Eliza lifted her chin.
‘I seem to remember you accused me of meddling.’
He would take her hand if he dared, but his courage failed him at the last moment.
‘I’m sorry for those words, but I now know that you are much wiser than I on matters of the heart.’
Now she turned to him.
‘And are not most things connected to the heart?’
‘Yes, yes, they are, and I fear that our guest is not giving herself the chance to heal her heart because she is leaving someone who is becoming very fond of her.’
‘You are talking of Lance.’
‘Yes.’
‘And you know this how?’
‘I can’t help but hear things, Eliza; conversations on the telephone between Jules and Carrie and I may just have happened to be at The Pottery when she told Lance that she is leaving.’
At last, he had aroused her curiosity.
‘You, at The Pottery? How did you get there? Did you walk?’
‘I may have secreted myself in the back of Carrie’s automobile.’
Her eyes widened.
‘Isaac, you didn’t?’
He nodded, gave her a tentative smile.
‘Did it go very fast?’
‘Like the wind racing in from the sea on a winter’s day.’
‘How thrilling! I wish I had been there.’
For a moment she was his Eliza again, full of wonder and courage.
‘Lance has waited so long for the right person…’ he said.
‘And you think Jules is the right person?’
She was testing him.
‘W-w-well,’ he stuttered. ‘I wonder if she might be. She cried all the way back to the cottage and why would she do that if she was not the one for him and he for her? But you are so much better at this sort of thing. Maybe I’ve misunderstood?’
She was mollified. He could see it in her eyes.
‘No, Isaac, you have not.’
‘But she is afraid to love him. She is afraid of becoming too attached to Erin, to Tasha, to the island. She is running away from a wealth of wonderful possibilities.’
‘And you think that keeping her here for a little longer may help?’
He nodded.
