““Where will you go? What will you do?" he demanded. "That need be no concern of yours--" "The hell it isn't!" he shouted. "Everything about you is my concern." She opened her mouth to deny this but the look of him stopped her. For a long tense moment he studied her and when he spoke his voice was low and furious and yearning. "I don't give a bloody damn if I never share your bed, your name, or your house -- you are still my concern. You can leave, take yourself from my ken, disappear for the rest of my life but you cannot untangle yourself from my -- my concern. That I have of you, Miss Bede, for that, at least, I do not need your permission." His words shocked her. She looked decades hence and she saw a specter of what might have been haunting her every moment, her every act, for the rest of her life. "Your concern is misplaced." "It's mine to misplace," he said steadily.””
