when you wouldn't take no for an answer about the job."

She went on looking at him, unable to believe what he was saying.

"There was one thing you said at that interview which was true." He was still staring out of that window. "I was unjust - not for withholding the central residency, but for giving you the one at Fenham. I knew it would be difficult. I couldn't have guessed how dangerous it would become."

She heard all the words. Only one thing stood out. He had said that he loved her. Happiness grew and mushroomed inside her. This was what it felt like when dreams came true. "Darling." It came out with difficulty. She had imagined herself saying it so often. She'd never guessed it would be so hard.

"No, don't say anything, Lesley. Please. You'll only be kind."

("Darling, darling, not you too!") She held out her hands to him and he came and took them in his.

"I'm not hurt, my dear. I know you can't love me. You admire me - you've given me ample evidence of that. I suppose it's natural in a way that you should. You've lost your own father. I'm the authority figure. I've achieved some of the ambitions which you've set for yourself." He smiled crookedly down at her. "I'm afraid I don't know the current term for a 'crush'." He replaced her hands on her lap. This time when he continued he was staring into the fire. "I shouldn't have let my tongue rim away with me. You've been through quite enough for one day." He moved to the bell push.

"No, not yet," she said quickly. "Please." And when he turned, she lay back on the cushions and took a deep breath. She loved him. She knew the truth of her feelings. But she had to find the words with which to convince him. She began to talk quietly as though she were changing the subject.

"It happened for me on my twenty-first birthday. My mother had just given me the gold watch." She glanced down at the expensive slim band on her left wrist. "My father was furious with the showroom. They'd let him down over the delivery of the Mini. It was to have been a birthday surprise - a blue one, he said, to match the colour of my eyes. I was on top of the world." She spoke to the well-loved grey eyes. "At twelve noon, as usual, I was in the front row of the lecture theatre. You walked in for the first time and started lecturing on diabetes." She paused. "I thought I'd never seen or heard anyone like you before."

He nodded as though it was what he had expected.

"That was almost three years ago." She chose her words carefully. "Since then a lot of things have altered for me. I've lost both my father and mother." Her voice was low. "Nothing and no one has caused me to change my mind about you."

She might just as well have given her explanations to a brick wall. He refused to believe her. "I loved my father." She forced herself to go on. "What I feel for you isn't like that. I fooled myself, too, that it was only hero-worship. There was the morning I arrived outside the Dean's office at four in the morning to be sure of heading the queue to sign on for your clinic. When I qualified they told me I'd never get a job in one of your units. Your secretary at St. Kentigern's kept me at arm's length for weeks. She wouldn't even let me make an appointment to see you. But I studied your movements - and hers. There was one blank hour when the inner office was unguarded."

A log fell on to the hearthstone. Sir Charles Hope-Moncrieff made no move to pick it up.

"And when I started at Fenham I still tried to tell myself that I was like everyone else - that I worshipped the ground you walked on. On my second day here we met on the moor." Slowly his eyes came up to meet hers. "I knew before I turned round that the footstep was yours. It's always been the same for me." For a moment she thought she wouldn't be able to go on with him looking at her like that. "I couldn't pretend to myself any longer that it could ever be Jim or anyone else. When you walk in, the world takes a couple of turns and comes right side up."

"But you can't love me like that." He sat down slowly on the edge of the couch.

"I love you all the ways there are, for a woman to love the only man -" Her voice broke.

His arms had tightened around her before she had finished speaking.

It was several moments before either of them spoke again. At last he raised his head.

"Darling. You mean you will marry me?"

She nodded, unable to speak now.

"And you're sine you won't mind too much giving up some of it?"

"I expect I shall - sometimes," she admitted honestly. "But I was never much good at compromising with the second best." She grinned at him. "And you? What about the great distraction? Isn't it just as bad for the dedicated man with his eyes set on the heights?" She drew a finger lovingly down the line of his face.

He caught her hand and held it to his lips for a moment. "They were all ways of putting in time," he said wonderingly, "while I was waiting for you to turn up. I never knew how empty life could be till I thought I had almost lost you." He held her close to him. "Why did you turn down my S.H.O. post?" he asked at last.

"That was for Jim's sake. No, it wasn't love," she said quickly. "It was such a marvellous chance for him. I knew he wouldn't stay around if I were still here - and I had hurt him enough."

"And I thought it was because you wanted to leave me." He pressed her cheek to his.

Next time he looked in her eyes it was with the old gentle teasing. "I told you women lacked the right brand of ruthlessness."

"Ruthlessness?" she said dreamily, burying her face against his coat.

"The ability to put their own best interest before other people's," he murmured into her hair.

"Perhaps they don't really have any choice."

"That's what I mean, darling." He turned her face up to his.

It was some time later, when they drew apart from their kiss, that she put her head on one side and teased him with her eyes.

"Professor Moncrieff," she said softly, cupping his face in her hands, "do you still think it's a pity that I'm not a man?"