YET NOTHING connected with money was easy, Warren discovered. When he drove up to the bank in Digby to try to borrow on his mother’s estate, he found that Jane’s signature would be needed. The best thing, he decided reluctantly, was to call up his aunt’s husband in Savannah. The old man, as the executor, was still pottering around, paying the debts and the taxes, but he certainly ought to be able to advance Warren something on his share of the principal. Warren got a pocketful of change and settled himself in the payphone booth in the Digby drugstore. As usual, the circuits were busy, and the first connection was bad. Then his aunt’s husband, when Warren could finally hear him, was not much nicer than Miles. In his mock-courteous Southern style, his uncle wondered that Warren should be in such a hurry to get his mother’s little bit of money, when he had not troubled to hurry to her funeral. Warren, his uncle observed, was quick enough to use the long-distance today, but when his mother died, a little old night letter had been good enough.
Warren had grown up on his aunt’s husband’s obscure sarcasms, which had been aimed at his artistic tendencies, and he now felt like a boy again, charged with crimes he was not aware of having committed. “Night letter?” he cried, over the humming of the wires. “I don’t know what you mean, Uncle Chet.” He ransacked his memory. “Jane sent a telegram.” “Your aunt got a night letter,” Warren’s uncle retorted. “Seemed to us you might have telephoned, instead of waiting all that time.” “There must have been a mistake,” yelled Warren. He would have to ask Jane about it when he got home. But then he remembered that he could not ask her: he could not let her know that he had talked with his uncle. “Why didn’t Aunt May mention this when I was down there?” he piteously wanted to know. He was fond of his aunt, and it desolated him to think that she had been harboring a grudge against him. “She didn’t want words at the funeral,” replied his uncle. “Tell her there was a mistake,” pleaded Warren. These misunderstandings had been typical of his boyhood, as the only child of a widowed lady, with cousins and in-laws ceaselessly putting their oar in to trouble the waters. It was this very uncle, childless himself, who had decreed that Warren should go to military school. These memories, of bafflement and helplessness, made Warren nearly drop in the phone booth.
“Uncle Chet,” he cried. “Listen. Forget about that, just for a minute. I have to have some money, right away.” “What you need it for?” his uncle’s voice came sharply. It was the same trigger-tone that Warren could remember, from thirty-five years ago, when Warren had asked his mother for extra pocket-money to buy, it was revealed, drawing materials. He had lacked the gall to lie and say he wanted a baseball mitt or any of the manly articles that his in-law would have approved of. “I can’t tell you,” he said now. “But it’s awfully important. A matter of life and death, just about.” His uncle made a dissatisfied sound. “You’ll have to give me more than that to go on, Warren,” he said grudgingly. “I’ve got my duty to the estate. I’m not going to go and sell shares just to please you.” “You could borrow from the bank,” argued Warren. “You got banks up there, I suppose,” said his uncle, satirically. “Your mother always claimed you married a wealthy woman.” “I can’t tell Jane,” said Warren, instinctively lowering his voice. “What’s that?” said his uncle. “I can’t tell Jane,” repeated Warren, as loudly as he dared. “It’s a private matter. There’s a girl up here, a friend of mine, in trouble.”
“In trouble?” exclaimed his uncle. “You mean . . . ?” “Yes,” desperately cried Warren. There was a silence. Then a dry chuckle came from the other end of the line. “Well, well,” said his uncle. “I didn’t think you had it in you, Warren. I guess you’ve reached the dangerous age.” “It’s not me, Uncle Chet,” protested Warren. “No, no,” chuckled his uncle. “It was two other fellows, I suppose. No call to apologize. I won’t let on to your aunt. How much do you need?” Warren reflected. It was up to him, he saw, to accept his uncle’s mistake. “Five hundred dollars,” he said bravely. “You better make it seven.” “Sounds like you’re being blackmailed,” commented his uncle. “No,” said Warren. “Oh, no. This girl is what you’d call a lady, Uncle Chet. Things are more expensive up here—doctors and all that.” “How far gone is she?” inquired the old man. “About six weeks,” said Warren. “Maybe seven. I’m not sure.” He whitened as he saw the implication: did his uncle realize that Warren’s mother had died just over six weeks ago? “Umm,” said his aunt’s husband. “You’re in a hurry then. How shall I get the money to you?” Uncle Chet’s savoir faire stunned Warren; he had never thought of this difficulty himself. Any letter that came, Jane would open as a matter of course, if she found it in the post-office box. “Golly,” sighed Warren. “I don’t know what to tell you. This is an awfully small place.” “I could send a bank check,” ruminated his uncle, “in a plain envelope, addressed to some friend of yours. You got any bachelor friends?” Warren canvassed his circle of acquaintances. There was Paul, he decided. Paul was supposed to be trustworthy; Jane said he knew everybody’s secrets. “Paul de Harnonville,” he spelled out the vicomte’s name for his uncle. “Airmail, registered?” said the old man. Warren hesitated. If it were registered, they would notice it at the post office. But they might notice it anyway. Still, what if Jane were to come by while Paul was signing for it? “Better plain air mail,” counseled his uncle. “I’ll try to get it off this afternoon.” “You’ve been a prince, Uncle Chet,” said Warren, warmly. “Don’t mention it,” said the old man. “You should have told me right off, instead of beating about the bush.”
Warren was wringing wet when he emerged from the phone booth. His knees wobbled as he came out into the sunlight and started to cross the street. In the distance, he recognized Harriet Huber, with a shopping bag, and he ducked behind a telephone pole. He was afraid to be seen coming out of the Digby drugstore; it might be guessed that he had been making a telephone call there. He felt that his complicity with Martha was written all over him, and he attributed unusual insight to every native he saw. He was not known in Digby, but this very fact, he feared, would imprint him, as a stranger, on the minds of the Digby population. They would all remember that a small gray man in corduroy had been in the drugstore an exceedingly long time.
It was only one o’clock when he parked in front of the New Leeds liquor store. Warren felt he had lived centuries since he had got up in the morning. His experience with Miles, just by itself, would take him a lifetime to digest. Miles had told him some home truths in the course of his tirade. Was he really a leech and a brain-sucker? He supposed he was, as a matter of fact. Martha had implied something like that, though in a politer way. But Miles had killed a precious part of him—the nerve of intellectual curiosity. He would never be able to ask a serious question again. Some time, much later, he would talk all this over with Jane. She would be bound to find out, before long, that he had tried to collect for the painting. And he would have to produce some reason to explain his behavior, without implicating Martha. The number of lies he was already committed to made him question his sanity. Was this he, he asked himself wonderingly. He wanted to call up Martha, to tell her what had happened, but if John answered the phone, he would have to prevaricate again. If he called here, from the drugstore, the girl at the fountain would hear him, while if he called from home, when Jane was in the village, there were the neighbors on the party line. Yet he was not sorry for what he had undertaken. It was worth it, to know the truth, worth it, to help Martha. He felt honored that she had asked him.
Paul was out to lunch. Warren found him in the grille and indicated that he would like to speak to him, alone, when he was finished. Warren was too excited to eat anything himself. The vicomte nodded and handed him a rusty key. “Meet me in the shop.” Waiting in the dark antique shop, amid the dust of marble and the smell of worm-eaten old furniture and moldy upholstery, Warren felt very adventurous, though a little queasy inside. The shop, he thought, had a secretive, almost criminal atmosphere, as though any shady deal could take place here. It occurred to him, suddenly, that the vicomte would know where to find an abortionist.
Paul, when he came in, was not at all perturbed at being asked to serve as a letter-drop. “It is not the first time,” he said equably. “You would be surprised. This little shop is very convenient, for all kinds of business. You have a little affaire, I suppose, something you do not wish to tell Jane.” “Not exactly,” said Warren. “It’s more of a commission, you might say. Something a friend has asked me to take care of. I can’t tell you without betraying his confidence.” “Of course,” said the vicomte. “I have no wish to pry. It is very serious, this commission?” “Very,” said Warren, with feeling. “I see that,” said the vicomte. “A check will come in the mail,” explained Warren. “When it comes, will you call me up? We ought to have a signal, I suppose.” “Naturally,” said the vicomte. “That goes without saying. When the letter comes, I will telephone that I have a new shipment of wine I want you to try. I will have the letter in the liquor store.” “I don’t suppose you could get the check cashed,” said Warren. “It’ll be made out to me, a bank check.” The vicomte pondered. “If you indorse it, I could take it to Digby. Or Trowbridge, if you prefer.”
“I’ll pay you for your trouble,” volunteered Warren. “If you wish,” said the vicomte. “It doesn’t matter. I am always glad to do a service for my friends. Living here, all alone, I can so seldom repay hospitality. How much is the check, if I may ask?” “Seven hundred dollars,” said Warren. The vicomte raised his fair eyebrows. “Someone is to get a present, perhaps?” Warren studied his sneakers. “Don’t tell me,” said the vicomte. “I prefer to guess. It has to do with a lady. Possibly a married lady who is to get an expensive present her husband doesn’t know of. That is Maupassant—a little out of fashion. Or possibly it is not a lady. Someone has stolen something, and restitution is to be made, on the q.t.” Warren said nothing. Paul, he perceived, really meant it when he said he did not wish to be told. He closed his blinking eyes, like a medium, and put a fat finger to his forehead, seeming to relish, voluptuously, the sense of mystery with which he himself was enveloping this request. “Or could it be a girl? An unmarried girl who finds herself in trouble, as we Americans say. Pauvre fille. I am sorry for her. Possibly I can help. There is a doctor, a refugee, in Boston, who will sometimes take such cases.” Paul took his wallet from his pocket and slowly thumbed through a grimy collection of business cards. “Here,” he said, handing one to Warren. “This is the man. A nice old fellow. A Jew. His father was physician to my family. The son cannot get a license to practice in this country; he is too old to pass the examinations.” Warren gave the card a gingerly inspection before handing it back to Paul; the doctor’s name and address were firmly stamped on his memory. “Thank you, Paul,” he said. “But it isn’t that kind of trouble, this time.” He gave a daring laugh. “Ah well,” said the vicomte, indifferently, “so much the better. I will not have a sin on my conscience. Blackmail, could it be?” He continued his ruminations. “Some little irregularity, a taste for young boys?” His round blue eyes revolved over Warren, who had a painful sense of shock. Between his uncle and the vicomte, he stood convicted as a regular Cellini. What horrified him most was the way it was taken for granted that anything was possible, for a respectable married man. He thought of what Martha had said yesterday, about how everybody mistrusted appearances and yet no one really cared what the truth was. “Blackmail,” mused Paul, still studying Warren with an air of connoisseurship, “is rather rare here, in New Leeds. It is many years since we have had a case of it. Emotional blackmail, yes. The other kind, no. The community is so tolerant that a blackmailer could not make a living here. I’ve often thought of this, Warren, in a speculative way, to pass the time. I am ideally situated, you might say, to make a profession of blackmail here. As a Catholic, I receive many confessions; you atheists take me for a priest, though I cannot give absolution, naturally. Then there is my work in the liquor store and my work in A. A. When I go around to buy furniture for the shop, I see a good deal. But if I were to try to capitalize my knowledge, I would not make a penny.” He lifted his huge shoulders. “It is a community of glass houses. One can only sit by and watch. Now and then there is a soul to be saved.”
“Excuse me,” ventured Warren. “But how do you reconcile your religion with what we were just talking about? I mean, that card you wanted to give me. I thought you Catholics were against that sort of thing.” “Officially—ça va sans dire,” said the vicomte. “But I am not the church, my dear Warren. I am only one poor sinner. I believe in works of charity. Here is a poor Jew in Boston who is deprived of his means of livelihood. It is only a work of charity to put him in touch with a poor girl who will be disgraced if she bears a fatherless child. The church frowns, but God is merciful. He winks, I think, at such cases. I commit a little sin, but God will forgive me, probably. I do not pretend to know. Only God knows what he will do with my soul. I will have to wait and find out. I am not in a hurry.” “That’s awfully interesting,” said Warren. “Do you really believe in a life after death?” “Naturally,” said the vicomte, with an air of astonishment. “I am a Catholic.” “But how do you reconcile that—?” “Reconcile, reconcile,” pronounced the vicomte, impatiently. “That is all I hear from you atheists and Protestants. ‘Paul, how do you reconcile . . . ?’ I do not need to reconcile; I leave that to God. On earth, I am agnostic, though I keep the sacraments. In Heaven, I will be a believer, for then the meaning will be revealed to me. In Hell, if I am sent there, I will have to believe too; that will be my punishment, to know that I am a scoundrel for all eternity.” He sighed. “What is the expression? It will all come out in the wash.” He looked at his watch; it was time to open the liquor store. Warren followed him out of the shop.
Three days later, in the waning afternoon, John Sinnott sat in Martha’s study, trembling with anger. The front door had just banged; she was hurrying down the hill to the garage. For the first time in months, they had had a violent quarrel. Martha had provoked it, deliberately, out of nothing. The phone had rung while she was typing out her manuscript, and she had jumped up to answer it, though he had told her over and over to leave the phone calls to him, when he was in the house. It was never anything important enough to justify her interrupting her work, especially now when she was almost finished. She had promised to let him read the play before she went to Boston, the day after tomorrow. But she would not have it ready if she kept jumping up and down. This time, it was only Warren on the phone, with an invitation to tea, which Martha immediately shrilled at him to accept, though they were already committed to have dinner with the Hubers. One invitation a day, they had agreed, was enough; there was no reason why they could not see the Coes tomorrow instead. But Martha had flown into a passion when he, paying no attention to her, told Warren to make it tomorrow. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but I’m going,” she had breathed, defiantly, snatching the telephone from him to tell Warren she would come, alone.
This frantic avidity for social life seemed disgusting to John; it was unworthy of Martha. If she could have seen how her pretty face looked, contorted with rage and terror at the idea of missing a social engagement, she would have bowed her head in shame. Beside himself, suddenly, John had tried to force her to look at herself in the long mirror in the parlor. But she had twisted out of his grasp and fled to the bedroom. It was the nearest they had ever come to blows, and he had felt instantly sickened. Half remorseful and half sullen, he had waited for her to make up with him. But when she came out of the bedroom, finally, all dressed, she said she was sorry yet she made no effort to coax him to come to the Coes’ with her. In fact, he got the impression that she was secretly glad to be rid of his company. She was itching to be off, and when he pointed out that there was no hurry, that if she would wait, while he dressed and shaved, they could stop in at the Coes’ for a minute, on the way to the Hubers’, Martha said coldly, “I don’t want to wait for you. You always take so long.” His anger had risen again. It was almost dark, already, and she was not a good driver; he hated to have her take the car over these roads at night. “I’ll come back for you,” she said, “in time to start for dinner.” And now that she had made sure he was not coming, she had reached up to give him a kiss. “I know it’s dull for you,” she murmured, “listening to me and Warren.” “Go on,” he said icily, pushing her away. “Enjoy yourself. I bore you. I ‘always take so long.’ ”
Then the door banged, and he had rushed furiously into her writing room, minded to do something destructive. He pulled her manuscript page out of the typewriter, flung it to the floor, and started to type out the heading of a letter. He was going to write to the real-estate agent to put the house on the market. When Martha came back, she would find him packed to leave. He was not going to dinner with the Hubers under any circumstances. Martha had been too peculiar lately, running off to visit people the minute he was gone, complaining of being ill and then insisting she was well again, wanting to go to Boston, and dropping into fits of abstraction several times a day. She had even, Dolly had told him in confidence, tried to borrow some money from her. And now she could not wait a minute while he changed his clothes and shaved. The sound of his electric razor irritated her, probably, though she had delighted in it when she had first known him, as a contrast to Miles’s lather and old Gillette. All this restlessness must mean that she was finally tired of him; after seven years, he was no longer a novelty for her. What she really wanted, probably, though she did not know it, was a new man. The thing they had always said, about the seven-year term, was true. He could tell it himself. As his anger subsided, and he could examine his feelings for her, he discovered only an emptiness, a great hollow of disappointment. He could see her virtues, objectively, but they did not speak to him any more; another man, who did not know her as he did, might find her attractive and winning. He picked up the manuscript sheet from the floor and carefully smoothed it, glancing idly at the lines of dialogue. The temptation to read her play, to punish her, was very strong for a minute, but he set it aside. It would not be fair to read it, when he felt so sad about her. He added the sheet to the pile of manuscript on the writing-table.
Just then the door opened, and Martha appeared. She hurried across the small room and flung her arms around him. “I love you,” she said. “You were thinking I didn’t.” John nodded somberly. “I couldn’t go off and leave you thinking that,” she said. They looked at each other steadily. “I really do,” she said. Her eye fell on the typewriter and traveled to her manuscript. She mistily smiled. “You were going to read my play, to get back at me,” she announced. John laughed unwillingly. “I thought of it,” he admitted. “But you couldn’t be so cruel,” she said reproachfully. “No,” he agreed. “I can’t hurt you, Martha. You’re too vulnerable.” He put his arm around her, lightly, resigned to this fact. “And is that such a deprivation?” she asked, with a faintly quizzical look. “Yes,” he said, speaking honestly. “I’d like to feel free to hurt you.” “How strange,” said Martha, thoughtfully. “That’s very different from me. But I can see how it might be dreadful, never to be able to hurt somebody, like a horse being hobbled. That’s why you feel so shackled. It must make you hate me.” “Sometimes,” he confessed. Martha hesitated. “If I gave you good reason to hate me, would it help, would you feel liberated from these constrictions?” “Possibly,” said John, dryly. She gave him a very searching look and sighed. He distinctly read her thoughts. Her poetical temperament was wondering whether she could “drive him away” from her, like some great tragic heroine, while her prosaic self balked, like a little mule. He laughed. This conscientious transparency of Martha’s was why he could not hurt her. “Go along,” he said, and Martha went, with a troubled backward glance.
He sat staring mechanically at the sheet of paper in the typewriter, on which he had written the date. All at once, everything was clear to him. He had the clue to Martha’s strange behavior. It was December, and she was thinking about Christmas. That was why she was going to Boston; that was why she had tried to borrow money from Dolly. She set foolish feminine store by anniversaries and holidays and loved to prepare surprises. She had been sad and abstracted lately because they were short of money and because she was determined, nevertheless, to buy him some extravagant, absurd Christmas present. Their first Christmas in their new house! That was precisely how Martha would think of it. She had made herself sick with worrying over her romantic contrivances; that was probably what had been wrong with her stomach. And now, undoubtedly, she had some scheme cooked up with the Coes, which was why she had been in such a hurry to answer the phone and to go off there, herself, without him.
He was torn between relief and exasperation. It lightened his spirits to realize that Christmas was the only thing that was the matter with Martha. At the same time, he could have screamed at how typical this was of her. She had always made a fuss over Christmas. In their little apartment in New York, they had always had a Scandinavian-style Christmas tree, with round Swedish cookies and colored candies and gingerbread men and walnuts gilded by Martha, and real candles, of course, burning in holders that had belonged to her grandmother and had been sent on, from Alaska, when her mother died. It had been extremely pretty, but dangerous; their apartment was a firetrap, and whenever the tree was lit he had had to stand by with a bucket of water and a fire-extinguisher, which Martha laughed at. And the candies and cookies on the tree invariably attracted mice; she insisted on keeping the tree up until Twelfth Night. There were always heaps of presents, expensive ones, from the very best shops. She rejoiced in having things specially made for him. And there was always a Christmas dinner party, with a goose and snappers for the guests. He could not deny that he liked this passionate festivity, but only because of her, because it transported him into the northern fairy world of her childhood, with real elk and reindeer and icicles. But he did not care at all about getting presents. This year, her play would be present enough, if she gave it to him in manuscript covers, with a dedication. He had told her this months ago, and she had agreed, but now she had gone back on her word, obviously, and was borrowing money they could not afford to give him something he did not want. He wondered, irritably, what it was she had in mind. An expensive phonograph, perhaps, like the one the Coes owned? Or some foreign books bound specially in violet bindings? Or could she be thinking (he shuddered) of giving him heat for Christmas, so that he would not have to fix the fires and the stoves? John shook his head; that was not quite right. Martha always preferred to give something solid, that could be opened under the tree.
And what was he to do? To stop this folly, peremptorily, or let her have her way and pretend not to notice what she was up to? She would grieve if he prevented her. For Martha, a bare Christmas would immediately become symbolic of the notion that their love had fled. He remembered, now, certain mournful, deep looks she had been casting at him, when she thought he was not observing her. These looks he could now decipher; they meant that she was being sorry for him because she had not yet thought up a way of getting money for his Christmas. Her obstinate, childish heart refused to learn that he was really indifferent to such things. It was only with her brain that she philosophized. A rueful tenderness plucked at his sleeve. Martha’s dreams and discontents, her plans and projects, were those of a young girl, whom he could still picture, on roller skates, with her book-strap. To her, reality still spoke a “little language,” like the language of the flowers, or of precious stones or apple seeds. Sooner or later, she would have to grow up, he reflected, but in a way he would be sorry to see it. The child in him, even in anticipation, fought against losing its playmate. Would he accept a “womanly woman,” calm as a Roman matron, in exchange for this precocious, learned, bold sister, who was always outshining the other pupils, thinking rings around them, as Dolly had once said, describing Martha in the classroom? For some reason, John suddenly felt melancholy grip him, like a pain in the heart. He saw them all as children, like babies pickled in bottles: Warren, a wizened boy, Jane a middle-aged schoolgirl in bloomers, Dolly, prim, in a hockey dress, himself on a rocking-horse charger, Martha. He put a fresh piece of paper in the typewriter and wrote: “Martha, I love you, but life is serious. You must not spend any money on Christmas.” He drew a heart and signed his name. She would find it in her typewriter in the morning.
Martha had the money in her pocketbook, and the name of a doctor in Boston, which Warren had written out for her. She was in an exalted mood. The night was bright and starry, though there was no moon. She was almost at the end of the ordeal, she said to herself calmly and joyfully as she backed out of the Coes’ driveway, with Warren’s flashlight beaming “Good luck” at her. They had urged her to stay and have cocktails with Eleanor Considine, the local poetess, who was coming to have dinner with them. But she wanted to get back to John. Eleanor Considine, a woman of fifty, with dyed red hair and a long amatory history, was a cautionary example of everything Martha was trying not to be. She had run away from a conventional husband, out west in Cincinnati, and married a young man, who had died of tetanus, all alone, in Mexico, from a cut she had neglected to have attended to. She had been married again several times, once to her original husband, who supported the several children she had picked up en route. She was now after the vicomte, who could give her a title, she said; she had set her cap for Miles and gone to him as a patient, after Martha had left him. Nothing fazed Eleanor, as her friends delightedly remarked. She had a rough, ringing laugh and an artless, witty candor; she confessed her misdemeanors to everyone, on first acquaintance; her truthfulness excused her, it was commonly felt. And she was always scribbling something, plays in verse, mock epics, love poems, elegiacs, vers de société; when she was on the wagon, she came to parties with a notebook in which she took down the conversation. Like Martha, she had a good ear, and many people still nervously agreed that she might do something eventually, even while they smiled at her pretensions to seriousness. But she insisted on regarding Martha as a rival, and Martha did not want to see her, even though, as the Coes said, she was getting old and deserved pity.
Tonight Martha could not tolerate the presence of anything petty. She was very much moved by what Warren had done for her. All she had heard from Warren, until today’s telephone call, was a hurried injunction to stand by: the money would be coming. Just now, while Jane was in the kitchen, he had related to her in an undertone the events of the past seventy-two hours. A gentle pride had emanated from Warren: he was proud of his aunt’s husband, proud of the vicomte, proud of his own subtlety in eliciting the name and address of the doctor, proud, even, in a curious way, of Miles, for behaving so terribly. Everybody, including Miles, had been prodigious.
This was what Martha felt herself, a sort of wondering gratitude, not only to Warren personally but to life itself, which suddenly revealed a new dimension, like Warren’s outer space, beyond the shining galaxies. She could not help thinking that she was in the presence of the sublime, which was of course the verge of the ridiculous. Happiness misted her eyes as she drove along the sand road; a hymn tune came to her lips. Despite the doctor’s caution, she was not in the least afraid. Abortionists, she had always heard, did their task much more proficiently than licensed doctors, and why shouldn’t they—they had more practice at it. In two days, it would be over. After it was over, she might possibly tell John. Perhaps she owed him the truth, so that he could hate her if he chose to. For a moment, back in her writing room, she had almost spoken. But now, with her mind very clear, she saw this impulse as sentimentality. Once it was all over, John would not hate her for what she had done; in fact, he would admire her resolution and fortitude. The only person he would hate would be Miles. Therefore, there was no reason to tell him unless she wanted praise at the price of peace in the community. Yet it would be good to have truth between them again.
In any case, she did not have to decide yet, and however she decided, it would be all right. She suddenly knew this, without knowing how she knew it. But it was an unmistakable certainty. In a matter like that, she could trust herself. For the first time in years, since the summer she had married Miles, she could say this aloud. She said it, and her wonder grew. She had changed; she was no longer afraid of herself. That was the reward of that fearsome decision, which no longer seemed fearsome, now that it was behind her. She laughed and stepped on the gas. “Integer vitae, scelerisque purus,” she sang, thinking of Warren. Around a blind curve ahead, she saw the faint reflection of the headlights of a car, coming rapidly toward her: Eleanor Considine, doubtless. Martha slowed down and hugged her own side of the road. As the car crashed into her and she heard a shower of glass, she knew, in a wild flash of humor, that she had made a fatal mistake: in New Leeds, after sundown, she would have been safer on the wrong side of the road. “Killed instantly,” she said to herself, regretfully, as she lost consciousness. This succinct appraisal, in the wavy blackness, became a point of light receding until she could find it no more.