Iris tended Marisol’s garden, reflecting on small signs of life after days spent burying the dead. Attie found Iris and told her Roman had been discharged from the infirmary but looked broken in spirit. Concerned, Iris went to Roman’s dim room, where he lay pale and withdrawn, and persuaded him to get some sun and go to their hill.

Roman agreed and, using a crutch, walked with Iris. As they climbed, Iris answered the personal questions from Roman’s last letter—her tastes, favorite season, love of tea, and her middle name, Elizabeth. Roman reciprocated with his preferences and listened eagerly as Iris shared a childhood story about her pet snail. Their conversation shifted to deeper feelings when Roman confessed he had left his engagement, quit his job, defied his father, and followed Iris to be with her, saying he wanted a life with her.

When Iris, moved and teasing, asked if this was a proposal, Roman, serious, asked whether she would say yes. Iris suggested he ask and find out. He began to kneel in the street, but pain made him wince as blood appeared on his injured leg—he had pulled a stitch.

Iris helped Roman to a nearby yard, despite his allergy to the cats lounging there, and seated him on a milk crate. She ran to fetch Peter with his lorry. They returned to find Roman still waiting, now with a cat in his lap, and then transported him back for care and rest rather than returning to the overburdened infirmary.

That evening, Iris and Roman resumed their wardrobe correspondence from adjacent rooms. Iris raised two matters that kept her up at night: she settled their prior playful debate by choosing Knight Errant, and they agreed the other matter—the interrupted proposal—must be done in person. Iris proposed meeting in the garden the next day and told Roman he could officially ask her then; Roman agreed.