An olive-eyed man and a flaxen-haired girl stood at the summit of Chestnut Hill.

"So now you know the story," said the man. He brushed back the dark wisps of hair that had fallen in front of his eyes.

"That is such an awesome love story, Dad," said his daughter.

"Yes it is, and when your grandmother died a few years ago I told myself that one day I would bring you back here to tell it to you. They got married not long after that...they came back to England, back to Pendleton Hall and had a small ceremony in Maberley Church...I think Corporal Sanderson ended up being the Best Man. Your Auntie Megan was born around a year later; then came your Uncle Griffith; and then me. They had a house built by the lake for the family so that the Wentworth-Lillies could keep the main house running as a hotel; just as it is today: your Auntie Meg lives in the lake-house and keeps the big house running as a hotel. Your grandmother told me that it was only years later that she realised that had Josef Steiger not come across her in Sweden, then she would never have been able to return to my father."

"That's got to be the best 'happy-ever-after' I've ever heard. I mean, after all they went through...spanning around four or five different countries too!"

"Yes...well, they had their arguments like any married couple, but I always remember them being the ultimate united front while I was growing up. And they still are, really, being buried together here."

They turned to the two gravestones behind them, positioned side by side under the tree.

"Your grandmother always told us that story when we were children. She told it often, and always in exactly the same way, like she was reading it from a book in her head. She was adamant that we all told it to you grandkids some day," he said as the two began to make their way down the hill.

"It's not written anywhere. Neither my mother nor my father ever kept a diary or anything, so it was never written down. It needs to be passed on for that reason. I never met most of the people in that story; I don't know what they looked like or how they sounded. Their names would simply scatter to the wind if it weren't for that story, which is why I've told it to you. Perhaps you could write it down...I know you love all your journalism stuff."

"Yeah...alright, Dad, I will. I'll write it down."

They reached the bottom of the hill and headed around the lake to the house.

"What could the title be?" asked the man.

The girl thought briefly, before responding: "The Prisoner of Pendleton."

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THE END

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