Close to My Heart — Margaret Nichols

She had seen him first when he came into the dining room to lunch. He was tall and fair with strong shoulders and a face not handsome, but arresting.
‘I don't want anyone to help me,' he said.
But she knew that she wanted to help him in every possible way; that she loved him and that he loved her, but that helping was a different matter from just loving someone. He had to learn to believe in himself, to trust her.
There was another man who loved her and being married to him would have been easy and pleasant. Only she simply could not do it; she had to find out if her love, in peace, was stronger than what the war had done.
In this tender, unusual story of a woman who wagers the power of her love against the world that was, Mrs. Nichols, author of Always With Me, etc., has written her best romance.