[Little wonder Robert took to the girl so well - he was just as sentimental as she was. Unfortunately at the moment, she was rather incisive too, and showing very fine instincts for a girl who had been raised in isolation in a tower. Rosalind took her time in answering - it was hardly the sort of quastion one could rush into addressing.]

Worry is a waste of time. [She still isn't looking at Elizabeth as she answers, and certainly that is telling enough, the way she studies the middle distance with lidded eyes.] I cannot imagine a way he could be taken from me that I, with sufficient forethought, might prevent.

[She almost leaves it at that - another incomplete answer, another enigma. But then, on some silent and unspoken impulse, she does not.]

I find it difficult to imagine life without him, though.